For more than a decade, the Australian Government has pursued a range of policies and related initiatives as part of its response to climate change. These operate in conjunction with policies and initiatives implemented at state and territory level.
A useful historical summary of some of these is contained in Australia's Fourth National Communication on Climate Change 2005.
The election of the Rudd Government in 2007 saw a major change of Australian Government policy through Australia’s ratification of the Kyoto Protocol.
In terms of specific initiatives, one of the earlier measures that continues today is the Mandatory Renewable Energy Target (MRET) scheme. The Rudd Government is attempting to develop this into a national Renewable Energy Target (RET) scheme, and achieve a goal of 20 per cent of Australia's electricity supply being sourced from renewable energy by 2020.
The Rudd Government has made a policy commitment to reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent on 2000 (not 1990) levels by 2050. Short and medium targets will likely be decided after further consideration of the Garnaut report and undertaking necessary modelling and analysis. However, it is clear that a major plank of the effort to reduce emissions will be the implementation of a national emissions trading scheme.
Supporting the overall effort is the Governments financial assistance to further develop various technologies. These include: