We administer climate change laws including:
- National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting (NGER) Act 2007
- Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000
- Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Act 2011
- Australian National Registry of Emissions Units (ANREU) Act 2011.
These laws give us monitoring and enforcement powers. We have developed an approach to make sure we administer laws in a transparent and ethical way.
Our approach
We have based our approach on:
- helping participants understand their rights and obligations
- supporting those who want to do the right thing
- using our powers with integrity and professionalism
- sticking to clear rules when making decisions
- pursuing scheme participants who break the law opportunistically or deliberately
- responding to non-compliance proportionately by considering participant compliance history
- making sure enforcement investigation and resolution is efficient.
We work with other regulatory agencies to support this approach. This includes sharing knowledge, gathering intelligence, or referring matters for law enforcement.
We have different ways of dealing with issues based on the nature of the risk. Our compliance, education and enforcement policy explains this in more detail.
Our priorities
Our compliance and enforcement priorities support our approach. They aim to increase voluntary scheme compliance and identify areas for improvement.
Our compliance and enforcement priorities for 2023-2024 include:
- safeguard facilities who under-report emissions
- verifying energy and emissions data, which can be used to check carbon emissions claims and address greenwashing
- accuracy of climate-related commitments and context statements
- liable entities with outstanding shortfall debts
- truth and accuracy of written statements for small-scale technology certificates (STC)
- sharing accurate and complete ACCU scheme reports
- non-compliant or poor performing auditors.
Read more about our compliance and enforcement priorities.