Australian Climate Change Regulatory Authority
The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) is one of the Government’s key strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and meet Australia’s Kyoto Protocol commitment. Subject to passage of the relevant legislation, Australian Climate Change Regulatory Authority (ACCRA) will administer the CPRS, and take over responsibility for two existing schemes, the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting System (NGERS) and the expanded Renewable Energy Target (RET).
This means the new ACCRA will administer 19 schemes including:
- liability compliance schemes, where regulated entities will be liable to report specific information
- assistance schemes to help industry make the transition to a low carbon economy
- green schemes that will recognise the positive effect of certain activities on greenhouse gas emissions
- reporting schemes, where ACCRA will provide data and/or report under a national greenhouse gas and energy framework for greenhouse gas emissions, greenhouse gas projects, and energy consumption and production.
The legislation establishing ACCRA aims to:
- reduce the risk of gaps between the regulators
- streamline regulatory and decision making procedures
- reduce the compliance burden
- create economies of scale.
A number of regulatory objectives and principles have been drafted to guide ACCRA’s establishment. They aim for a best practice and responsive regulatory approach to:
- foster cooperative compliance through awareness, education and training programs
- adopt a risk-based and intelligence-driven regulatory approach
- reduce red tape and ensure regulatory work practises and systems are effective and efficient
- engage with the regulated community when enhancing systems and processes
- adopt an analytical problem solving ethos into the regulatory approach
- ensure procedural justice is consistently applied to all parties.