OECD Environmental Performance Reviews provide independent assessments of countries’ progress towards their environmental policy objectives. Reviews promote peer learning, enhance government accountability, and provide targeted recommendations aimed at improving environmental performance, individually and collectively. They are supported by a broad range of economic and environmental data, and evidence-based analysis.

Over the past decade, one of the most difficult and fractured policy areas has been climate change, energy security and power prices. Just before the 2007 election, former Liberal Prime John Howard belatedly embraced a price on carbon and emissions trading and in 2009 Malcolm Turnbull also supported emissions trading. That was before he was...

The focus of this article is on the treatment in law of marine carbon capture and storage.

Preliminary results from Australia’s first on-road vehicle emissions test program cast doubt over the relevance of laboratory testing and suggest consumers are commonly being misled. Commissioned by the Australian Automobile Association (AAA), the test results also suggest forthcoming national emissions reduction regulations may be based on flawed assumptions. In the wake of the Volkswagen scandal...

In 2015, the Australian Commonwealth Government committed to reducing Australia’s carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions by 26 to 28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. As the electricity sector accounts for around one-third of Australia’s emissions, efforts to reduce economy-wide emissions efficiently will inevitably involve reducing emissions in the electricity sector. This report examines...