Reducing uncertainties requires adopting a long term policy position, providing long term guidance, ie for 10 to 30 years hence. Adopting a policy position that does not seriously address climate change is not likely to be a long term position. Allowing emission trading credits for early abatement measures only becomes a significant problem because of the excessive generosity of providing initial permits. As noted in discussion paper, providing such early emission credits is likely to be subject to excessive complexity and paperwork. To cope with trade between these groups of countries, Australia could work towards accounting for 'greenhouse intensity' of products so that emissions in 'Kyoto' countries are not swapped for those in 'non-Kyoto' countries.
Government policy continues to encourage increased emissions in many area's - eg.
These policies are not likely to reduce either emissions or uncertainty, just postpone decisions until something more definite appears. There is demand for early abatement credits because of the planned generosity of 'grandfathering' initial permits. If allocations were not so generous there would not be such demand. As the discussion paper mentions - assessing early abatement claims is very problematical. The difficulty of determining which emission reductions occurred other than in the usual course of business is indicated by the 1996 Govt commissioned report on the Greenhouse Challenge Program by George Wilkenfeld and Associates and Economic and Energy Analysis.