Union pushes Anthony Albanese, Labor for climate target of more than 70 per cent

The PM is under pressure from unions and Labor members to adopt a 2035 emissions reduction target of more than 70 per cent.

Unions and Labor members are pushing Anthony Albanese to adopt a 2035 emissions reduction target of more than 70 per cent. Picture: Brendan Radke

Anthony Albanese is under pressure from unions and Labor members to adopt a 2035 emissions reduction target of more than 70 per cent, as new parliamentary library research casts doubt on the long-term jobs outlook from the transition to renewables.

After new Queensland Premier Steven Miles unveiled a goal to lower emissions by 75 per cent of 2005 levels by 2035, Electrical Trades Union national secretary Michael Wright said it was ­important the Albanese government’s next target should not be below that of the major states.

The Queensland target is broadly in line with the 2035 goal of NSW (70 per cent) and Victoria (75-80 per cent).

“The importance of the targets are to provide confidence to ­industry so they can invest,” Mr Wright told The Australian. “So we don’t want mixed messages being sent to the market. We don’t want the feds coming in under what the states are doing. We are sick of policy chaos in this area.”

Australian Manufacturing Workers Union national secretary Steve Murphy also said the federal government should not lag the states in its 2035 target.

But with new analysis showing as few as 3 per cent of jobs at eight prominent renewables projects are ongoing and permanent, Mr Wright and Mr Murphy said the government needed to do more to support ­employment in the green energy economy.

Mr Wright said the government needed to urgently train more workers for the renewables sector, while Mr Murphy said there should be a requirement for at least some locally made products in big green developments.

Mr Murphy added there ­needed to be a return to the public ownership of electricity assets.

“If we don’t have the job targets to go along with (emissions targets) we risk going into another climate culture war,” he said.

“We were supposed to be a ­renewable energy superpower but we are not making any of this. We are not making the wind towers, we are not making the solar ­panels, we are not making the wind turbines.”

But Queensland LNP MP and former resources minister Keith Pitt, who commissioned the parliamentary library research into major renewables projects, said it showed employment opportunities were limited in the green energy transition.

The Prime Minister went to the last election promising to lower emissions by 43 per cent of 2005 levels by 2030 – a target that has now been legislated.

The government is required under the Paris Agreement to finalise a 2035 target by February 2025, which would likely come before the next election and set up a fight with Peter Dutton over climate change. The Australian understands the government will finalise its 2035 target ahead of the UN COP29 summit in Azerbaijan late next year, where it will seek to win support for Australia and South Pacific nations to co-host the COP31 summit in 2026.

Labor Environment Action Network co-convener Felicity Wade said “any credible 2035 target needs a seven in front of it”.

“This has been LEAN’s expectation for some time, it is ambitious but doable and can create new industries and prosperity if we are clever and focused,” she said. “LEAN applauds the new Premier’s leadership and 2035 emissions target. Queensland … is well set to prosper from decarbonisation and its natural resources, like critical minerals will be in high demand.”

Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen – who said before the election the renewables transition would create more than 600,000 jobs – welcomed Queensland’s 2035 target and said the federal ambition would be more than “just a compilation of state targets”.

The Parliamentary Library research assessing jobs, energy capacity, ownership and power generation contracts on eight major wind, solar, hydro and battery projects show they will cover a combined footprint of almost 102,000ha and generate up to 6387MW.

The analysis shows across the renewables projects in Queensland, Victoria and NSW, around 5060 construction jobs will be created compared with 162 to 171 permanent and operational jobs when the turbines, solar panels and pumped hydro are installed.

The contrast between permanent and construction jobs undermines claims by Mr Bowen that Labor’s plan to make Australia a “renewable energy super power” will create ongoing jobs and shield regional economies.

CleanCo, established as a government-owned corporation by the Palaszczuk government in 2018, has signed two long-term purchase agreements with the 157MW Kaban green power hub, near Ravenshoe in north Queensland, and 670MW Western Downs Green Power Hub 22km southeast of Chinchilla.

Kaban Green Power Hub near Ravenshoe is expected to be operational later this year. Picture: Supplied

CleanCo’s 15-year capacity purchase agreement with the Kaban Wind Farm, owned by French company Neoen, secures 100 per cent of renewables generation. Under the deal, CleanCo “buys the project’s generated ­energy for a fixed annual price, as opposed to a spot price”.

The Parliamentary Library research shows foreign companies and banks are funding renewables projects in Australia, including French renewables giant Neoen, Filipino company ACEN, Ingka Group (IKEA’s investment arm), German-linked WestWind Energy and European clean energy firm TagEnergy. TagEnergy joint venture partner Exor is controlled by the Agnelli family, which founded the Fiat and owns a majority stake in Ferrari and the Juventus football club.

A flood of global cash into Australian renewables projects, including debt financing from BNP Paribas, HSBC, MUFG, Nord/LB, Societe Generale and Sumitomo Mitsui, complements major funding commitments by Queensland government owned energy and investment vehicles and domestic players including Squadron Energy, which is controlled by the billionaire Forrest family.

Mr Pitt said “it’s past time Chris Bowen and the Albanese government started making decisions based on facts, engineering and economics”.

The Coalition argues that gas, nuclear and coal-fired power sources have smaller footprints, provide more jobs and deliver greater baseload generation ­capacity. The Queensland government-owned 750MW Kogan Creek power plant, commissioned in 2007, is Australia’s most efficient and technically advanced coal-fired power station.

“What this small sample of Labor’s fantasy demonstrates is clear … 100,000ha of Australian land is needed to produce between zero and six gigawatts of electricity generation which is entirely dependent on the weather,” Mr Pitt said. “That’s without the costs of transmission lines, without replacing every solar panel and wind turbine completely every twenty years, without considering the total cost to taxpayers, without costing frequency control and system strength requirements.”

Mr Bowen said he was thankful Mr Pitt was “yet again helping remind the Australian people that the LNP is anti-renewables”.

“This is the same Keith Pitt who argued Australia should join Yemen and Libya outside the Paris Accord and who thinks batteries aren’t dispatchable,” he said. “Anyone sensible knows the energy transformation needs thousands of new jobs in both construction and ongoing. We need 32,000 sparkies in the next seven years for example – jobs Mr Pitt opposes.”

Previous Parliamentary Library research commissioned by Mr Pitt said it was estimated that by 2050, a total of 43 million tonnes of wind turbine blades waste “will have accumulated globally”.

“Each blade can be between 25 and 100m long and in the ­United States about 8000 WTBs are removed annually and in ­Europe around 3800,” the analysis said.

Mr Pitt said it was also expected that “one million tonnes of solar panel waste” would be accumulated in Australia by 2047.

“The Albanese government’s legacy will be council tips full of eco-waste that can’t be recycled, and an electricity network that has cost a fortune, lined the pockets of overseas owners with taxpayers money, and ultimately still doesn’t work.”

Mr Pitt accused Mr Bowen of wanting to “eliminate coal, oil and gas in Australia”.

“If Labor’s plans for the resources sector come to fruition it will eliminate 1.2 million Australian jobs, eliminate almost half a trillion dollars of economic activity and destroy Australia’s international reputation as a reliable trading partner,” he said.

Mr Bowen came under fire from the Coalition last month after announcing a massive expansion of the Capacity Investment Scheme, which involves taxpayers underwriting a five-fold increase in new government-backed renewables capacity.

The upgraded CIS, designed to help Labor hit achieve its 82 per cent renewables by 2030 target, excludes gas-fired power.