Labor MPs urge Anthony Albanese to be climate ambitious

Josh Burns and Anne Aly are urging Anthony Albanese to adopt a more ambitious 2030 emissions reduction target than the government’s 35 per cent projection.

Labor MP Josh Burns.

Labor MPs Josh Burns and Anne Aly are urging Anthony Albanese to adopt a more ambitious 2030 emissions reduction target than the government’s 35 per cent projection, as the opposition prepares to finalise its climate change policy ahead of Christmas.

Mr Burns, who represents the Melbourne electorate of Macnamara, said the federal government needed to lead on climate change action rather than leave the heavy lifting in the next decade to the states. “We need to be more ambitious than the government is,” he said, adding that the projection of 35 per cent would not be a strong enough formal target.

“As we transition, the benefit to Australia is immense. The Business Council, who are not a group of bleeding-heart lefties, understand how important it is for Australia’s economic security that climate action is strong.

“Australia should be taking a leading role instead of being a laggard on the international community, as we are under Angus Taylor and Scott Morrison.”

Dr Aly, who represents the West Australian seat of Cowan, said she believed Labor’s 2030 target should be higher than 35 per cent. “We should follow what the science says, and the science says it is possible to go higher,” she said.

Debate is under way within Labor on how the party should calibrate its climate change agenda, after the Prime Minister committed Australia to a net-zero emissions by 2050 target at the Glasgow conference last week.

Mr Morrison retained Australia’s formal 2030 target of reducing emissions by 26-28 per cent of 2005 levels, but told the conference the government expected to lower emissions by 35 per cent in the same period.

The combined interim targets of the state and territories would lower Australia’s emissions by between 37 and 42 per cent, according to ClimateWorks Australia.

The Opposition Leader has committed to having a more ambitious climate policy than the government but has left the door open to adopting Mr Morrison’s 35 per cent projection as Labor’s formal 2030 target.

NSW Right MP Mike Freelander said Labor should adopt the government’s 2030 projection as its formal target, a policy that would be more ambitious than the Coalition’s and leave an Albanese government room to beat its commitments. He said Labor should formulate new targets for 2035 and 2040 if it got into government rather than focus on international commitments from the opposition benches.

“We need to be ambitious but not delusional,” Dr Freelander said. “We need to be doing things that would improve our emissions and at the same time make sure we don’t blindly follow some of the things that have been suggested in Glasgow, like signing up to abolishing coal production in the shorter term.

“It is very easy if you don’t have a coal industry to say things like that, but we need to be very careful of that. We need to think very hard about how we provide jobs for people in industries that are naturally going to gradually reduce.

“I’m very conscious it is easy for people like me to talk about closing mines and reducing coal. It is not going to affect my job but it will affect others.”

Bill Shorten suffered major swings in resources regions at the last election, with Mr Morrison weaponising the Labor leader’s pledge to lower emissions by 45 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030.

While the Business Council of Australia labelled Mr Shorten’s target as “economy wrecking”, the group now backs a 46-50 per cent target amid more ambitious targets being adopted by most of Australia’s trading partners.

Hard heads within Labor are pushing for the party to avoid overreaching, with some believing a range of between 35 and 40 per cent would limit government fear campaigns in the regions.

One Labor Left MP said many people within caucus would be comfortable with a formal 2030 target of 35 per cent, given it is well above the government’s commitment of 26-28 per cent.

”It is not a bidding war because people in the real world are not interested in targets,” the MP said.

“If we said the target was going to be 90 per cent by next year, the Greens would say it wasn’t enough. We have got to do something better than 26 per cent but it ain’t going to be 45 per cent.”

A Right faction MP said: “It is not about targets, it is about what you do”.

In the Hunter Valley on Monday, Mr Morrison leapt on the refusal of opposition energy spokesman Chris Bowen to rule out expanding the safeguard mechanism that puts a carbon cap on the highest industrial emitters. He also lashed out at Labor for opposing $600m of taxpayer funds being used to build a gas-fired power station in Kurri Kurri.