Minister Bowen’s speech | 11th AER Summit

As we acknowledge the traditional custodians, the Wurundjeri peoples, let us also acknowledge there is no disadvantage anywhere in the world, including indigenous disadvantage, that climate change isn’t making worse.

But also, our energy transformation, properly handled, provides an opportunity to help close the gap of indigenous disadvantage.

And it will also benefit from the knowledge and relationship to land and waters that our First Nations people have.

The Savanna Fire Management ACCUs, for example, are a unique opportunity for First Nations.

They have led to improved Indigenous fire management across an area spanning more than 24 million hectares of North Australian savanna. These improved practices now abate around 1.2 million tonnes of emissions a year.

Importantly, almost three quarters of carbon credits produced by this method are generated by Indigenous carbon businesses.

This Indigenous carbon industry is estimated to be valued at around $59 million per annum.

It means, not only are we seeing improved fire management on Country, but financial benefits flow through to be reinvested in community priorities such as recording rock art knowledge, cultural site maintenance, education, ecological monitoring and ranger programs.

So while savanna burning sets the benchmark in Australia for how First Nation communities can benefit from ACCUs and the transition to Net Zero emissions, there is still more to do.

And we’re determined to do it, in partnership with our net zero sectors, the renewable energy industry, and First Nations Peoples.

As a start, we’ve set aside more than $12 million to support First Nations people participate in upfront consent negotiations for ACCU projects. And I look forward to releasing our First Nations Clean Energy strategy soon.

Pleasingly, there’s been a bit on lately.

Today, I want to give you an update on ACCU related measures which will be of interest to you.

But I also want to give you an update, as practitioners, in efforts to arrest climate change, on our broader progress over the past two-and-a-half years.

This reflects significant policy steps forward in how we support local and global emissions reduction efforts; support projects that create jobs and new sources of income; and support Australian firms doing the right thing, when it comes to decarbonisation.

So it’s worth reflecting on what we’ve achieved.

After a decade of delay and denial under the Coalition, in less than 30 months we’ve introduced key reforms that have us on track to reach our target of 82 per cent renewables in our electricity grid.

And they have us well positioned to meet our emissions target for 2030 as well as to land comfortably within the ten-year carbon budget we legislated along with the Climate Change Act in 2022.

We’ve legislated the Net Zero Economic Authority, corporate climate disclosure requirements, and the New Vehicle Efficiency Standards.

For twenty years people tried and failed to mandate efficiency standards in Australia. We did it.

The change means more choice of cheaper, cleaner to run cars which will cut emissions from new passenger vehicles by more than 60 per cent this decade.

A new Guarantee of Origin scheme has been introduced to Parliament and will become the emissions accounting backbone for Australia’s net zero industries – a critical component for our $22.7 billion Future Made in Australia commitments.

It works in tandem with our beefed-up Safeguard mechanism, supported by $1.4 billion in industrial decarbonisation funding though Powering the Regions.

Because of the new Safeguard mechanism, we’re now on track to abate 200 million tonnes of emissions from Australia’s heaviest emitters, by 2030.

For perspective, that’s the same as taking two thirds of the cars off our road, in the same period.

June 30 marked the first full compliance year of the reformed mechanism and emissions reports are due by tomorrow.

The ACCU scheme is, of course, a key measure to all this.

Introduced by the Labor Government in 2011, it’s a crucial lever for hard to abate industries to meet their net emissions limits for each facility.

29 methods for abatement are in place, with more than 2,000 registered projects across Australia.

900 of these registered since we have been in Government.

Last year, the CER issued 17.2 million ACCUs and supply is on track to issue around 20 million this year.

The ACCU scheme is, by necessity, a critical part of the ‘net’ in net zero.

Funded by a $48 million budget measure this year, we’re continuing to strengthen the scheme’s administration and deliver on the Chubb Review vision.

At the heart of this is the high integrity methods which allow abatement activities to be registered and credited.

Capturing opportunities across Australia remains a key priority for the government, and we’ve been working to deliver on the Chubb Review recommendation to bring forward more innovative ways to reduce emissions.

In May, I called for the first proposals to develop new methods under the new proponent-led method development process.

39 expressions of interest were received covering a wide range of sectors including vegetation, soil and waste management

Today I’m pleased to announce which proposals will be progressed for method development, as assessed and recommended independently by the Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee.

And I want to make special mention of Assistant Minister Josh Wilson who has taken on portfolio responsibility for this. He’s only been in the job a couple of months but is doing great work on it.

These are:

• Improved Native Forest Management in Multiple-use Public Forests, proposed by the NSW Government, incentivising government forest management agencies to deliver carbon abatement in relation to harvesting of native forests grown for timber.
• Extending Savanna Fire Management to the Northern Arid Zone proposed by the Indigenous Desert Alliance. This will expand the areas where savanna fire management can be undertaken, providing greater economic opportunities and connection to Country for First Nations peoples and communities across northern Australia.
• Improved Avoided Clearing of Native Regrowth to incentivise retaining regrowth at high risk of re-clearing.
• Reducing disturbance of coastal and floodplain wetlands by managing hooved animals such as water buffalo and pigs, proposed by Northern Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance and The University of Queensland.

Along with these new proponent-led areas, the Government is focusing on finalising the four priority methods to generate new high-integrity ACCUS.

There is a high level of scrutiny on the development of these new methods, and rightly so. Getting this right is critical to their integrity.

Our work on a remake of the Environmental Plantings method, to make it easier for landholders to undertake projects, is progressing well and should be finalised by the end of the year.

Exposure drafts for the remaining three methods will be delivered in the first half of next year, after comprehensive design work with stakeholders and experts. This covers:

• New savanna fire management methods – bringing in new carbon pools and including a new bespoke tool to estimate abatement
• A new Integrated Farm and Land Management method enabling multiple activities that store carbon in land to be undertaken on a single property
• A reformed landfill gas method following recommendations in the Chubb Review that the method have upward sloping baselines.

The comprehensive work being done by government and by industry is good for helping our hard to abate industries, who have safeguard obligations and their own emissions reductions targets to meet.

It’s also good for getting the world to net zero.

In less than three weeks I’ll be in Baku, for the 29th global climate talks – the COP.

In the UNFCCC negotiations we continue to seek strong outcomes that support ambition and uphold social and environmental safeguard provisions.

The main focus of COP 29 will be global climate related financial flows and intensive negotiations on what will replace the previously agreed $100 billion a year goal, what we affectionately call the New Collective Quantified Goal (or NCQG).

And indeed at COP, I’ll have two roles in addition to representing Australia – chairing the Umbrella negotiating group which consists of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, US, UK, Japan and others.

And also, at the request of incoming COP President Mukhtar Babayev, I’ll also be co-chairing the negotiations on the NCQG with my counterpart, Egypt’s Minister Yasmine Fouad – indeed this role has already started with intense international consultations already underway.

While not first and centre in public discourse in the UNFCCC negotiations, the approach we take internationally is and will be reflective of our approach domestically – recognising that offsets can’t and won’t be used as an excuse to avoid onsite emissions abatement, which will always be our preferred option.

But also that offsets play a necessary, indeed vital role, in getting to net zero, here and abroad.

I’m pleased with what we have done in the first 2 and a half years, but we are far from done. We have a lot more to do and I look forward to getting on with it.