The Bill called for Australia to:
• ratify the Kyoto protocol;
• set national greenhouse gas emission targets for 2020 at 20 per cent below 1990 levels and 80 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050;
• introduce a greenhouse gas trigger into the EPBC Act to ensure that information about the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from major developments is adequately considered during the approval process. That trigger will be any action likely to result in greenhouse gas emissions of more than 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in any 12-month period.
• introduce a national energy savings target, an energy efficiency target, to halt the growth in energy consumption by 2008, equivalent to business-as-usual growth in energy consumption.
• require large energy users to implement the findings of their energy efficiency audits. This would apply to 250 companies in Australia using 40 per cent of Australia’s energy.
• increase mandatory renewable energy targets so that renewable energy contributes at least 15 per cent to national demand by 2012 and 25 per cent by 2020
• establish renewable energy feed-in tariffs to provide a minimum price per unit of produced renewable electricity for a set period to provide investors security on income.
Reference: Senate Hansard, Thursday, 21 March 2007. p.54-56. This document is available at: http:/ http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/senate/dailys/ds220307.pdf