NGER Amendment Determination & A Price on Carbon

A Price on Carbon

The Federal Government has still not released the details of the proposed Price on Carbon.

The impacts of the proposed Price on Carbon were left out of the Federal budget last week.The Government has indicated details of this initiative will be announced in July 2011.

The first step in understanding the Carbon Price is to get one’s head around National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act 2007 (the NGER Act).

The Howard Government introduced a national framework for the reporting and dissemination of information about greenhouse gas emissions, greenhouse gas projects, and energy use and production of corporations which will form the basis of the financial liabilities for a price on Carbon.

The objectives of the NGER Act, as stated in the legislation, are to:

· inform Government policy and the Australian public;

· help meet Australia’s international reporting obligations;

· assist Commonwealth, state and territory government programs and activities;

· avoid the duplication of similar reporting requirements in the states and territories.

Corporations that meet an NGER threshold must report their:

· greenhouse gas emissions;

· energy production;

· energy consumption;

· other information specified under NGER legislation.

The Federal Government is inviting comments on The NGER Amendment Determination 2011 Exposure Draft. Submissions are due on the Tuesday 31 May 2011. The intention is for the Amendment Determination to come into effect on 1 July 2011 to inform the preparation of NGER reports in October 2012 (for the 2011-2012 reporting year only).

Many of Australia’s largest organisations will be significantly impacted and, under the current timeline, will have less than a year to prepare, develop and implement a comprehensive strategy. These proposals will not affect NGER reports which are due in October 2011.

The Department is also publishing a response paper summarising submissions and outlining the Department’s current position on issues raised in the discussion paper.