The Carbon Market Institute’s (CMI) Australian Climate Policy Survey provides a critical means of capturing the views of Australian business and industry to inform government and the wider community. It captures data on climate and energy policy, on corporate climate action as well as on the economic implications of international developments.

The 2019 survey is the fifth in a series, allowing CMI to track trends on business views and practices. The survey was carried out as an electronic survey sent to a wide Australian database of senior executives and employees working for businesses with a large emissions profile, investors, carbon project developers, carbon market experts and professional service providers. Just under half of respondents work for businesses that aren't CMI members.

The survey was conducted over a three-week period in November 2019 and received significant senior-level responses, demonstrating the importance of the topic to the business community. We thank all respondents for taking the time to participate. The findings will shape our discussions with policy makers; business and investment stakeholders, and; media and opinion makers both domestically and internationally.

The information contained herein reflects a broad market perspective and should not be attributed to the position of any single individual or organisation. While responses are slightly down on last year’s 270 respondents, the 2019 survey has a greater senior management proportion than 2018’s (64%) and slightly higher proportion of emissions-intensive companies than 2018’s (33%).

Key findings:

• The survey reveals widespread concern about the adequacy of current policy, with 94% of respondents indicating that Australia’s current policy suite is insufficient to support reductions to meet our initial 2030 Paris commitment.
• 96% of respondents believe that the longer Australia delays decarbonisation, the more abrupt, forceful and disruptive the policy response will need to be, especially for carbon-intensive industries.
• 76% of business respondents surveyed do not believe that Australia should be able to use Kyoto carryover units to achieve its 2030 emission reduction target. Just 7% agree.
• The survey reveals that 83% of business respondents support a national target of net-zero emissions by 2050. 89% support a market mechanism that prices carbon with 82% supporting linkages to international markets to allow the import and export of carbon credits.
• Considering current national policy and the lack of a long-term strategy, 82% of survey respondents agree it is appropriate for state governments to set and implement their own 2050 targets and related policies.