Federal Opposition Labor leader Anthony Albanese’s offer to the conservative Liberal-National Party government to end the climate war between the two has copped an immediate rebuke from Australia’s leading think tank on climate change, the Climate Council.
Mr Albanese had urged the Liberal-National government to work with Labor on a bipartisan energy policy, arguing the two sides do not need to agree on emissions targets to make progress.
In a letter to Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Mr Albanese said there was “much to admire” in the government’s so-called technology roadmap, released last month, but it was not a national energy policy.
That drew a response from the Climate Council CEO Amanda McKenzie: “The Climate Council is disappointed that Federal Labor Opposition leader Anthony Albanese has failed to provide leadership on climate change.”
In a speech at the National Press Club that echoed his letter Mr Albanese said; “It is a roadmap that says where we are going as a country, but it doesn’t answer the question of how we get there,” he said.
“We have an opportunity to move beyond past partisan approaches to energy policy, to draw on the community’s clear desire for more bipartisan approaches to difficult policy areas, and to finally deliver an enduring, effective and bipartisan energy policy for Australia.”
Rejecting Mr Albanese’s proposals Ms McKenzie said; “The job of an opposition is to hold the government accountable.
“It is also Mr Albanese’s job to push forward ideas, but that didn’t happen at the Press Club this afternoon.”
“Supporting carbon capture and storage is nuts.
“This is expensive, unproven technology designed to prolong the life of polluting fossil fuels,” she said.
“Australia has recently endured catastrophic bushfires and widespread bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef.
“On Saturday, temperatures reached 38 degrees in the Arctic.
“The economic shocks from climate change will get worse and worse.
“More than ever we need vision for our future and action on climate change. We need our federal leaders to do much better,” said Ms McKenzie.
Mr Albanese said Labor would not push for a specific model for an investment framework and was not calling for a return to the National Energy Guarantee (NEG), dumped by the Liberal-National government in the wake of former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s downfall, or the Clean Energy Target.
Mr Albanese said the offer of bipartisan support to the Prime Minister was “genuine”.
“We’ve been talking with the experts, we’ve been talking with investors and more importantly we’ve been talking to the community and I think the community wants to see solutions,” he said.
“This isn’t about getting rid of all disappointment between the two parties, I outline our strong support for climate change action in my signed statement today.”
The Labor leader said his party would support the development of carbon capture and storage (CCS), which involves capturing carbon dioxide and burying it deep underground.
However, he said these projects should not be funded by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) or the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) as recommended by a recent review, arguing support should not be diverted from renewable energy.
Mr Albanese said Labor would not push for a specific model for an investment framework.
Energy Minister Angus Taylor criticised Mr Albanese’s speech today at the National Press Club, arguing it left a lot of questions unanswered.
“They didn’t explain how their energy policies will create a single job,” he said.
“They didn’t explain how they’re going to bring down prices, how they’re going to keep the lights on, they didn’t explain what their targets were and they didn’t explain how they’re going to achieve those targets.”
Labor also remains opposed to the Emissions Reduction Fund, which pays organisations to reduce their carbon emissions, but Mr Albanese said the party would respect all contracts, including those relating to CCS.
Mr Albanese said it was “only by working together” that Australia could recover from the COVID-19 crisis and that disagreement over emissions reduction targets did not mean a bipartisan energy policy could not be reached.
The Liberal-National government insists it is on track to meet its target of reducing emissions by 26 to 28 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030.
In launching the technology roadmap, Mr Taylor said it was aimed at driving investment in low-emissions technologies, without putting extra pressure on the economy, and that more detail would be released later this year.
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Both puppets financed by the revolving door of the fossil fuel industry at the peril of the Australian people and our environment.
Also funded and controlled by the fossil fuel industry.