US ambassador Caroline Kennedy has challenged jurisdictions like Australia and Europe to match and “beat” President Joe Biden’s vast subsidy-driven decarbonisation strategy and rejected concerns America’s efforts will undermine the competitiveness of trading partners.
However, Mr Cormann indicated that governments were resorting to using price-based incentives in the context of the global energy transition. Mr Cormann said climate policy was similar to taxation; far better to have a global agreement than go-it-alone approaches. Driving the lure is the US government’s promise to cover more than 50 per cent of the capital cost of establishing new projects.“If I have a project in Australia which is going to cost $2 billion, that’s going to cost $1 billion because they’re going to fund half of it,” Dr Forrest said. “And then they’re going to make sure that they cover the first $US3 of costs of producing green hydrogen.”