Labor emissions policy: Anthony Albanese opts for 40-43 cuts goals

Anthony Albanese has opted for a 2030 emissions target that is not too soft and not too hard, writes David Mills.

Analysis: By promising to cut Australia’s emissions by 40-43 per cent by 2030, Labor leader Anthony Albanese has gone for the Goldilocks zone of greenhouse gas reduction targets – not too soft, but not too hard either.

The target is softer than the 45 per cent target Bill Shorten took to the 2019 election, and it’s less ambitious than the 46-50 per cent goal recently proposed by those green-fringed radicals at the Business Council of Australia.

But it’s a significantly harder target than that of the Coalition, offering voters a clear choice at the next federal election.

Thanks to the intransigence of the Nationals, the Coalition has stuck with its existing Paris Agreement target of 26-28 per cent for 2030, prompting the Prime Minister to talk instead of “forecasts” rather than “targets” at the recent COP26 climate conference in Glasgow.

Scott Morrison told the world Australia was “forecast” to reduce its emissions by 30-35 per cent by 2030 – although it’s interesting to note the way Liberal moderates seem to talk only about the upper edge of that prediction.

Labor’s new 2030 target would put Australia behind the leaders of the pack in the race to cut emissions by the end of the decade, but not too far behind some of our key trading partners, either.

Labor Party leader Anthony Albanese. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

While the Brits are going for a 68 per cent cut by 2030, the EU is opting for 55 per cent and the US is aiming for just over 50 per cent, Labor’s new policy would put Australia roughly in line with – or not far behind – South Korea (40 per cent), Canada (40-45 per cent), and Japan (46 per cent).

It would also probably enable Australia to shrug off that “climate laggard” label, with that mantle falling to some of the heavy emitters like China, Russia and India, all of whom have proposed extremely modest targets for the end of this decade. (China says it will peak its emissions by 2030, while India says it will cut its emissions intensity by a third by then.)

The business community have cautiously welcomed Labor’s new position, with Carbon Market Institute CEO John Connor calling it a “credible target”, but 50 per cent would have been preferable.

Asked whether a 40-43 per cent emissions cut will be enough to see off the possibility of Australian goods being subject to so-called “carbon tariffs” in future years, Mr Connor said Labor’s target would “relax the pressure … but not remove it”.

Climate scientists are also not likely to be too impressed by the lack of ambition in Labor’s new position. In October, the Australian Academy of Technology & Engineering called for a cut of 50 per cent by 2030, with the organisation’s president Hugh Bradlow saying such a goal was “realistically achievable, based on the technology already available.”

The Greens, meanwhile, have called for cuts of 75 per cent by the end of the decade.

With all the politics around emissions targets, it can be easy to lose sight of what they are for, which is to reduce the chance of global warming going beyond the 2 degree barrier.

With the globe having already warmed by more than a degree on pre-industrial levels, it seems more and more scientists are losing faith in that goal.

A recent survey of scientists, published in Nature, found that just one in five now believed global warming could be kept to 2 degrees. Nearly two-thirds now believe a three-degree warmer world is more likely than not by the end of this century.

A three degree warmer world is a nightmare scenario for us all. All efforts must be made to avoid it.

Originally published as Labor emissions policy: Anthony Albanese opts for 40-43 cuts goals