Australia needs a national decarbonisation plan for infrastructure

The need for Australia to decarbonise rapidly is clear. While there is considerable progress underway, change will come faster, cheaper and with less disruption if it is guided by a national plan that places infrastructure at its core. This should draw from the range of existing policies, strategies and regulations to provide a single, clear and actionable agenda for decarbonisation to accelerate innovation and investment.

A national plan is required to draw together the separate threads of decarbonisation across the infrastructure sector. Assets and networks across transport, energy, construction and other assets have converged over recent years, creating new opportunities for reducing emissions efficiently. Energy – comprising over half of our emissions in its own right and being a major input to all other forms of infrastructure – could act as an accelerator of change across the economy. But this will only happen if actions in each form of infrastructure, which have previously been governed and operated as almost wholly separate systems, are coordinated and guided by common objectives.

All Australian states and territories have committed to net zero by 2050, with the Federal Government making the plunge shortly before COP26. Committing to net zero is a start, but it is not an achievement in its own right, and is worth little if it is not backed by an actionable plan. The Federal Government’s Australia’s Long-Term Emissions Reduction Plan2 provides no additional policy commitments to articulate a pathway to net zero. State and territory governments have been shouldering much of the burden, with a range of commitments and strategies. This has created a complex, overlapping patchwork of actions and reforms across nine separate jurisdictions. Many of these could bring about some positive change on their own, but rapid, efficient change is only possible if they are brought together under a cohesive national plan. Corporates are signalling their own drive to decarbonise their assets and adopting net-zero targets themselves. Many are driving real change, supported by shareholders that are increasingly focused on decarbonisation and climate risk. But for much of the private sector, there remains a distance between intention and action, and governments can help to bridge this gap.

There is a mass of private capital looking for opportunities to drive decarbonisation in Australia, but it is being held back by regulatory and policy uncertainty. Without a clear national plan, Australia risks being left behind, with capital flowing to other nations with compelling, long-term mandates for green investment.

The benefits of decarbonisation clearly outweigh the costs and embracing this challenge could hold enormous opportunities for a major boost in Australia’s productivity and export potential, economic strength, and financial prosperity. But the window of opportunity is closing.

Infrastructure Partnerships Australia calls on the incoming Federal Government to commit to the development of a national plan to guide Australia’s decarbonisation. This paper provides a menu of options to drive change across each form of infrastructure, building on the existing array of commitments and strategies across the country. Bringing these together in a national plan can provide a platform for rapid decarbonisation.