Late last year, RACCA Australia made a submission on the Options Review Paper, which was part of the Federal Government’s review of the Ozone Protection and Synthetic Greenhouse Gas Management (OPSGGM) Programme. We published our submission on our website in January, when all of the submissions were made public.
Now the Federal Government have revealed the outcomes of the Review.
The Department of the Environment have published the outcomes on their website, a month after the Federal Government decided on a range of measures to reduce emissions and business costs.
The Department of the Environment’s website states that the Review of the OPSGGM Programme had two objectives “to identify the opportunities to reduce emissions of ozone depleting substances and synthetic greenhouse gases in line with international efforts and to identify opportunities to improve and streamline its operation, including regulatory compliance costs.”
The key outcomes of the Review found that the OPSGGM Programme has been highly successful with 99 percent of ozone depleting substances already phased out and a reduction of 40 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions.
The outcomes that the Department of Environment focus on is the phasing out of ozone depleting substances, impending policies on Australia’s HFC phasedown, reducing regulatory burden on business and non-regulatory measures.
The Department of Environment emphasised that a statutory phasedown of HFC imports will commence in January 2018 and will reduce HFC emissions by 85 percent by 2036, going on to compare Australia’s domestic HFC phasedown schedule with North America’s proposal to reduce HFC emissions. They also stated that enabling provisions for future bans on the import of new equipment containing high GWP HFCs will also be included, with domestic and automotive air conditioners containing high GWP HFCs are being considered.
The Department of Environment also lists three streamlining measures that will reduce regulatory burden on businesses by $1.2 million annually, as well as non-regulatory measures revolving around businesses and equipment owners.
The Department of Environment’s outcomes of the OPSGGM Programme can be found and read in full here.
Related article: FEATURE: Government announces details of HFC Phasedown
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