Australia’s conservative Liberal-National government has been accused of going in the opposite direction to the rest of the world on climate change.
Climate scientists levelled the accusation in the wake of the release of the latest United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.
ABC News reports the Climate Institute, an independent research organisation, has also called on the Liberal-National government to rethink its commitment to a five per cent carbon emissions reduction target.
While in opposition the coalition gave bipartisan support to a commitment by the Labor government to increase its emissions-reduction target under the right conditions.
The institute said the new IPCC report shows that many of those conditions are now being met, most crucially an increased commitment to emissions reductions by developed nations such as China and the United States.
It says developed countries have committed to average reductions of between 10 and 12 per cent and Australia will now have to play catch-up before next year’s UN climate conference in Peru.
The institute’s chief executive, John Connor, said the government had a commitment not only to the Australian public, but to the international community.
He said Australia had “ignored” the climate action being taken in China and the US.
“While we’ve had this sort of bitter debate in the fishbowl of Australian politics, we’ve ignored the action that’s happening overseas,” he said.
“We’re seeing China put in place seven Emission Trading Schemes (ETS) and there’s talk of another two or so.
“As they head towards this South Korea’s doing the same.
“Mexico, Chile, other countries are looking at that as well, and even South Africa’s looking at putting in a carbon price.
“We’ve ignored the beginning of emissions trading in California, the significant regulatory action that the (President Barack) Obama administration is now doing because they can’t get a carbon market up.”
The Liberal-National government has said it can achieve a five per cent emissions reduction target by 2020 under its so-called Direct Action Plan.
Key aspects of the policy include planting 20 million trees, subsidising solar panels, emissions buy-back and developing soil carbon capture by scientific and economic bodies, including the CSIRO.
Mr Connor said it was not yet clear that even a five per cent reduction could be achieved under the Direct Action Plan, and there was no independent analysis that suggested it would work.
However, the government’s Environment Minister Greg Hunt defended the Coalition’s policy to ABC News.
He said the Government would meet the targets “easily”.
“The way this works is pretty simple. It’s just like a water buy-back. We go in and we purchase the lowest cost emissions reduction.
“Now we’ve done all of that against a worst-case scenario and in fact what I’ve seen since coming into office is that instead of a gap which we have to close of about 750 million tonnes to achieve our global targets,” he said.
“It’s now, as we said before the election, closer to 440 million tonnes.
“We’ll achieve it without a carbon tax and we’ll achieve it by taking pressure off electricity prices.”
The independent Climate Change Authority is expected to deliver its review of emissions targets next month.
In a leaked draft earlier this year, it flagged the possibility of a trebling of the five per cent target and requiring a 40 per cent cut by 2030.
Mr Hunt has reportedly said he will review any recommendations made by the authority, which he is planning to shut down once legislation to that effect can be introduced into parliament.
He also plans to abolish the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and repeal legislation that Labor used to put a price on carbon emissions in 2012.
