Understanding Australian Infrastructure Carbon Reduction Initiative 2 Understanding Australian Infrastructure Carbon Red | страница 6

The price of offsetting
Many people are confused by the low prices of carbon offsets. If it's so bad for the environment to fly, can
a few pounds really be enough to counteract the impact? The answer is that, at present, there are all kinds
of ways to reduce emissions very inexpensively. After all, a single low-energy lightbulb, available for just
£1 or so, can over the space of six years save 250kg of CO2 – equivalent to a short flight. That's not to say
that offsetting is necessarily valid, or that plugging in a low-energy lightbulb makes up for flying. The point
is simply that the world is full of inexpensive ways to reduce emissions. In theory, if enough people started
offsetting, or if governments started acting seriously to tackle global warming, then the price of offsets
would gradually rise, as the low-hanging fruit of emissions savings – the easiest and cheapest "quick wins"
– would get used up.
Another frequent point of confusion about the cost of offsetting is that different offset companies quote
different prices for offsetting the same activity. There are two reasons for this. First, there are various
ways of estimating the precise impact on climate change of certain types of activity – including flying,
which affects global temperature in various different ways. Second, different types of offset project will
inevitably have different costs – especially given that projects may be chosen not just for the CO2 impacts
but for their broader social benefits.
2. Super fund leads nation’s largest infrastructure to
emissions reduction targets
Industry superannuation fund manager IFM Investors has announced an ‘unprecedented’ set of
Australia’s largest infrastructure assets have set firm emissions targets which are expected to be
met with large-scale solar uptake.
Integral facets of Australian infrastructure such as Ausgrid, Melbourne Airport, Brisbane Airport, NSW
Ports (Botany and Kembla), the Port of Brisbane, Southern Cross Station in Melbourne and Northern
Territory Airports (Darwin and others), have all co-ordinated for the first time to set emissions reduction
targets through 2030 and beyond.
IFM Investors, which owns or co-owns said assets on behalf of seven million working Australian members
of industry superannuation funds, says the targets will see emissions reduced by more than 200,000
tonnes of CO2 each year on the way to 2030, the equivalent of removing almost 70,000 cars from the
road.
The initiative is even more significant for the fact that it represents a concerted activism from one of the
nation’s largest pension funds. Historically pension funds have been passive investors but the policy shift
in conglomerate funds like IFM Investors is a signal that pension funds are now pressuring companies
seeking investment to curb emissions if the fund thinks its acting in its member’s best interests, or indeed,
on their behalf.
It was the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) that really got the ball rolling on this enormous co-
ordinated effort. Last year CEFC invested $150 million toward driving down the emissions of Australia’s
largest infrastructure.