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After the weekend's extraordinary election results, the Albanese government will impose tougher limits on large emitters from 1 July next year, without needing to take them to Parliament.

Chris Bowen, who handles Labor's climate portfolio, has said little about how the party's plan to impose declining emission limits on about 215 facilities covered by the Safeguard Mechanism will be implemented, but did reveal some details in a pre-election podcast with the Energy Efficiency Council.

"We don't need legislation for this," Bowen said, adding that this meant Labor wouldn't need to engage in "fractious negotiations" with the Senate.

"The more we can do things by regulation the better it will be," he said, adding that the revised Safeguard arrangements would start on the first of July, 2023.

The Clean Energy Regulator would be instructed to work with each Safeguard facility to get it "on a trajectory to net-zero by 2050", he added.

Bowen told the podcast that energy efficiency had a crucial role to play, and with energy prices set to rise sharply largely due largely to international factors, the issue is likely to get more prominence.

Although Bowen didn't go into details, potential strategies include a reinvigorated national energy productivity plan, while Labor's election costings include an extra $60 million in funding over the next two years for efficiency grants to small and medium businesses.

The Greens went to the election calling for "a doubling of energy productivity by 2030" and for the introduction of a national energy certificate scheme of the kind that already operates in several states.

Heightened disclosure expectations

Businesses will be under pressure on several fronts to disclose much more about the climate change impacts of their projects and activities, as well as their mitigation and adaptation strategies, under an Albanese government.

Jim Chalmers, who will hold the Treasury portfolio, has previously delivered an indirect hint that mandatory TCFD disclosure is on the way, (as did ousted former Treasurer Josh Frydenberg).

Notably, Labor also pledged a full response to Graeme Samuel's EPBC Act review, which included a recommendation that proponents "explicitly consider" the effectiveness of their efforts to minimise their impacts on biodiversity under a range of climate change scenarios.

In addition, Samuel said proponents should "transparently disclose the full emissions" of their developments.

The Greens have also called for a "climate trigger" to be included in the EPBC Act, so that large-emitting projects automatically require federal assessment.

Finally, former Resources Minister Keith Pitt's attempt to prevent offshore oil and gas industry regulator NOPSEMA from requiring information on project scope 3 emissions now appears doomed.

A leaf out of Morrison's book on 2030 targets?

Labor has insisted that it will not budge from its pre-election pledge of a 43% emissions reduction by 2030, while the Greens and teals have been equally insistent that they will push strongly for greater ambition.

A message that Labor is likely to rely on in an attempt to resolve the issue is the same one that former Prime Minister Scott Morrison used in an attempt to deflect mounting criticism of his government's 26% to 28% target.

In a speech to the Business Council in late 2020, Morrison described his government's target as "a floor for our ambition, not a ceiling".

Scrutiny of carbon and biodiversity offsets

Bowen has said he wants a short, independent review of Australia's carbon offsets regime, saying he has had concerns about aspects of it "for some time", and governance arrangements are also likely to come under scrutiny.

Draft principles to underpin carbon market integrity are due to be released early next month by the global Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative, and are likely to prove influential in the Australian review.

Samuel's EPBC review delivered a scathing assessment of Australia's biodiversity offsetting regime, describing it as contributing to environmental decline, and this too is likely to undergo scrutiny by Labor as it formulates its response to his recommendations.

The end of the climate wars

When Labor was last in government in 2011, with the support of the Greens, its efforts to implement new climate change policy (in the form of a carbon price) were implacably opposed by Liberal state governments, and by the Business Council.

Now, despite very important differences over interim targets, there is an astonishing level of consensus at the federal and state level, as well as among businesses, that voters are right to demand urgent, large-scale action on climate change.

In fact, the Liberal governments of NSW and Tasmania, as well as the Business Council, have tougher 2030 targets than Labor's 43% target (a 50% cut, net-zero, and a 46% to 50% cut respectively).

The federal Coalition now finds itself in a dire situation on climate change.

It's almost unthinkable that its next leader could successfully prevent remaining moderates from rejecting any attempt to impose a hardline position on climate matters, by crossing the floor if necessary.

The Coalition could even find itself at times having to allow conscience votes by its parliamentarians on the issue – an approach that Joe Hockey suggested in order to resolve the dispute over emissions trading, in his unsuccessful 2009 tilt for the Liberal party leadership.

It's also notable that the federal Liberal Party now has very diminished expertise on climate change policy and legislation.

A former Liberal energy minister (Josh Frydenberg) and former assistant energy minister (Tim Wilson) have lost their seats, and the architect of Direct Action and the ERF – Greg Hunt – has retired.

In contrast, in addition to Chris Bowen, federal Labor's ranks include former climate change minister Penny Wong, former shadow climate minister Mark Butler, and Pat Conroy, who has had some responsibility for climate matters since 2016.

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