Chris Bowen’s not for turning on his climate agenda

Chris Bowen is declaring ‘we need to stay the course’ on the rapid shift to green energy and rebuffed claims from experts Labor is not on track to hit its 82 per cent renewables target.

Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen has declared “we need to stay the course” on the rapid shift to green energy. Picture: Martin Ollman/NewsWire

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Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen is declaring “we need to stay the course” on the rapid shift to green energy and has rebuffed claims from experts Labor is not on track to hit its 82 per cent renewables target, warning Australia’s progress on climate action would be put at risk if the Coalition won the election.

While delivering a strident defence of his increasingly controversial energy policy, Mr Bowen claims Peter Dutton cannot be trusted to bring down carbon emissions because “the LNP partyroom is still home to enough climate deniers to effectively veto any meaningful climate action”.

Writing in The Australian, Mr Bowen rejects “out of date” claims from business groups and independent energy experts that Labor was unlikely to meet its target to produce 82 per cent of Australia’s electricity by renewables by 2030.

He also declares Australia is on track to lower carbon emissions by 43 per cent of 2005 levels by 2030, after Victoria Energy Policy Centre director Bruce Mountain told The Australian he didn’t think the Albanese government was going to meet its Paris commitment.

“Under Labor we’re fixing the mess and we’re on track to meet our legislated targets,” Mr Bowen writes. “Our national grid is now 46 per cent renewable and we have more batteries and storage coming online to ensure the cheapest power is available when and where you need it.

“And the report in The Australian yesterday that we are not on track to meet our 82 per cent renewable energy target is out of date, at best. As the Clean Energy Council has pointed out, the investment we have seen in the last year is strong enough to indicate the target is on track.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese meets Lui Poli and other workers on a visit to Rio Tinto’s Boyne Smelters in Gladstone, Queensland, on Tuesday. Picture: Paul Beutel/NewsWire

The federal government’s Climate Change Authority warned in November that “further action” was needed to reach the 82 per cent target, with Mr Mountain and Grattan Institute director Tony Wood among experts who believe it won’t be met.

There have been 15 gigawatts of “new affordable solar and wind generation” come into the market under the Albanese government and four gigawatts of dispatchable energy including batteries, gas and pumped hydro.

With the government coming under pressure from business groups and voters over big increases to electricity prices despite a pre-election promise to reduce bills, Mr Bowen concedes his plan has “not been without its challenges” but progress is being made.

“In three short years, while dealing with the worst global energy crisis since the 1970s, we have made progress,” he writes.

“Of course, three years is not long enough to turn around all the implications of a decade of dysfunction,” he adds. “We need to stay the course.”

Mr Bowen writes in The Australian after it was revealed Labor’s pre-election energy policy modelling was taken down from its website, with experts declaring the key targets in the document were not going to be achieved.

Despite growing scepticism about the viability of green hydrogen, Anthony Albanese on Tuesday said the prospective fuel source had a “role to play in Australia’s future – and indeed that’s recognised around the globe”.

“When the solar industry was starting off decades ago, there were many who said, ‘oh, it doesn’t stack up’,” the Prime Minister said at a aluminium smelter in the Queensland electorate of Flynn.

“We know today that solar energy is the cheapest form of new energy. We have everything that can go into the creation of green hydrogen to create green metals.”

Mr Bowen accuses the Coalition of being a “rabble” on climate and energy policy with its MPs having “different visions of what should power Australia”.

“Leader of the Nationals David Littleproud has promised to tear up contracts of large-scale renewable projects,” Mr Bowen writes.

“Matt Canavan (Nationals senator) frequently calls for more coal-fired power stations to be built and freely admits his party isn’t serious about nuclear energy.

“Barnaby Joyce (Nationals frontbencher), despite previously declaring that nuclear energy was ruled out by matter of cost, now agitates anti-renewables protesters telling them to use their votes as “bullets” against the Prime Minister and myself.

“Ted O’Brien (opposition energy spokesman) invented a carbon price that he then vowed to scrap and announced plans to enrich uranium on Australian shores before mysteriously deleting all references to it from his speech and never mentioning it again.”