Section 1: Secretary's review
The department has had a busy year assisting the government to pursue its ambitious climate change agenda centred on the three pillars of reducing Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, adapting to the impacts of climate change we cannot avoid and helping to shape a global solution.
The body of this report provides a comprehensive account of the department’s activities in 2008–09. This review picks up on the highlights.
In terms of reducing Australia’s emissions, the department’s contribution to the development of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) was a major focus in 2008–09. The department provided high-level policy advice and managed an exhaustive consultation process, contributing to a green paper, a white paper, an exposure draft of the legislation package and finally the Bills that were introduced into the House in May 2009.
Another reform that will set Australia on the path to a lower-pollution future is the expansion of the Renewable Energy Target (RET). The department supported the government through a Council of Australian Governments (COAG) process to ensure that the new policy, which will replace existing and proposed federal, state and territory arrangements, will be effective. Particularly over the next decade, the RET will be a key driver of a significant ramp-up in the deployment of renewable energy in Australia.
While the CPRS and the RET often attract public attention, other issues will also play a critical role in turning around Australia’s emissions profile. Managing greenhouse gas emissions requires effective accounting and reporting systems. Those systems are the bedrock on which initiatives such as the CPRS are built. With input from stakeholders, the department continued to develop Australia’s national greenhouse and energy reporting (NGER) framework on several fronts, from designing amendments to the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act 2007 and developing regulations, to improving the systems for collecting and managing emissions data. Within this framework, the department’s world-leading National Carbon Accounting System, which tracks emissions from the land sector, was recognised with both the Australian Museum Eureka Prize for Environmental Research and the 2008 CSIRO Partnerships Excellence Award.
The department continued work on the second pillar, adapting to the unavoidable impacts of climate change. The National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, established by the department, produced research plans for human health and emergency management, and started work on plans for six other priority areas. In 2008–09, the department also joined a cross-portfolio project to fund research on the impacts of climate change on human health.
The government adopted a new Australian Climate Change Science Framework. This framework sets national climate change science priorities for the next decade. It identifies the science capabilities, human capital and infrastructure investment needed to deliver on those priorities, and sets out ways to harness our full science capacity to address those priorities.
Assessments of key vulnerabilities to climate change lay the groundwork for other aspects of adaptation research. One example is the National Coastal Vulnerability Assessment, which will be published in late 2009. At the same time, the department is building both the knowledge and the alliances needed to frame adaptation responses by working with state and local governments and regional organisations to study the likely impacts of climate change on regional and local issues.
In 2008–09, the department supported the government’s international objectives with intense engagement in climate change forums at the multilateral, regional and bilateral levels. Specifically, the past year has seen extensive investment in policy development and negotiations to prepare for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that will be held in December 2009 in Copenhagen.
Australia has considerable influence in these forums following years of sustained engagement. In 2008–09, Australia played a particularly influential role in furthering international debate on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries (REDD). Deforestation accounts for around one fifth of all global emissions, making a solution to the issue critical if we are to collectively achieve the level of emissions reductions required to reduce the risk of dangerous climate change.
Australia has also been assisting our regional neighbours in developing their own policies and in participating in global strategies. In 2008–09, the department worked very closely with Indonesian agencies to implement practical REDD activities under the Indonesia–Australia Forest Carbon Partnership.
The department also achieved positive outcomes through Australia’s bilateral climate change partnerships with China, the European Union, Japan, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States. Australia hosted the inaugural meeting of the Australia–China Ministerial Dialogue on Climate Change in November 2008. The two countries stressed their commitment to meeting the challenge of climate change and to working closely to support the negotiations under the UNFCCC.
On the corporate side the last year has been challenging. Building a department of state at the same time as delivering a complex and multi-faceted policy agenda is not easy. However, largely through the dedication of all staff, in the corporate area and beyond, we have made significant strides in the right direction. We are now all located in the same building. We now have a collective agreement that unites the conditions of all staff. We now have our own financial reporting systems that allow us to better manage the scarce resources of the department. And we now have had one notable social function that spoke loudly of the collective spirit and purpose of the Department of Climate Change.
All this has occurred at great speed, placing huge stress on the department’s human and financial resources, which have been supplemented when needed with relevant specialist expertise. Consequently, the department has had to incur a significant deficit of about $5.1 million in 2008–09, its first full year of operation.
Looking forward to the challenges ahead, 2009–10 looks no less daunting than last year. In 2008–09 we laid the groundwork to create the regulator for the CPRS, the Australian Climate Change Regulatory Authority (ACCRA). Following passage of the CPRS legislation, ACCRA will become a separate regulatory agency tasked with the practical implementation of the CPRS, and the Climate Change portfolio will become an entity with two bodies of roughly equal size. On the adaptation front, pressure is building for even more comprehensive policy frameworks involving the private sector and all levels of government. And, perhaps above all, we all hope that negotiations in Copenhagen will deliver further progress in building an enduring international architecture with the prospect of setting the world on a path to a much lower pollution future.
I would like to conclude by thanking the staff of the department and our many and varied stakeholders for contributing to the development of policies critical for ensuring that the department delivers on its mission.
Dr Martin Parkinson
Secretary