The federal government has secured the support it needs to implement its central climate change commitment, after reaching a deal with the Greens following months of safeguard mechanism negotiations.
Key points:
- The safeguard mechanism will impose emissions limits on the 215 largest-polluting facilities in the country
- The Greens' support for the policy requires the government to impose a hard cap on emissions
- Adam Bandt says that will stop 116 coal and gas projects from being able to open
The Greens have long demanded Labor commit to no new coal and gas projects, but the government has repeatedly ruled this out.
Greens leader Adam Bandt said the deal included a hard cap on emissions, which would impact new or expanded high-polluting projects.
He predicted the hard emissions cap would make it unviable for 116 new coal and gas projects in the pipeline because they would be unable to get their emissions below the limit.
"The Greens have stopped about half of them [in the pipeline] but Labor still wants to open the rest," Mr Bandt said.
"And, so, now there is going to be a fight for every new project that the government wants to open."