Australian
Friday 3/10/2008 Page: 2
THE nation's governments will produce national standards for energy efficiency of household appliances to help tackle climate change. The Council of Australian Governments yesterday set itself a deadline of the end of the year to finalise a national energy efficiency strategy to help the nation prepare for the transition to its emissions reading scheme, due to take effect in 2010. As a first step towards establishing a truly national approach, COAG agreed to develop, subject to a regulation impact statement, national legislation for appliance energy performance standards and labelling, the COAG communique released yesterday said.
It would "simplify enforcement and ensure consistency" and also reduce transaction costs for business and accelerate the rollout of new standards and labels for products. Kevin Rudd described improved energy efficiency as the low-hanging fruit of the climate change debate. "It's the best way and the most effective way and the earliest way of bringing down greenhouse gas emissions and we intend to do so," the Prime Minister said.
"Our objective is to have the national energy efficiency strategy agreed to by year's end." The states also agreed to work with the commonwealth to finalise the design of the Global Carbon Capture Storage Institute, to be set up by Mr Rudd to provide leadership in the development of carbon sequestration technologies, which would allow carbon to be captured from coal-fired power station emissions and stored underground.
"COAG has also agreed today that jurisdictions will expedite the introduction of nationally consistent regulation of carbon capture storage, including the geological storage of carbon dioxide," the communique said.
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