Australia putting $738M into low emissions investment fund

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia’s prime minister on Wednesday launched a billion Australian dollar ($738 million) investment fund to fast-track emerging low emissions technologies including carbon capture and storage as he bolsters his government’s green credentials ahead of elections due within months.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison expects the private sector will at least match his government’s AU$500 million ($369 million) contribution to the fund.

“Australia can become a world leader in creating low-emissions technology that is both affordable and scalable,” Morrison said in a statement.

The ruling conservative coalition wants the fund to be administered by the Clean Energy Finance Corp., a government-owned green bank that was established to increase investment in the clean energy sector.

But that would require a change in the law because the corporation can only invest in technologies that have proved to work in the short term such as wind and solar. It cannot invest in more experiment technologies with longer-term potential such a carbon capture and storage.

The new fund would address a gap in the Australian market in which small, complex, technology-focused start-ups can be considered “too risky to finance,” the statement said.

Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor said the law change was needed for Australia to achieve its net zero emissions target by 2050.

“There’s lots of people, when it comes to climate policy, who want to wipe industries out,” Taylor told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

“They say we want to see resources industries gone or agriculture impacted. That’s not where we start. We start at the solution: low emissions technologies that can bring down emissions,” Taylor added.

The center-left opposition Labor Party left...