Australia's Climate change policies need overhaul, says Grattan
While the Climate Change Authority has called for Australia to adopt greenhouse gas reduction targets of 30 per cent by 2025 ahead of international talks in Paris later this year, Grattan Institute energy program director Tony Wood said the CCA numbers would be considered too high by many, saying a figure of 20 per cent might be more realistic.&nbsp;
Australia will announce its post-2020 carbon reduction targets later this month but federal environment minister Greg Hunt has been more coy about what the Coalition government planned to do when the $2.5 billion Emissions Reduction Fund runs out of money. Carbon market analysts RepuTex predict the fund could run out of money before the next federal election due late next year.

Mr Wood said the Emissions Reduction Fund – where the government pays polluters to reduce carbon emissions – was a practical policy to help Australia to reach the current target of 5 per cent reduction in emissions based on 2000 levels by 2020. But he said a new policy, including the overhauling of the controversial safeguard mechanism, was needed for next decade.

"There is going to have to be something different after 2020 and the answer probably lies in the safeguard mechanism but it will be politically fraught because it's going to end up looking like a carbon price," he said.

Some speakers at the Crawford Australian Leadership Forum, hosted by the Australian National University and supported by The Australian Financial Review in Canberra this week, called for a greater focus on curbing carbon emissions through regulation and penalties because it was more likely to win support.

In May, Mr Hunt said the emissions reduction fund would remain the main mechanism used to reduce carbon emissions in Australia. But conceded future governments would have to make the decision on whether to tighten the safeguard mechanism that covers the 140 facilities whose emissions top more than 100,000 tonnes of carbon.

Industry experts believed the 100,000 tonnes output will have to be decreased to force companies to change their behaviour.

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While some industry believed the Climate Change Authority's 30 per cent target by 2025 was too high, other groups said it did not go far enough.

The Climate Institute's chief executive, John Connor, said the CCA's target – which also included cuts of 40 to 60 per cent by 2030 – should represent the bare minimum. The United States has committed to cut emissions by 26 to 28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2025, while China has vowed its emissions would peak by 2030.

"The CCA targets would still leave the emissions intensity of Australia's economy behind the US and others, still trailing in what is an accelerating race for carbon competitiveness," Mr Connor said.

"When the government makes its initial post-2020 targets offer in coming weeks, in our view it should choose stronger targets but also have a clear plan for the full decarbonisation of the Australian economy by 2050. You can't have a plan for the future, a plan for climate, with a plan for decarbonisation."