Scott Morrison pressures ALP on emissions ­reduction targets

Scott Morrison has increased pressure on Anthony Albanese to outline Labor’s emissions ­reduction targets.

Scott Morrison at BlueScope Steel in Port Kembla, NSW, on Thursday. Picture: Simon Bullard

Scott Morrison has increased pressure on Anthony Albanese to outline Labor’s emissions ­reduction targets and explain to Australians how the opposition will drive down carbon pollution.

Announcing an expansion of responsibilities and funding for the Australian Renewable ­Energy Agency and Clean ­Energy Finance Corporation, the Prime Minister said Labor must reveal its emissions policy ­before the next federal election.

Visiting BlueScope’s Port Kembla base on Thursday, Mr Morrison said the Coalition had been “very clear about our commitments and targets” since ­before the 2013 election. “We’ve just beaten the 2020 target by some 430 million tonnes to reduce emissions,” he said. “So seven years before the 2020 target, we had a plan. It was scoffed at. It was laughed at. They said it was never going to happen. Could never work. We beat it. Now we have a plan to meet our 2030 target as well and we will meet it in a canter. I can’t say the same for our opponents ­because they can’t even tell us if they have a target for 2030. There’s no excuse to go to the next election without a target for 2030.”

Mr Morrison said if Mr Albanese believed the Coalition targets should be different, Labor should “say what it is … and how much they’re going to cost people on their jobs and incomes”.

Labor’s leaked draft policy platform, revealed in The Australian, fails to mention emissions reduction or renewable energy targets for 2030 or 2035.

Mr Albanese is facing an ­internal push to drop medium-term targets and focus on 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.