Greens manifesto: shut down coal by 2030
Richard Di Natale has vowed to push Labor to transition completely away from coal power.
Australia would cease exporting coal within 12 years under a Greens policy manifesto aimed at tackling climate change.
Greens leader Richard DiNatale put a 2030 date on when Australia should transition away from coal “both the coal we burn here for power and the coal that we export overseas’’.
Last year coal was Australia’s highest export earning commodity accounting for $66 billion in export revenue.
Senator DiNatale said the Adani coalmine “can’t be built’’ and declared he would spend Easter in an anti-Adani convoy being run by former Greens leader Bob Brown.
Asked whether it was feasible to shut down one of the nation’s biggest export industries overnight, Senator DiNatale said: “Depends if you’re serious about climate change or not.’’
“Coal is the biggest contributor to climate change,’’ Senator DiNatale told the ABC’s Insiders program.
“The Labor Party’s dragging their heels when it comes to climate change. The Liberal Party are dragging their knuckles. And neither party is prepared to do what we need to do to make the transition.
“We’re about to lose the Great Barrier Reef... that incredible natural asset, the 70,000 jobs that depend on it, the Murray-Darling Basin is on life support right now, we’ve had fires and floods, and yet we have two parties who are committing to keep burning coal which is the single biggest contributor to climate change.’’
While Senator Di Natale rejected the idea that the Greens had not learnt lessons from blocking Kevin Rudd’s first emissions trading scheme, he suggested the party opposed Labor’s latest cap and trade scheme.
“At the moment, (Bill Shorten) seems more intent on adopting the Liberal Party’s energy and climate policies talking to the Greens,” he said.
Senator Di Natale said he had “reached out” to Bill Shorten and said if Labor was elected, his party would lobby Labor toward more radical policies on climate change.
“At the moment, what he’s doing is adopting a weaker policy on climate than the policy he took in 2016, which is weaker again than the 2013 policy,” he said.
“What we need is some leadership from Bill Shorten. And the Greens, in the Senate, will work hard, cooperatively, pushing Labor, holding them to account and making sure we do what needs to be done.”
Senator Penny Wong has responded to the criticism, and said the Greens appeared to be mimicking their past behaviour.
“This is the same old line the Greens used when voting with Abbott and co to torpedo Labor’s climate plan. A decade of inaction followed. I know the Greens’ priority is often on differentiating from Labor, but surely the priority is to elect a government that will act on climate.”