Race is on for carbon offset work

Australian
Tuesday 20/1/2009 Page: 25

AT least 20 new IT projects potentially worth millions of dollars are on the table as the Department of Climate Change prepares for online trading of emissions permits and establishes an environmental watchdog agency with responsibility for the carbon pollution reduction scheme. Tenders for the CPRS auction platform and architecture, systems integration, financial management, identity/access, business intelligence systems, web portal design and hosting services will be announced as soon as this month.

Our overall procurement strategy is still being developed, but the design and build will be co-ordinated within the department, using a range of suppliers," department spokeswoman Vicki Kapernick said. "The projects just listed on our procurement plan are an indication of the work likely to be undertaken in preparation for the establishment of the CPRS and the regulator." The new agency, the Australian Climate Change Regulatory Authority, will assess organisations' liability under the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act, enforce compliance and manage the auction or allocation of permits, including collection of revenue.

The Kyoto-compliant national emissions registry completed just before Christmas represented the first phase of the CPRS system, Ms Kapernick said. US-based environmental consultant Perrin Quarles Associates, along with local companies Strategic Data Management and AussieHQ, won a $600,000 contract to supply the registry, which is linked to the UN International Transactions Log. Countries signing up to the Kyoto Protocol are assigned a number of carbon emission units, and must set up a registry to track and record all trades.

Minister for Climate Change Penny Wong said having the trading registry operating was an important milestone". "We need these units to meet the target of limiting our average annual emissions over the period 2008-12 to 108% of 1990 levels," Senator Wong said. The registry will now be further developed to support the introduction of the CPRS by July 1 next year. Ms Kaperniek said a healthy response to the first tender indicated a number of companies were likely to bid for this work.

Some $37 million over four years was allocated for the creation of an emissions trading scheme in the last budget, but Ms Kapernick said the new projects related to the regulator's office, announced last month. "Obviously, a lot of detail is yet to be worked out." The department has to provide an IT infrastructure before the authority's establishment through passage of the scheme's enabling legislation. Final costs for the scheme will be published in the 2009-10 federal budget.

Meanwhile, decisions on contracts for a call centre and future support of the department's main business interface, the Online System for Comprehensive Activity Reporting, are expected early this year. Data from OSCAR and, eventually, the CPRS, will be fed into the National Greenhouse Energy Reporting System, which is being expanded to handle increased mandatory reporting. Businesses can hope for a reduction in red tape, with the department developing standard approaches to energy data sets.

A spokeswoman for Senator Wong said industry reporting requirements were being considered by federal, state and territory governments, with some "positive outcomes" expected by midyear. "Streamlining federal programs has already commenced," she said. "Legislation under the Energy Efficiency Opportunities program has been aligned with the new NGERS. From July 1, corporations will only have to submit data once through a single IT reporting system to cover both reporting obligations."