Greens, pro-climate crossbenchers say they won’t support any weakening of Labor’s emissions reduction targets

The Greens, pro-climate crossbenchers vow to block any attempt by a future Coalition government to weaken targets, as Peter Dutton says the Libs can and must win back teal seats.

Greens leader Adam Bandt said Peter Dutton is ‘wasting airtime talking about climate targets he would never have the power to change’. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

The Greens and pro-climate Senate crossbenchers are vowing to block any attempt by a future ­Coalition government to weaken Australia’s legislated emissions reduction targets, as Peter Dutton says the Liberal Party can and must win back teal seats.

Greens leader Adam Bandt said “even if against all odds” the Coalition formed minority government at the next poll, Labor’s existing laws would prevent Mr Dutton adopting a lower 2030 target than the Albanese government’s 43 per cent legislated one. Under the Climate Change Act 2022, which lays out Labor’s 2030 and 2050 goals, any new targets under the Paris Agreement “must represent an enhancement of Australia’s level of ambition”.

The Australian understands parts of the bill would have to be repealed in order for a future government to set lower targets under the accord.

More than a dozen other laws that reference Australia’s obligations under the Paris Agreement, such as the New Vehicle ­Efficiency Standards Act, would also need to be amended.

“The Liberals haven’t got a chance in hell at winning the next election, and existing climate legislation has been Dutton-proofed so he can’t weaken the targets even if he wanted to,” Mr Bandt said.

Mr Dutton has refused to say if a government he led would adopt lower emissions reduction targets than Labor, despite his declaration in The Weekend Australian there was “no sense in signing up to targets you don’t have any prospect of achieving”.

The Australian asked Mr Dutton’s office if he would attempt to repeal the Climate Change Act if he won the next election, to which a Liberal Party spokesman said: “We are committed to addressing climate change. The Coalition is committed to delivering net zero by 2050 and we will set out a clear pathway to reach it.”

ACT independent senator David Pocock said if he was re-elected he would oppose any weakening of the legislated ­targets.

“We need more ambition, not less, and this means targets that are science-based and in line with keeping global warming to 1.5C or well below 2C,” he said.

“The costs of inaction are huge and I would oppose any legislation that puts such targets, and the future of the people and places we love, in jeopardy.”

Independent Tasmanian senator Tammy Tyrrell, whose term doesn’t expire until mid-2028, said she was more interested in how a future government reached their targets, but the Coalition “would need to come up with something more persuasive to me than what they’re putting forward right now”.

A spokesman for One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, who is also nearly halfway through her six-year term, said the party supported a future Coalition government reducing emissions reduction targets.

Mr Dutton, who remains committed to the Paris Agreement, under which targets can only ratchet up, said the Liberal Party could “of course” win back the blue-ribbon seats it lost to the teals at the last election without an updated 2030 target.

He said voting for a number of the teals, including the member for Kooyong Monique Ryan, would be a vote for Anthony ­Albanese.

“We can win those seats back. We have to, for the sake of our country, because I don’t believe Australians can afford three more years of the Albanese ­government,” the Opposition Leader said.

“The Prime Minister might want to please his friends on the global stage. He loves a good trip … but my job and his job should be to provide support to the Australian public, not to make life harder.

“If they’re saying that we should sign up to a policy where we haven’t seen economic modelling, we haven’t had the advice from Treasury or from the central agencies, and we sign up to it sight unseen, not understanding the impact of it, why would we do that? It would be reckless.”

Mr Albanese, who wouldn’t confirm if he’d announce his government’s 2035 emissions reduction target under Paris before the election, accused Mr Dutton of “an extraordinary failure of leadership”.

“He won’t tell you what he will do before the election. It’s a bit like someone getting on a plane at the new airport on one of those mystery flights where you don’t know where you’re going to go, you don’t know what the destination is, you think you’re going to one direction, but you find yourself on the other part of Australia or the other part of the world and you can’t get off your flight until 2040 because that’s when the nuclear fantasy will land,” he said.

Nationals leader David Littleproud said nuclear power plants would be in National Party seats where retired coal-fired power plants were located and that Australians would “know very soon the specific sites” being proposed.

The fifth straight day of a political brawl over the Opposition Leader’s vow to oppose Labor’s 2030 target – and subsequent confirmation he wouldn’t take his own 2030 or 2035 targets to the election – comes as new polling shows more Australians care about energy affordability but less about reliability and meeting net-zero emissions by 2050.

The poll of 1005 Australians undertaken by Dynata at the start of the month for conservative think tank the Institute of Public Affairs also shows nearly half of respondents (48 per cent) were willing to pay nothing each year for Australia to reduce its emissions to zero by 2050, an increase from 42 per cent in June 2022.

A majority of those surveyed (57 per cent) said affordability should be the main focus of the government’s energy policy, up from 41 per cent two years ago, 24 per cent said reliability should be prioritised compared to 31 per cent in 2022, and 19 per cent ­wanted achieving net zero to be the No.1 goal, a decrease from 28 per cent in 2022.

“When compared to responses from the 2022 results, support for making affordability and reliability the priority of Australia’s energy policy has increased from 72 per cent to 81 per cent,” IPA deputy executive director Daniel Wild said.

“That 81 per cent of Australians think the focus of the nation’s ­energy policy should be affordability or reliability demonstrates that Peter Dutton’s instincts are correct regarding the relatively low priority Australians place on unrealistic emission reduction targets.”