2030 is not a medium-term climate target: Anthony Albanese

Anthony Albanese has left the door open to having no specific climate change targets before 2050.

Anthony Albanese has committed to holding a national conference before the next election. Picture: NCA Newswire / Gaye Gerard

Anthony Albanese has committed to holding a national conference before the next election and has left the door open to having no specific climate change targets before 2050.

The Opposition Leader said the year 2030 “isn’t a medium-term target” and did not commit to any specific goals before 2050.

“2030 isn’t a medium-term target,” Mr Albanese told the ABC, when asked if Labor would take a 2030 or 2035 target to the election.

“We will take a comprehensive plan to get to zero net emissions by 2050 to the next election. That will include a range of issues, both how we’ll get there, but also consistent with that end objective.

“We determined the 2030 target in 2015. Since then, there’s been two elections. By the next election, there would have been three and we would have been halfway through the period.”

When asked if that meant Labor would have no targets before 2050, Mr Albanese declared: “I’m not saying that at all” and committed to holding a national conference to finalise the party’s platform.

“There will be an ALP National Conference. There is a process. We are working it through,” Mr Albanese said.

"Everyone knows what the end point is. But you need to know when you speak about medium-term targets, what’s your starting point.”

The leaked draft platform, as revealed in The Australian on Tuesday, makes no mention of a 2030 or 2035 emissions reduction or renewable energy targets.

Mr Albanese is facing an internal push to drop medium-term targets and focus on a policy of net-zero emissions by 2050.

The 2018 platform would have committed a Bill Shorten-led government to an emissions reduction target of 45 per cent of 2005 levels by 2030, and a 50 per cent renewable energy target.

The absence of a 2030 or 2035 target from the party’s platform does not preclude Mr Albanese from going to the election with a medium-term target but gives his team flexibility.

Mr Albanese is facing a revolt from left-wing unions over his political strategy and decision to condense the party’s platform.

In a letter to Labor figures who are drafting the platform, Socialist Left faction convener Dylan Wight said major unions did not have confidence in the draft policy platform.

He wrote the letter on behalf of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, the Electrical Trades Union, the Community and Public Sector Union, the Meat Workers Union, the Australian Services Union, the Communication Workers Union and the United Firefighters Union.

Mr Wight wrote that Labor’s policy agenda needed to be “bold”, saying the “pursuit of a small target strategy has never served our party well”.

He said unions would lobby against watering down the platform produced in 2018 because “we need detailed and courageous reforms now more than ever”.

“The removal of 75 per cent of the content from the previous 2018 platform does not make this a more appealing document,” Mr Wight wrote. “Much of the detail in previous platforms took generations to develop — to see that detail gutted in this manner is incredibly disappointing.

“Now is the time to be bold — we have the ability to reset local supply chains and once again become a self-sufficient nation, create a strong public sector and provide social justice for our most vulnerable. In order to achieve this, we must have the confidence that the party has the policies to help working people recover from the worst economic disaster since the great depression.”