Environment minister says Coalition takes emissions targets seriously and US climate change policy was ‘a matter for the Trump administration’

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

The Turnbull government will support the Paris agreement on climate change regardless of whether or not the US president, Donald Trump, pulls out, the environment minister, Josh Frydenberg, has signalled.

Trump upset world leaders on the weekend by refusing, at the conclusion of the G7 summit in Italy, to declare his support for the UN’s landmark treaty signed in Paris in 2015.

Despite two days of urging from leaders from Europe, Canada and Japan to pledge his support for the agreement, Trump tweeted on Saturday: “I will make my final decision on the Paris accord next week!”

Donald Trump will make 'final decision' on Paris climate deal next week Read more

His position left his counterparts frustrated, with some warning if the US pulled out of the Paris agreement other countries may want to reduce their commitments too.

But when asked about Australia’s commitment in the wake of Trump’s tweet, Frydenberg told Guardian Australia the Turnbull government takes its emissions targets seriously “and we’re going on and trying to meet them”.

“Issues about domestic climate change policy in the United States is a matter for the Trump administration,” Frydenberg said.

He also pointed to a quote from Malcolm Turnbull from November last year, when Turnbull was asked if Australia would remain in the Paris agreement if then president-elect Trump followed through on his threat to cancel the emissions reductions commitments made by Barack Obama in December 2015.

Turnbull had said: “When Australia makes a commitment to a global agreement, we follow through and that is exactly what we are doing.”

Turnbull also described the Paris agreement as “a watershed and a turning point” that would deliver international action on climate change.

“My government is committed to [the Paris agreement]. We have ratified it,” he had said.

In the aftermath of Trump’s election victory, the chairman of the Turnbull government’s backbench committee on the environment and energy, the Liberal MP Craig Kelly, said on Facebook the Paris agreement was now “cactus”.

In March this year, Kelly said he stood by that prediction from November given Trump had already signed an executive order to unravel a number of Obama’s regulatory measures to combat climate change, seen as a prelude to the US withdrawing from the Paris deal.

The Turnbull government ratified the Paris agreement in November.

“If a country sought to withdraw from the agreement it takes four years,” Turnbull said at the time.