To match the scale of cuts announced by US, Australia would have to reduce emissions by about 30% on 2000 levels by 2025

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Australia is under intense pressure to announce a target for post-2020 greenhouse gas reductions after the shock announcement from US president Barack Obama and Chinese premier Xi Jinping of new national climate change goals.

The US has agreed to cut its emissions by 26-28% of 2005 levels by 2025 – a doubling of the pace of its reductions. If Australia were to make similar cuts by 2025 against its 2000 benchmark, it would need to reduce emissions by between 28% and 31%.

Asked where the deal left Australia’s climate change policy, the expert adviser to the former government Professor Ross Garnaut said: “Exactly where it was before the US-China announcement – up shit creek.”

Australia has so far said only that it would “consider its post-2020 target as part of the review … in 2015 on Australia’s international targets and settings”, taking into account what trading partners promise, and has been strongly resisting discussion of climate change at the G20 on the grounds that the meeting should focus on its central economic agenda.

It has not announced how it will determine its post-2020 target, nor when it will make it public.

The environment minister, Greg Hunt, responded to the announcement by repeating this position: “We have always said that we will consider Australia’s post-2020 emissions reduction targets in the leadup to next year’s Paris conference. This will take into account action taken by our major trading partners.

“In the meantime, what’s important for Australia is that we have replaced Labor’s ineffective and costly carbon tax with a policy that will actually deliver significant emissions reductions.”



China, the world’s largest greenhouse emitter, has now agreed its emissions will peak by 2030 at the latest, and then begin to decline. China had previously only ever agreed to reduce the rate at which its greenhouse emissions were increasing. It has also agreed that 20% of China’s energy should come from zero emissions sources by 2030.



Australian politicians have often cited increasing emissions from China as evidence that it is futile for Australia to take stronger action on climate change.

As reported by Guardian Australia, Australia has reluctantly conceded the final G20 communique should include climate change, but has been resisting a last-ditch push by the US, France and other European countries for the leaders gathering in Brisbane this weekend to endorse contributions to the Green Climate Fund – as they did last year in St Petersburg.

The Green Climate Fund aims to help poorer countries cut their emissions and prepare for the impact of climate change, and, along with individual national emission reduction pledges, is seen as critical to securing developing-nation support for a successful deal in Paris.

It is understood the G20 communique’s references to climate change have been expanded as negotiators finalise the text in the lead-up to the weekend meeting.

A spokesman for the Climate Institute think tank, Erwin Jackson, said Australia was “looking like it has been caught with its pants down on climate change action”.

The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, said that “while the United States and China show global leadership, Tony Abbott is sticking his head in the sand”.

“At the G20 this week, Australia will hold the embarrassing title of being the only nation going backwards on climate change,” he said.

The Climate Institute has calculated Australia should be looking at a 40% reduction by 2025.

The government’s Direct Action climate policy to reduce emissions with $2.5bn worth of competitive government grants to businesses and organisations is intended to meet the target of cutting Australia’s greenhouse gases by 5% by 2020.

Europe has already indicated a 2030 target of at least 40% below 1990 levels.

The calculation of a 40% cut by 2030 is broadly in line with the findings of the independent Climate Change Authority, which recommended Australia reduce emissions by 40% to 60% below 2000 levels in 2030.

Garnaut said the government should allow the authority, with its excellent professional staff, to provide recommendations on Australia’s post-2020 target, but it would need to be “comparable with the US for Australia to be seen to be doing its fair share”.

Greens leader Christine Milne said Tony Abbott was “so busy unwinding Australia’s climate policies that he failed to notice the global economy is changing around him. He is risking billions of dollars in investment and thousands of jobs. Tony Abbott is engaging in intergenerational theft while the rest of the world moves to protect future generations and the planet.

“Until the Abbott government took control, Australia was a world leader in climate policy with an emissions trading scheme that was considered template legislation for other nations,” she said.