‘Worse than Scott Morrison’: PM attacks Dutton over revival of climate wars

Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen’s office released projections compiled by the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water showing Australia’s emissions were on track to be 42 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030, falling just short of the target.

The government has pledged to raise the share of renewables to 82 per cent by 2030, which is a key component of its legislated climate target to cut emissions by 43 per cent from 2005 levels in the same time frame.

Australian Industry Group climate change and energy director Tennant Reed said Australia had “all the tools, policy- and planning-wise, to achieve that target”.

“It is plausible that we will achieve it, and if we don’t, it will be because we haven’t been approving and building new construction – particularly energy infrastructure, as fast as we need to. So that is collectively up to us.”

Albanese said business, industry and Australia’s Pacific neighbours needed certainty in the nation’s emissions-reduction targets.

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“Australians know that the world is moving towards a clean energy future. The whole global economy is in a transformation. This is an opportunity as well as a challenge,” he said.

Built into the Paris Agreement are commitments that countries do not revise their targets down from previously agreed targets.

Smart Energy Council acting chief executive Richie Merzian said if a future Coalition government sought to do so, “Australia would breach the spirit, if not the law, of the Paris Agreement”.

“It would ruin our international standing, and it would also be really economically harmful,” he said.

“Right now, there’s a race upwards to invest in building climate solutions. So right now, when we’re competing for global investment, we’re competing to even just keep Australian businesses here who want to build the solutions and the products of the future, this would just be the absolute worst signal that we could send them.”

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