By its own admission, the government’s Direct Action plan is not suitable for achieving substantial long-term emissions reductions – even the promised 5% target can’t be guaranteed, if it costs too much – and its “baseline” mechanisms for capping industrial emissions are so high that they’ve been likened to setting a limbo bar two metres off the ground. She called on his Coalition government to change course in deciding upon the Paris targets.
Advertisement
The federal government is set to reveal its post-2020 carbon emissions reduction target. And tried to dismantle the remainder. “We have no plans at the moment for further surveys”.
The government has come up with a “responsible” target that would not harm Australia’s resource-driven economy, Xinhua cited Prime Minister Tony Abbott as saying on Tuesday.
New Zealand’s climate target, announced last month, is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.
In effect, it extends the exceptionalism that Australia sought for itself at the original Kyoto talks in 1997, when it managed to secure an increase in emissions as its target.
The target is also well short of the cuts that the independent Climate Change Authority recommended as Australia’s fair share of a global effort to limit global warming to 2C.
“The Abbott government needs to start listening to everyday Australians scientists and the worldwide community, instead of blocking his ears and acting as a puppet for the dying coal industry”, Senator Waters said.
As you can see in the table below – the target is particularly out of step when you take into account that 1990 is the base year used by the UN, for measuring against targets. Tony Abbott wants to have cover to argue the government is doing something about emissions reduction. It is in the bottom three of aggregate targets from a range of different years, and on reductions per year.
As with its proposals about higher education reform, tax reform, IR reform, infrastructure investment, indigenous constitutional recognition, and a host of other issues, the Abbott government’s words bear no relation to its actions. His government has axed a program that put a price on carbon emissions, criticized wind farms and sought to ensure the future of coal, Australia’s second-largest export earner. But he dismissed any possibility of carbon pricing and declared that any measures the government takes must not hurt the economy. Another graph from the Climate Institute shows that most other countries are making similar cuts, and some even greater depending on the base year.
“This is fairly and squarely in the middle of comparable economies”, Abbott said.
Labor has said it will listen to the advice of bodies like the CCA, and wants a target in line with meeting the 2C goal.
The target could go as high as 28 per cent, Abbott said.
“The Prime Minister’s proposed 2030 target would make Australia the most polluting developed nation per capita by far in 2030, and prolong our reliance on dirty and outdated energy sources”, said Environment Victoria CEO Mark Wakeham on Tuesday.
“Yes it’s challenging, but good policy design can cover those challenges”.
Advertisement
Mr Hunt did not refute the prospect that the cuts would also rely on the decline in Australia’s manufacturing industry – the most heavy-emitting sector in the economy; but he would not detail what assumptions were made in the government’s modelling.
