The careful balance Anthony Albanese, Chris Bowen must strike on 2035 emissions target
The problem with shooting for the stars on climate change ambition is that countries invariably set themselves up for failure.
Anthony Albanese and Chris Bowen will this week set a 2035 emissions reduction target they believe is achievable and will not undermine Australia’s energy reliability.
Australia is already going harder on renewables and spending more on climate change than most countries but remains on track to fall short of existing 2030 targets, promising to slash emissions by 43 per cent below 2005 levels and increase renewables in the grid to 82 per cent.
China, the US, India and Russia – the world’s biggest polluters who account for the majority of global carbon emissions – aren’t even trying to achieve targets.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who has forged a close relationship with Albanese, last week joined other world leaders in watering down expectations that Canada can achieve its 2030 and 2035 emissions reduction targets.
Carney says he is focused on climate results rather than objectives for Canada, which adopted a relatively conservative 45-50 per cent 2035 target.
US President Donald Trump, who will meet with Albanese in New York next week, has pulled out of the Paris Agreement and dismantled Joe Biden’s green agenda. And many Western nations are relying on zero-emissions nuclear energy to lower emissions.
Albanese and Bowen, who last Friday received Climate Change Authority advice on a 2035 target investigating a range of between 65-75 per cent, know whatever they land on will be attacked by those who say it is “too low or too high”.
Teals, climate activists, some Labor MPs, environmentalists and the Greens want the target to be at least 70 per cent or higher. Some in the business community believe the target should be in the late 50s. Many in the Coalition don’t want a target.
Senior government figures are cognisant of not announcing an unattainable 2035 target. Because emissions reduction is not a linear exercise, they are leaning towards a range. This thinking will likely deliver a target in the early-to-mid 60s range.
As gas development remains stalled and more coal-fired power plants retire by the end of the decade, the government is desperate to streamline environmental laws and attract more funding to turbocharge renewables.
A 2035 target, which will be accompanied by new Treasury modelling and an updated Net Zero Plan, carries significant political risk for Labor if it is not achievable.
There are already concerns about the potential of gas shortages and electricity blackouts during the net-zero transition. Negative impacts on energy reliability, costs for households and businesses and job losses in mining regions would be political poison for any government.
Ahead of the 2035 target reveal, Bowen on Monday released a climate change doomsday report that read like a script from a natural disaster movie.
As with biblical plagues, no Australian will be spared from the devastation of intensifying and more severe storms, cyclones, heatwaves, bushfires, flooding, erosion, acidic oceans and mega-droughts.
The National Climate Risk Assessment report warned that without stronger action, more Australians will die, crop yields will decrease, vector-borne diseases will rise, illnesses will worsen, productivity will drop, supply chains will be broken and 1.5 million more people will come under threat from rising sea levels.
It says every Australian industry, job and family will be touched by global warming, which is being fuelled by China, India and the US. Health systems, telecommunications and energy networks, air quality, water security, farming, fisheries, freight, property values and insurance premiums will be hit hard.
Bowen said the “absolute minimum” required to avoid climate-induced catastrophes was net zero by 2050. “It’s not too late to avoid the worst of the impacts. As the report makes clear, the difference in terms of impact between 1.5C and 2C, let alone 3C, is very real for Australia,” he said.
From western Sydney heatwaves to increasing coral bleaching risks at Ningaloo, no corner of Australia is safe from impending climate doom.
For those sick of hearing about a 2050 deadline, the risk assessment introduces a new milestone of 2090, which is mentioned 107 times. Damage-related losses valued up to $770bn are estimated under a worst-case scenario by 2100. There are 25 mentions of 2100 scenarios.
Albanese and Bowen, who are still trying to win the rights to host next year’s UN COP31 summit, must strike a careful balance on a 2035 target.
To placate climate activists and put Australia in a position to achieve the aim of net zero by 2050, Labor’s 2035 target will be bold, but the pragmatic Albanese will resist a target that makes households worse off, blows up Australian jobs or turns off the lights.
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