If Australia meets its 5 per cent emissions reduction target by 2020 it will be by "luck not design" a leading economist has said, as the government published new figures showing the task ahead of Australia has almost halved.
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Climate groups were disputing the government's claim on Monday that it will hit Australia's target with its Direct Action policy following the release of new projections showing the amount of carbon dioxide Australia must cut has fallen drastically.
The Department of Environment projections show Australia's task of meeting its carbon reduction goals by 2020 has fallen from an estimate of 421 million tonnes in 2013 to 236 million tonnes due to a drop in electricity demand, lower than expected agricultural production and less activity from manufacturing and coal mining.
Environment Minister Greg Hunt said on Monday the figures showed Australia was on track to meet its 2020 target and it was "clear we can meet our targets without a destructive carbon tax".
But Frank Jotzo, an economist at the ANU's Crawford School of Public Policy, said "if we meet our 5 per cent target by 2020, then under present settings that would be by luck not by design".
"It's just an observation: we've seen emissions flatline, pretty much all that's required to meet the target now is to continue flatlining," he said.
"The projections are explicit as to why they've fallen and it's because of external factors."
Dr Jotzo said the change in Australia's circumstances was also an argument to increase Australia's target by 2020 to a mark closer to the 19 per cent recommended by the Climate Change Authority.
He also warned that the department's data showed Australia's emissions were projected to go up again without an effective emissions reduction policy.
The government has done no modelling to show how much abatement will be achieved by its emissions reduction fund, which replaced the carbon tax and will pay polluters to cut their emissions.
The environment department's projections on Monday show that without factoring in abatement from the fund, greenhouse gas emissions are projected to increase in Australia by 17 per cent by 2020.
Energy and carbon research firm RepuTex stood by its forecasts that the emissions reduction fund on its own would achieve 80 to 120 million tonnes of carbon reduction.
RepuTex's executive director for energy and carbon markets Hugh Grossman said the gap would have to be achieved through an appropriate safeguard mechanism, which included "stringent" emissions caps and measures to allow companies to offset any short fall in emissions reductions.
Climate Institute chief executive John Connor said that while the government's report showed emissions were falling there was still "no evidence its policies are up to the economic modernisation and decarbonisation challenge, with Australia's projected pollution ballooning to and beyond 2020".
"Our modelling shows that the combination of the emission reduction fund, the proposed 'safeguard mechanisms' on large emitters and the full, uncut renewable energy target aren't enough to get to the 5 per cent goal, and are grossly inadequate for the task of decarbonising our economy," Mr Connor said.
Modelling by the Climate Institute before the 2013 election forecast the government would have to spend at least another $4 billion on Direct Action to meet the 5 per cent target.
"Today's projections do nothing but confirm the inadequacy of taxpayer funding as the primary emissions reduction tool. We need a coherent strategy to modernise and decarbonise our economy and in particular to clean up our energy system," Mr Connor said.
