Greens in desperate bid to combat climate change and win back voters
The NSW Greens have moved to strengthen their environmental credentials, devising a new policy to reintroduce a state-based carbon pricing scheme.
In an election pitch, the Greens, whose factional battles have triggered an exodus of members, said they would push for a price on carbon in a bid to reach their net zero emissions target by 2040.
"We’ve been knocked dangerously off track from our climate targets as a result of the dinosaurs in the Liberal Party and Labor going weak at the knees," upper house Greens MP Cate Faehrmann said.
"State-based leadership and action is needed … NSW should be working with other state governments to bypass the federal impasse and establish a nation-wide emissions trading scheme."
In a signal to progressive voters that the Greens remain focused on the environment, Ms Faehrmann said she was already developing the legislation required, using the existing "polluter pays" load-based licensing scheme to impose a carbon price of $30 per tonne on heavy emitters.
NSW became the first place in the world to put a price on carbon when it introduced the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Scheme in 2003.
The Liberal government shut it down a decade later after a federal carbon price was implemented. The carbon price was eventually axed.
Ms Faehrmann said she hoped other states would follow suit, which would open the door for "collective action".
There is precedent for this, with nine states in the US jointly operating a cap-and-trade program to cut carbon pollution.
"[If we go it alone] hopefully that would encourage other states to also look at a carbon price and from there, after a few years, the states can also look into working collectively," she said.
Under the Greens' plan, the carbon pricing scheme would run for two years and then transition to an economy-wide emissions trading scheme, linked to schemes in other states or even countries.
It would need the support of Labor to pull it off, which is unlikely. Federally, the Greens have rebuked Labor for abandoning its carbon price policy and vowed to restore it.
Labor's spokesman for energy and climate change in NSW, Adam Searle, said carbon pricing wasn't on its radar because it was a "blunt instrument" that could lead to higher prices.
He said Labor wanted to tackle "the source" of carbon emissions, such as the electricity and transport sectors, and focus on renewable energy.
"There’s a whole variety of ways which can lead to lower carbon emissions over time, and [carbon pricing] is not the pathway that we are choosing," he said.
Professor Frank Jotzo, an expert in climate change policy at the Australian National University, said that, while the logic behind a carbon pricing scheme was "compelling", a state-based one was very unlikely to happen.
"A carbon pricing scheme introduced in just one state would face special problems. One of them is that it could put businesses in NSW at a disadvantage not just relative to producers in other states," he said.
"So NSW industry would call for, and probably get, financial compensation which would leave less money to spend on household subsidies."
The Greens said their plan would raise $5.13 billion in two years, which could then be used to help households reduce energy bills by at least $500 a year through solar panels and energy efficiency measures.
Ms Faehrmann and other members of the Greens' right faction, including fellow upper house MP Justin Field, considered the possibility of forming a new environmental party last year amid a deepening ideological rift within the party.