BUSA welcomes the release of the White Paper as a trigger for the development of a comprehensive action plan to develop and implement nationally appropriate mitigation actions and mechanisms to support their implementation.
Although there are some areas in the document which are of concern to Business, BUSA believes that the focus should now be on action. In this regard BUSA sees the following elements of an action plan as priorities.
• Development of a comprehensive set of nationally appropriate mitigation actions
• Development of rigorous methodology to finalise the benchmark emission trajectory against which greenhouse gas emission reductions will be measured and to allocate carbon budgets
• Establishment of a national greenhouse gas emission reporting system
• Development of a suite of measures to support implementation of actions.
BUSA believes that these actions should be undertaken for the whole economy and welcomes the commitment in the White Paper for interventions to be subjected to impact assessment.
Successful implementation of the priority actions will require focussed efforts to ensure policy coherence amongst government departments. BUSA highlights the need for coherence in the following areas:
• Reporting requirements of different departments particularly between Departments of Environmental Affairs and Energy
• Development and implementation of mitigation plans by Environmental Affairs and sector plans in the Industrial Policy Action Plan and New Growth Plan
• Recognition of the lead role of the economic departments in development and implementation of economic instruments.
• New plans and assessments to be undertaken by Economic Development.
BUSA welcomes the commitment to partnership with business and industry as set out the White Paper and is committed to a constructive partnership to undertake the extensive work required to implement the White Paper.

Business is already engaged in a number of activities that will contribute to the successful implementation of some of the flagship programs like the National Water Conservation and Demand Management Strategy and implementation of the National Energy Efficiency Strategy.

The renewable energy sector has responded with enthusiasm to the Government’s recent Request For Proposals in a range of renewable energy technologies.

A number of potential energy from waste projects have been identified the development of the Waste Management Flagship Programme, which will establish the GHG mitigation potential of the waste management sector, is welcomed.

Business has voluntarily collected and submitted emission data to Government for the last three national inventories and the recent update and remains committed toworking with Government to implement the White Paper.