Government and stakeholders, including the rural property sales sector, are working together to improve the understanding of obligations under Emission Reduction Fund projects.
A Clean Energy Regulator spokesperson said the regulator was working with stakeholders, including the Australian Livestock and Property Association (ALPA), to help provide current and potential participants of the Emissions Reduction Fund, with information about project permanence obligations for land-based projects.
“Our aim is to raise awareness of this issue with all parties to ensure they are aware of their current and future obligations under the scheme,” the spokesperson said.
The Emissions Reduction Fund is designed to reduce Australia's emissions by providing an incentive for businesses, land owners, state and local governments, community organisations and individuals to adopt new practices and technologies which reduce emissions.
The objective of the Emissions Reduction Fund is to help Australia to meet its emissions reduction target of five per cent below 2000 levels by 2020.
There are currently 18 nominated CEF “agriculture” projects in Victoria.
The Clean Energy Regulator publishes information about permanence periods on the Emissions Reduction Fund project register.
The CER spokesperson said the Emissions Reduction Fund project register was available for anyone (for example, prospective buyers or agents working in land sales for rural properties) to check whether the land is covered by a 25 year or 100 year permanence obligation.
The Clean Energy Regulator also notifies relevant state and territory land agencies at the time a project with permanence obligations is registered.
The CER spokesperson said that when circumstances changed, for example in the sale of a property where there is a person registered as a project’s participant and the purchaser(s) of the property acquire the legal right to carry out the project, “they may apply to the Clean Energy Regulator to change the project registration to name that person as the participant”.
Material supplied to stakeholders or participants was not intended as legal advice.
The CER said all entities and participants were responsible for determining their obligations under the law and for applying the law to their individual project.
According to the CER website, the types of projects participants choose to undertake as part of the Emissions Reduction Fund are called methods.
The methods explain how to carry out a project and measure the resulting reductions in emissions.
A number of different methods are available and many methods can be applied broadly, which means that a wide variety of projects can use each one.
Methods include:
- a generic method for emissions reductions at facilities reporting under the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Scheme;
- capture and destruction of coal mine fugitive emissions;
- reductions in emissions-intensity of transport;
- commercial, industrial and aggregated energy efficiency;
- capture and combustion of landfill gas and agricultural waste;
- alternative treatment of organic waste;
- capture and combustion of biogas from wastewater; and
- methods for the land sector, including increasing soil carbon, reducing livestock emissions, expanding opportunities for environmental and carbon sink plantings, and reforestation.
