The Sydney Morning Herald’s analysis (30 March 2022) of the budget from an environmental perspective paints a grim picture:
- “5-Minute Budget” – eight policy areas covered but no mention of the environment.
- Headline: “Fuel excise cut brings relief for six months”. Let’s help people burn fossil fuels but nothing to promote EVs.
- “Where it goes” pie chart of the $628 billion total Commonwealth expenditure: the environment doesn’t feature in the pie.
- “Top Spends”: $3.8b to halve the fuel excise and $1.9b over 5 years for a floods package – responses to flooding, that is, not prevention of.
- Headline: “Extra $1.3b for net zero emissions by 2050” – financial support for the private sector to expand Australia’s gas resources and continue to flog the dead horse that is carbon capture and storage.
- “Losers”: “Climate Change Mitigation – No major promises on how to get to net zero emissions by 2050” is one of four losers along with an increase in net debt, less foreign aid and nothing for people with a disability.
In a rather more detailed analysis, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) concludes the budget allocations show a strong focus on gas, carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS), and blue hydrogen, “all of which add to Australia’s and global emissions, not reduces them”. The CCUS scheme in the Pilbara will pump CO2 into oil and gas wells to produce more oil and gas, while blue hydrogen is produced from natural gas and produces more greenhouse gas emissions than simply burning the gas. Spending to tackle climate warming will decrease from $2 billion in 2021/22 to $1.3 billion in 2025/26.
see more from Peter Sainsbury at Pearls and Irritations
