Study On Australia’s New Energy Laws And Policies

By studying Australia’s historical evolution on new energy laws and policies, its two specific legal systems as Renewable Portfolio Standards and Emissions Trading (Carbon Tax), as well as the interaction between Australia’s new energy laws and the International Climate Change Law, the dissertation puts forward a viewpoint that new energy legal system is an important part of the International Climate Change Law. Australia’s new energy laws have encouraged the process of international climate change negotiations, promoted the development of the international carbon market and enriched the contents of the International Climate Change Law. It fits and functions together with the International Climate Change Law and collaborates to mitigate climate change. The similar energy structure between China and Australia, the integration of global energy markets and the good bilateral relations not only provide a useful reference for promoting China’s new energy legislation, but also lay the foundation for bilateral cooperation mechanism of new energy.Specifically, in addition to the introduction, the dissertation will discuss six parts as follows.The Introduction demonstrates the significance of study on Australia’s new energy laws and policies, the research actuality at home and abroad, and the basic ideas and methods in research.Chapter1discusses the relation between new energy and international sustainable development from the perspective of international law. It raises a standpoint that new energy is the only way to get out of the current sustainable development dilemma. The world’s energy system is at a crossroads. The current global trends in energy supply and consumption are patently unsustainable. The world is stumbling along the unsustainable road. The international efforts to advocate sustainable energy seem so vulnerable before when facing the international climate change negotiations. Preventing catastrophic and irreversible damage to the global climate ultimately requires a major decarbonization of the world energy sources.Chapter2unscrambles Australia’s fundamental state and future developmets on new energy laws and policies. Three goals——economic prosperity, energy security and ecologically sustainable development——underpin the Australia’s new energy laws. As the first country proposing the’Renewable Energy Target’in the world, Australia has initiatively formed a mature new energy legal system embodying energy security, clean energy, nuclear energy and energy market. It presents the following main features——paying equal attention to market-driven means and government-guided means, matching the legislations with policies, and combining energy security and climate change. The direction of new energy development has been determined, but the uncertainty still exists and Australia’s future new energy laws and policies will be mainly influenced by domestic climate politics.Chapter3analyzes Australia’s Renewable Portfolio Standards and its operating mechanism. Australia is the first country in the world to implement the mandatory RPS based on’Renewable Energy Target’, to ensure that renewable energy obtains a20%share of electricity supply in Australia by2020. As an important legal guarantee for RPS, the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act2000and Renewable Energy (Electricity) Regulations2001have built the RPS’s operating mechanism of Renewable Energy Certificates and set legal liability of all participants of Renewable Energy Target’.Chapter4mainly explores Australia’s Emissions Trading (Carbon Tax). As an institutional innovation in environmental regulation, Emissions Trading was forced into the field of International Law by UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol, which solved the legal prerequisites of Emissions Trading. The Common Interests of International Community have increasingly been becoming the mainstream of international social development and constituted the basic principles of international law of Emissions Trading. In the past more than a dozen years, Australia’s political leaders have been fighting against each other with an’at war’attitude in the search for the best policy tool to tackle climate change. The practices of Greenhouse Gas Reduction Scheme of New South Wales, the Garnaut Climate Change Review and the legislative attempt of Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme have paved the way for establishing the Emissions Trading (Carbon Tax) in Clean Energy Act2011.Chapter5dissects the interaction between Australia’s new energy laws and the International Climate Change Law. The International Law regulates national interest, especially the common interests among nations. The Australian Government fully realizes a huge national interest which could come from the global response to climate change. With the support of domestic legislations, the biggest characteristic of Australia’s International climate politics since2010has been trying to secure a new global agreement to tackle climate change. In the joint efforts of all nations and international organizations, the future development of International Climate Change Law can be expected. Although Australia’s new energy law and International Climate Change Law are two independent legal systems, they are together to mitigate climate change.Chapter6provides some measures of Sino-Australian new energy cooperation in the context of the International Law. The international cooperation of new energy is a big difficult problem of international cooperation in energy. Because the new energy involves political and economic factors, and will be the focus of international competitions in the future, directly affecting the comprehensive national strength and attracting wide attention from the international society. The current international legal system is not conducive to international cooperation of new energy. Working to construct a bilateral cooperation mechanism of new energy becomes a kind of compromising choice for developing countries. The Sino-Australian bilateral Free Trade Area may be able to become the breakthrough of the strategic containments of interest groups in the world. The suitable legal system can promote the process of new energy cooperation, therefore, the Chinese government should expand the depth of new energy cooperation with the help of international organizations or international regime, enter into a new energy bilateral cooperation agreements to achieve win-win outcome, and strengthen the legislatios of new energy to create a good environment of international cooperation.