Labor sets 43 per cent emissions reduction target for 2030

Labor leader Anthony Albanese has set a new target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 43 per cent by 2030 if he wins power at the next election, clearing the policy with senior colleagues ahead of a meeting of MPs to confirm the plan.

The Labor shadow cabinet agreed on the target on Friday morning in a pivotal decision that exceeds the forecast of 35 per cent which Prime Minister Scott Morrison took to the United Nations climate summit in Glasgow last month.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese has set a target of 43 per cent emissions cut by 2030.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

Mr Albanese said the cost to the budget over the forward estimates is almost $700 million, but it will create 604,000 new jobs by 2030, with five out of every six in regional areas. He said it would spur $52 billion of private sector investment.

“We will establish a ‘powering the regions’ fund from the existing emissions reduction funding Climate Solutions Fund, but in addition to that, we allocate up to $3 billion of the national reconstruction fund for industries to adapt and grow,” Mr Albanese said on Friday.

The plan will rely on a little-known element of the federal government’s current policy, known as the Safeguard Mechanism, to do more of the work in achieving bigger cuts to emissions.

The mechanism caps the emissions at about 200 large companies in sectors like resources and industrial production, but the government has set generous caps that do not expect significant cuts.

The Labor approach could be more demanding in order to deepen the cuts from the government forecast of 35 per cent to the Labor goal of 43 per cent.

Mr Albanese said that specific number was arrived at by starting with what Australia can do to grow jobs, reduce emissions and cut power prices, rather than from an arbitrary target.

“What we didn’t do was adopt a target and then work back. What we did was work through what other good policy mechanisms will see a growth in jobs, a reduction in emissions, growth in renewables and a reduction in power prices for households and business, and then see where that came up through the modelling,” he said.

“The comprehensive plan, the modelling shows will result in a 43 per cent reduction by 2030 on 2005 levels.”

Both Labor and the Coalition agree on reaching net zero emissions by 2050, the commitment Mr Morrison took to the Glasgow talks.

The Labor target will also be accompanied by specific measures to reduce emissions in sectors of the economy, with Mr Albanese preparing to claim he has a more detailed plan than the Coalition.

But the policy will abandon a previous election pledge on fuel standards out of concern over a possible Coalition scare campaign on petrol prices.

The government has a formal target to cut emissions by 26 to 28 per cent by 2030 from the levels of 2005 and Mr Morrison has emphasised this goal in his remarks within Australia, but he used his speech to the Glasgow summit to forecast a 35 per cent cut by 2030 without mentioning the lower official target.

Greens leader Adam Bandt wants a 75 per cent target for 2030 and net zero emissions by 2035.

The new Labor target sets out a middle ground on climate but steps back slightly from the 45 per cent target the party took to the last federal election under former leader Bill Shorten.

Mr Morrison claimed at the last election the Labor plan would incur a $35 billion cost on the country’s biggest 250 companies but Bloomberg NEF global head of special projects Kobad Bhavnagri dismissed that argument during the campaign as “cherry-picking” the data with unreliable projections.

“A 43 per cent target isn’t safe for the Hunter, not safer Gladstone, not safer for Belgrave, not safer for our manufacturers, not for safer jobs,” Mr Morrison told reporters on Friday morning.

“Labor has learned nothing, that is what today’s announcement showed. When oppositions don’t learn, that does not mean they are safe. They are just as dangerous as they have always been.”

Labor acknowledged in its review of its election loss that it has lost voters with some of its positions on the environment, particularly the Adani coal mining proposal in Queensland.

“Labor’s climate change policy won the Party votes among young and affluent older voters in urban areas,” wrote former federal cabinet minister Craig Emerson and former South Australian premier Jay Weatherill in their review for the party.

“Labor’s ambiguous language on Adani, combined with some anti-coal rhetoric and the Coalition’s campaign associating Labor with the Greens in voters’ minds, devastated its support in the coal mining communities of regional Queensland and the Hunter Valley.”

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