Labor to revive hideous NEG

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Via The Australian:

Labor will take the National Energy Guarantee — devised by Malcolm Turnbull and Josh Frydenberg — to the next election as its preferred mechanism for reducing emissions.

It will scale up the target in the NEG to meet its goal of reducing emissions by 45 per cent.

Opposition environment spokesman Mark Butler confirmed that Labor would “certainly” seek to revive the NEG to meet its targets in the energy sector. He said Labor had been supportive of the NEG and argued it had the overwhelming support of business and industry.

“The Paris targets apply across the economy, but the debate has been about the energy sector. And our very clear view is that bringing the different strands of energy policy — reliability and emissions reduction — together in the NEG, is the best way to do that,” Mr Butler said.

It’s clever politics. The business identity state loves it. Yet the NEG had three large problems:

  • it is absurdly complex and cost-adding;
  • it’s carbon intensity target was going to be far too low making it an effective coal subsidy, and
  • it pushed the carbon reduction targets into a political rather than administrative process giving One Nation an effective veto over climate change mitigation.
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So long as the carbon intensity target is lifted and the parliamentary approval process is eliminated there is no reason why it shouldn’t be used. But then, if you’re going to do that what does it actually add outside of an expanded RET + storage?

Most importantly, it must NOT distract from the ONLY energy reform that really matters: lowering the gas price via stiffened reservation. Without that, Labor’s shiny new NEG will be dead in three years, along with the government, as power prices skyrocket right alongside LNG imports.

About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.