Australia’s conservative Liberal-National government has told federal parliament it does not intend to increase its climate change commitment before the next major international meeting, and says it is not due to set a new target until 2025.
The statement was made after the British host of the upcoming COP26 meeting, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and United Nations secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, urged all countries to lift their targets to include net zero emissions by 2050, noting 121 nations had already done so.
Guardian Australia reports the opposition Labor Party’s Pat Conroy asked Angus Taylor, the energy and emissions reduction minister, in February whether Australia was due under the United Nations sponsored Paris Agreement to submit a new or updated commitment this year and, if not, when it was expected.
In a written response on May 12, Mr Taylor said the government planned to “recommunicate” its current commitment, known as a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), before a UN climate conference in Glasgow, which has been postponed until next year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Guardian Australia reports Mr Taylor said Australia’s next commitment, including a target for 2035 or 2040, was not due until 2025.
Analyses have found Australia’s commitment, a 26 per cent to 28 per cent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared with 2005 levels, is not enough to play its part in meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement.
The government received advice in 2015 from the Climate Change Authority that its fair share under a meaningful global deal over that time would be a cut of 45 per cent to 63 per cent.
Guardian Australia reports Mark Butler, Labor’s climate change and energy spokesman, said the answer showed the government of Prime Minister Scott Morrison was not serious about the Paris Agreement or protecting Australians from the dangerous impacts of climate change.
“Their climate policy is still centred around funnelling billions of taxpayers’ dollars to big polluters and they are still arguing for the construction of a new coal-fired power station,” he said.
“If they were serious about action on climate change, they would take the advice of scientists, the international community, experts, industry and business, who have called for a target of net zero emissions by 2050.
“Having a target would frame policy decisions and give investors confidence.”
Guardian Australia reports in a statement, a spokesman for Mr Taylor said the government was working on its “re-communication” of its current commitment.
“This will outline the real and meaningful action Australia is taking to reduce emissions.
“It won’t change our 2030 target, which is set,” he said.
The spokesman said to date only four countries had formally submitted a net zero emissions target to the UN.
The government has promised a long-term emissions reduction strategy, which it says will be released before the Glasgow meeting and build on a technology investment roadmap.
While Mr Morrison, last year agreed at the Pacific Island Forum that Australia’s plans may include commitments and strategies to reach net zero by 2050,
Mr Taylor now says that is not the government’s policy.
Guardian Australia reports in response to other questions from Labor, Mr Taylor conceded Australia was expected to emit more between 2021 and 2030 than would be expected to meet its Paris Agreement target.
He said it was estimated the country would emit 5169m tonnes of carbon dioxide over that time, when under the target it could emit only between 4710m and 4777m tonnes.
He said this did not take into account Australia’s “overachievement against previous targets” – a reference to the government’s controversial plan to count carbon credits from a different climate agreement against its Paris Agreement goal, or cuts from policies still being developed, including a promised electric vehicle strategy.
Labor has supported net zero emissions for Australia by 2050, but said it would review its mid-term target, which had been a 45 per cent cut by 2030, after losing last year’s election.
The Paris Agreement says countries will put forward a commitment every five years.
A related agreement asks countries that initially set targets for 2025 to submit a new one by 2020, and those that used a 2030 time frame to “communicate or update” their commitment by 2020.
Guardian Australia reports Dr Bill Hare, head of science and policy thinktank Climate Analytics and a long-term adviser to developing countries at UN climate negotiations, said he believed there was a legal obligation on all countries to increase their ambition.
He said the term “recommunicate” did not appear anywhere in the Paris Agreement or related documents, and Australia’s current target was “transparently inadequate”.
Dean Bialek, a former Australian diplomat to the UN, now working with the Mission 2020 campaign led by ex-UN climate chief Christiana Figueres, said the confirmation that Australia intended to submit the same “very weak” target it took to Paris revealed two things.
“First, the government remains deaf to the widespread calls from business, banks and bushfire-ravaged communities that we need to be heading for a much safer climate future,” he said.
“Second, despite the crystal clear science, and the green energy bonanza on the horizon, there is no real government plan to reduce emissions, rather an obsession with a gas-led recovery and a CCS (carbon capture and storage) lifeline to a coal industry in steep decline.”
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One Response
Australia ruled by the revolving door of the fossil fuel industry mass corruption.