A group of the nation’s biggest carbon emitters say they can slash their carbon emissions by 92 per cent by 2050 and challenged critics of the government’s heavy industry CO2 reduction plan to drop short-term political objectives and back modest use of offsets.

In a major report after three years’ work by a large range of key players including the CSIRO, capital managers AustralianSuper, industry groups like AiG, and BHP, BlueScope, Orica, Wesfarmers Chemicals and Woodside Energy among others, the group found industry can evolve to survive in a near zero-carbon future.