Regulation of greenhouse gas emissions generated by major projects: scoping out the roles of the commonwealth and state/territory governments

Responsibility for making and administering laws relating to the environment, including greenhouse gas emissions, is divided between the Commonwealth and State/Territory Governments. For the most part, the different governments generally pursue their own law and policy agendas for addressing greenhouse gas emissions. One consequence of this is that stakeholders are left with a regulatory regime comprising an inconsistent and unsatisfactory patchwork of laws which, in the context of major projects, is not effectively integrated within established environmental and planning laws. The purpose of this article is twofold. First, it identifies the main ways in which the Commonwealth and State/Territory Governments have sought to regulate the greenhouse gas emissions associated with major projects, with a view to illuminating the unsatisfactory state of the existing regulatory regime. Second, it outlines some ways in which the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions in this context may be more effectively delineated and managed in future.