Angus Taylor to rebuff UK and US demands to phase out coal-fired power stations

Energy Minister Angus Taylor will reject calls by Britain and the US to phase out all coal-fired power generation by 2030.

Energy Minister Angus Taylor will reject calls by Britain and the US to phase out all coal-fired power generation by 2030, declaring he would not sign up to Glasgow climate change agreements and targets that negatively impact miners, manufacturers and farmers.

Ahead of travelling to the UN climate change conference next week, Mr Taylor told The Weekend Australian the Morrison government would not agree to commitments that would jeopardise “affordable and reliable” power.

Boris Johnson and Joe Biden – who will be accompanied at the COP26 summit by a majority of their senior cabinet members – are also pushing for greater medium-term climate action from countries including Australia, and agitating for a new global methane emissions target and the end of conventional cars by 2035.

 

With Britain’s COP26 president, Alok Sharma, expected to pressure Australia and other nations to phase out domestic coal power generation by the end of the decade, Mr Taylor said he would “stand up for the Australian way”.

“We won’t be doing anything that wipes out our traditional industries or threatens our electricity grid. We will be continuing to reduce emissions but we’re not going to wipe out industries in the process,” Mr Taylor said.

“I‘ll enjoy, and am looking forward to, proudly explaining to international colleagues the right way to go about this when you’re a country like Australia.”

The UK’s push to phase out coal comes despite the country being gripped by its worst energy crisis in decades and their remaining coal plants helping to plug electricity network gaps.

Mr Taylor said “you can’t trade off prosperity and emissions reduction”.

“Whether it’s within Australia or across the world. The way to reduce emissions is to have low-emissions technologies that strengthen your economy, not weaken them. And that’s as true in developing Asia as it is in Australia,” he said.

“We’ll do this the Australian way, in a way that’s in Australia’s interest. That does mean bringing down emissions but it doesn’t mean damaging those traditional industries agriculture, heavy manufacturing and resources or our energy supply.

“We‘ll be talking Australia’s track record, 20 per cent emissions reduction over the past 15 years, in the same time that China’s emissions have increased by over 70 per cent.”

 

Scott Morrison and Mr Taylor will use COP26 to spruik Australia’s updated medium-term emissions projections, net-zero emissions by 2050 plan and strategies around electric vehicles and low-emissions technologies.

The Prime Minister, who is preparing a response to Nationals MPs’ demands over his net zero by 2050 plan, on Friday said cabinet would decide on the government’s long-term emissions reduction strategy before he travels to Glasgow. Following the G20 summit in Rome next weekend, Mr Morrison will attend the COP26 leaders’ summit before returning to Australia. Mr Taylor is expected to spend a week in Glasgow before joining Mr Morrison in a blitz of seats selling the Coalition’s net-zero strategy.

The Weekend Australian understands if some of the Nationals’ baseline requests in relation to net-zero safeguards are agreed to by Mr Morrison, a majority of Nationals MPs were expected to ask Mr Joyce to make a deal. Senior Nationals sources said if Mr Morrison needed more time, a final decision could be pushed out from a planned Sunday partyroom meeting to Monday.

 

Northern Territory Country Liberal Party Senate candidate Jacinta Price, who will sit in the Nationals party room after the election, on Friday slammed the net-zero push and warned “when inner-city greenies start dictating policies based on emotions and not the hard facts, it’s people out in the bush who suffer”.

“Our government needs to think twice before listening to elites who put their own virtue signalling ahead of everyday Australians,” Ms Price said. “When net zero becomes the goal at any cost, it’s country towns, jobs and wallets that take the hit. And rural Indigenous communities will be hit the hardest.

“The government should not give in to pressure to agree … with no plan to help vulnerable Indigenous and rural communities.”

YouGov polling of coal seats across the country, commissioned by the Blueprint Institute, revealed a shift in sentiment on climate change, net-zero emissions and renewables.

In the central Queensland Nationals seats of Flynn and Capricornia, more than 60 per cent of voters agreed human activity was the main contributor to climate change and that Australia should commit to net zero by 2050.

A majority of voters in the nine Queensland, NSW, Victoria and West Australian regional seats believed the shift to renewables would create new jobs, coal and gas subsidies should be redirected to develop clean hydrogen and large renewable energy projects, and governments and companies should be more transparent about investment in fossil fuels.