$1 Billion Australian Climate Fund A Mess; Diesel Power Plant, Multiple Coal Plants Among Recipients
EDIT
But other projects getting taxpayers’ money raise thornier questions. It was found giving climate funding to landfill sites that capture and combust leaking methane was a waste of money as they were already receiving cash from other government sources and would have existed anyway.
Multinational mining companies are receiving climate funding for fossil fuel projects: Rio Tinto received $2m to build a diesel power plant and Gold Fields is getting $1m for a gas-fired plant it says it would have built regardless. Critics object to these projects getting climate funding as they add to climate change and the giant companies receiving the cash do not need the public support.
As currently designed, the emissions reduction fund could also be used to pay for an upgrade at a coal-fired power plant. The owners of the Vales Point coal station have been registered under the scheme. Green finance experts say Australia is the only developed country with a system that allows climate funding to go to coal plants.
The government is yet to respond to these issues. It put little focus on the emissions reduction fund when Malcolm Turnbull was prime minister but that has changed under Morrison. He promised the scheme, rebranded as a “climate solutions” fund, would be boosted by an extra $200m a year from 2021 under the Coalition. To date, the data shows the fund has failed to do its job. National emissions have risen each year since it was introduced.
Analysts say the central problem with the fund is that it does virtually nothing to address industrial and transport emissions, which are driving most of the pollution growth. A related policy known as the safeguard mechanism was supposed to stop increases in industrial emissions, but in practice has been lax. In many cases, companies have been able to nominate their own emissions limits, known as baselines. The government last week introduced further changes that allow baselines to be reset annually in line with production levels.
EDIT
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/18/questions-raised-over-how-1bn-of-emissions-funding-have-been-allocated