Carbon Tax Update: integration with international regimes

Further to our Alert dated 9 October 2012, the Bill providing for integration of Australia's carbon tax regime with international regimes (Clean Energy Amendment (International Emissions Trading and Other Measures) Act 2012) has now passed both houses of Parliament and became law on 13 December 2012. The legislation generally has effect from 14 December 2012.

Key points to note:

• the current price of EU carbon credits remains subdued. They are currently worth around 6 Euro. Given this, it may be worthwhile taking advantage of the low price in order to begin "banking" carbon credits to be used at a later point in time (provided any change in Government does not result in a repeal of the legislation);