National Clean Coal Fund

In the lead up to the 2007 federal election the then opposition Australian Labor Party, led by Kevin Rudd, announced that it would establish a $500 million Clean Coal Fund to "fund the deployment of clean coal technologies" as a part of its National Clean Coal Initiative.

Details of the Fund
In the initial announcement in February 2007, Rudd stated that the fund would be worth $500 million"over the period to 2015" and that it would "generate $1.5 billion in new investment by working in partnership with the private sector". It also stated that the fund would be in addition to the Low Emission Technology Demonstration Fund which had been established under the Howard government in 2004.

Rudd stated that projects which would be funded would include


 * Coal gasification;
 * Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS);
 * Oxy firing; and
 * Post Combustion Capture (PCC).

"Our target is nothing less than for technologies that reduce the carbon dioxide emissions from burning coal to be commercially viable and feeding in to our electricity grid by 2020, and for near zero emission technologies to be feeding into the grid by 2030," Kevin Rudd, Senator Chris Evans, Shadow Minister for Resources and Energy and Peter Garrett, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Heritage stated in the announcement.

In mid November 2007, late in the election campaign, the Labor leader Kevin Rudd detailed that -- while describing the program as a $500 million fund -- his government would provide only $225 million over three years. In its costings, the ALP stated that the government would contribute $75 million each year between 2008-2009 through to 20010-2011.

2008 Budget Decisions
In its 2008-2009 budget, the Rudd government announced that the National Clean Coal Fund would be funded to the tune of $500 million over eight years and that funding would be accelerated.

The budget papers revealed that the government had pared back the initial funding of the scheme from $75 million in its first year to $34.8 but boosted it in its second and third years to $108.6 million and $124.5 million respectively. It also foreshadowed that it would allocated a further $97.8 million in 2001-2012. When combined with the $15 million allocated in the 2007-2008 financial year, the fund is slated to total $380.7 million over five years.

Related SourceWatch articles

 * Accra Climate Change Talks 2008
 * Australia and Post-Kyoto Protocol negotiations on greenhouse gas emissions
 * Australia and coal
 * Clean Development Mechanism
 * COP14
 * COP15
 * Emissions Trading
 * Joint Implementation
 * Kyoto Protocol
 * United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change