Carbon Market Institute 2025 Safeguard Symposium

G’Day, or kaya, that’s how we’d say g’day in Walyalup or Fremantle where I’m from and let me say g’day to you.

Business and policy leaders, it’s a pleasure to be part of the 2025 Safeguard Symposium taking place on the land of the Gadigal people.

I regret I can’t join you in person, but I want to both thank and commend the Carbon Market Institute for bringing this important forum together for the second year in a row.

CMI’s ongoing advocacy for Australia’s carbon markets and support for the government’s reforms to the Safeguard Mechanism is welcome, and I applaud your leadership in this space.

I want to acknowledge outgoing CEO John Connor, whose 6 years at the helm of CMI have been characterised by tireless dedication to ambitious climate action underpinned by robust and dynamic market structures.

Thank you, John, for your contribution, particularly to the Safeguard Mechanism and ACCU Scheme reforms.

I know you will continue to have a sustained and constructive influence on Australia’s climate action in your new role at the Net Zero Economy Agency.

Friends, the Safeguard Mechanism and ACCU Scheme are critical to our efforts to decarbonise the economy and unlock the benefits of the clean energy transition.

And I’m pleased to report that those efforts are paying off.

Emissions across heavy industry are falling.

Data released by the Clean Energy Regulator in April confirmed that in the first year of the reformed Safeguard Mechanism, emissions from Australia’s largest industrial facilities fell.

The December 2024 Quarterly Update of Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory shows that industrial emissions are now lower than they were during the COVID years, even while the economy has recovered.

This tells us that the reformed Safeguard is working to reduce emissions and helping Australia to meet our legislated climate targets.

At the same time, the reformed Safeguard Mechanism has become a major source of demand for Australian Carbon Credit Units – or ACCUs.

We know that in the first year of the Safeguard reforms, the ACCU market provided ample supply for Safeguard facilities.

In fact, 2024 marked the biggest trading year by volume in the scheme’s history.

And this should give us confidence that the scheme is working as intended – but we’re certainly not stopping there.

Indeed, we’re committed to continuing to reform the scheme and to develop new and refreshed methods to bolster integrity and supply – and we’re making significant progress.

We’ve allocated $66 million to advance those reforms, which include system-wide improvements to enhance transparency and to strengthen governance.

The ACCU scheme will be more responsive and more extensive as we implement the proponent-led method development process, and we will maintain the critical focus on integrity and accountability through our increased oversight of Human Induced Regeneration projects.

In the last month, the Clean Energy Regulator has published even more detail on project agents and activities, providing greater transparency for investors and for market participants alike.

Crucially, we’re ensuring wider economic opportunities for First Nations people through the codesign of targeted and culturally appropriate information under the Carbon Farming Outreach Program.

This is supporting First Nations people to participate even further in the ACCU market.

And the government has allocated $11.4 million to support First Nations people to engage in statutory consent negotiations for ACCU projects on Native Title land.

Following the announcement I made earlier this year at the North Australia Savannah Fire Forum, we are working to change the legislation to remove the ability to conditionally register projects on Native Title land, and developing a project consent toolkit under the Carbon Farming Outreach Program for First Nations people.

This change would require upfront consent from Native Title holders before projects can be registered.

I know many of you are keen to see new methods finalised to drive further supply and of course emissions reduction across the economy.

That work is very high on my list of priorities.

As you know, I made the updated Environmental Plantings method in November last year.

It is significant that this method can be stacked with the first Nature Repair Market method, replanting native forest and woodland ecosystems, which provides opportunities for proponents to participate in both carbon and biodiversity markets.

Meanwhile, consultation on the Landfill Gas method wrapped up last month. We've analysed the feedback and are now finalising the proposed method for consideration by ERAC.

And work on the new Integrated Farm and Land Management method remains a key focus, with stakeholder forums underway this month and next to support its further development.

As I’ve already noted, new methods will increase economic opportunities for First Nations people, and the proposed new savanna fire management methods are particularly promising examples.

These methods could enable crediting of significant carbon stores that have been accumulating since the savanna fire projects began.

First Nations people’s careful and expert management of Country through the application of traditional knowledge has led to these abatement outcomes.

Western science frankly is catching up, and we are now able to model this abatement.

Last month, we released the new abatement estimation tool for the new savanna fire management methods for user testing.

This tool incorporates the latest science and has been independently assessed by CSIRO who have confirmed its abatement estimates.

It’s great news particularly for the First Nations communities that manage 70% of the area presently registered for savanna fire management projects.

It sends a powerful message about their significant contribution to emissions reduction and carbon sequestration in Australia.

That brings me to the important role of the ACCU Scheme in meeting our climate targets.

We know there are some sources of emissions that are hard to abate with current technologies, including in sectors covered by the Safeguard Mechanism, and whose baselines will nevertheless continue to decline on the trajectory to net zero by 2050.

The ACCU Scheme provides important flexibility and reduces costs for those sectors where technology is still being developed to support direct decarbonisation.

That’s why integrity must remain at the heart of the scheme.

Integrity is absolutely fundamental to an effective ACCU Scheme, which is in turn fundamental to achieving Australia’s climate targets.

We need to have – and maintain – confidence that the abatement sitting behind ACCUs is real and additional.

That is essential to the market and it is essential to meeting our climate targets, and showing climate leadership at a challenging time.

Can I finish by acknowledging that the leadership of industry, investors, and institutions like CMI has been instrumental in helping us deliver the progress we’ve achieved so far.

Together, we have built a robust and transparent carbon market that will support a cleaner, more competitive, and more resilient economy, with new economic opportunities, especially for First Nations communities, in the decades to come.

Thank you.