ARTICLE · 10 NOVEMBER 2011

Australia's carbon price - the end of the beginning

Clayton Utz

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The legislation to introduce a carbon price for greenhouse emissions is passed but many details are still unfinalised.

AustraliaEnvironment

Brendan Bateman

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After several false starts, Australia's Parliament today passed the legislation which will introduce a carbon price for greenhouse emissions in Australia from 1 July 2012.

However, rule-wise this is just the beginning, because many of the details are still to be finalised.

The emissions cap

We do not know yet what will be the emissions cap to apply when the scheme moves from fixed price to capped emissions from 1July 2015. This cap will probably not be set until 2014. However, many businesses will not want to wait until 2014 to contract with carbon price certainty for their business for 2015, and will be looking to buy carbon units much earlier than that in order to firm up their carbon cost.

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