No net zero – but what exactly is in the Liberal energy plan?

The Liberal Party’s new climate and energy policy, announced on Thursday, would scrap Australia’s commitment to net zero emissions by 2050 and open the public coffers to support new and existing coal and gas plants while maintaining a promise to scrap the legal ban on nuclear energy.

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley and climate change and energy spokesman Dan Tehan said that, if elected, the Liberals would guarantee that the nation’s emissions would fall year by year, but the Albanese government’s ambitious climate goals would be wound back.

The Liberals would also scrap the government’s existing emissions reduction measures, such as the fuel efficiency standards and electric vehicle tax breaks, the safeguard mechanism that forces big polluters such as factories to cut their greenhouse output, ditch the controversial $20 billion “rewiring the nation” fund and repeal Australia’s renewables target to deliver 82 per cent clean electricity by 2030.

What is in the new plan?

The new policy’s crucial difference to that of former opposition leader Peter Dutton is that support for large scale nuclear plants has been replaced by a scheme that could deliver public funds to coal and gas power, emerging nuclear technology, long-duration batteries and solar panels on commercial premises.

Dutton’s plan, which was rejected in the Coalition’s landslide election loss in the May federal election, was to use public funds to build seven nuclear plants across the country to replace Australia’s ageing fleet of coal plants. He also refused to set an interim target but committed to keeping a legislated net zero target by 2050.

Dan Tehan with Sussan Ley at the Thursday afternoon press conference.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

The new policy drops the commitment to build nuclear plants, emphasises government support would be available to all types of energy generation and said it would prevent coal plants shutting before replacement is available.

A Liberal government would support “new and existing generation with modest, targeted underwriting” and provide support for “breakthrough technologies”, including carbon capture and storage.

“You can have brand-new coal which comes with carbon capture and storage, and that can actually be zero emissions,” Tehan told the ABC, having earlier said that: “Victoria, NSW and Queensland, who are already sweating their coal assets, we will support them because we have got to make sure we keep capacity in the system.”

Carbon capture and storage traps greenhouse gas emissions from polluting industries such as power stations or heavy manufacturers and injects them into underground rock formations. The technology is contentious and has been dismissed by its many detractors as too expensive and commercially unproven.

Long-running technical problems at Chevron’s giant carbon sequestration plant off the coast of Western Australia, the world’s biggest CCS operation, have added to doubts about the technology’s ability to function at scale.

What does ditching net zero mean for Australia?

The Coalition’s commitment to ditch net zero by 2050 would, if implemented, see Australia join the world’s biggest polluters, China and India, who are both signatories to the Paris Agreement but in breach of its goal.

The Liberal Party on Thursday announced it would follow the lead of its Nationals colleagues and ditch the climate goal from its policy platform, promising to reduce emissions in line with comparable countries without providing detail.

Anne Ruston, Dan Tehan, Sussan Ley and Jonno Duniam announce the Liberal Party’s policy platform.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

The Coalition parties have now both said Australia would remain a signatory of the Paris Agreement under their policies.

The Paris Agreement, which Australia committed to in 2016 under the Turnbull government, also prohibits signatories from backsliding on their targets. Ley said a Liberal government would change the law to remove Labor’s existing target to cut emissions by at least 62 per cent by 2035 and net zero by 2050, but she did not elaborate on how this would be compatible.

“If there are reasons why people in Paris or in some United Nations organisation don’t like it, I can deal with that,” she said.

There are no financial penalties for ditching a net zero timeframe. If Australia did so, it would mean the nation had weaker goals than China and India, which have committed to reaching net zero by 2060 and 2070 respectively.

What is the Paris Agreement?

The Paris Agreement is a legally binding treaty between 195 parties, which includes the European Union as a single entity. The US started the withdrawal process in 2024, after Donald Trump was elected US President.

The goal of the Paris Agreement is to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees, preferably to 1.5 degrees, above pre-industrial levels. It requires countries to cut emissions consistently with the international action required to reach this goal.

Global warming is currently just below 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels on a trend basis and will exceed this level in the next handful of years. Global emissions are rising, and this must be rapidly reversed to halt the warming process.

The Albanese government in 2022 set a legally binding commitment for Australia to reach net zero emissions by 2050.

Why is 2050 the deadline for net zero?

The United Nations scientific panel, which is subject to peer review by thousands of independent experts, has found that to limit warming to less than 2°C the world must achieve net zero emissions by 2050.

Professor Mark Howden is the former Director of the Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions at the Australian National University, who also serves as a Vice Chair of the UN’s chief climate body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“If global emissions fall steadily, following a linear track to reach net zero by 2050, global warming would likely reach around 1.7 degrees,” Howden said.

“The idea that net zero by 2050 is now consistent with a 1.5 degrees goal is not correct. To stick to 1.5 degrees, net zero CO2 emissions is not only necessary, but it is insufficient. We would also need to take CO2 out of the atmosphere permanently. In other words, go net negative CO2 emissions.”

To meet the Paris Agreement temperature goals, over the next 25 years Australia must consistently set and achieve ambitious targets, rather than deliver a massive cut just before the 2050 deadline.

That is because carbon dioxide emissions build up in the atmosphere and it is necessary to lower these as much as possible as soon as possible to reduce the rate and upper limit of global warming.

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