Opposition Leader Bill Shorten says Labor supports regional processing in offshore facilities. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Although relatively ambitious, the 2030 target would still leave Australia worst among rich nations for emissions on a per capita basis assuming Canada under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau lifts his nation's targets as expected. The 2030 goal is based on work done by the Climate Change Authority. Environment Minister Greg Hunt said last November that modelling by Treasury of the target pointed to a 78 per cent increase in wholesale electricity prices. As part of its plans, a Shorten government would re-introduce carbon pricing through an emissions trading scheme. The Abbott government scrapped the previous carbon tax, then at $24.15 a tonne, in July 2014. The level of emissions making an enterprise liable for a cap on emissions would be lowered from 100,000 tonnes a year of carbon-dioxide equivalent under the Turnbull government back to the 25,000 tonnes annual level of the previous Labor governments.

Mark Butler, Labor's spokesman on Environment, Climate Change and Water. With Australia on course to meet its 2020 targets – largely thanks to surplus credits earned during the Kyoto Treaty period – the cost to households and companies "would be minimal" over the next few years, said Mark Butler, Labor's spokesman on the Environment, Climate Change and Water. The aim would be curb emissions - which have started to rise again in the key power sector - and tighten the cap further to to bend Australia's trajectory to reach net-zero level by 2050. Until 2020, trade-exposed businesses such as steel and aluminium would be permitted to buy overseas carbon abatement credits, now selling at less than a dollar per tonne, for all offset requirements. Other companies would be permitted to buy some foreign credits – with the ratio of domestic versus overseas to be determined.

The cost up until 2020 would be about 3 cents per tonne of carbon for those industries exposed to foreign competition. For other firms, that cost will be about 30 cents a tonne, Mr Butler said. Labor is hazier on the post-2020 plans, however. It would create a "strategic industries taskforce" in its first term to determine how deeper cuts will be implemented. "In the longer term, we're going to need to develop much more sophisticated policies to allow those industries [affected] to continue to thrive in Australia," Mr Butler told Fairfax Media. Other elements, including using federal laws to prevent states like NSW from relaxing land-clearing laws that have generated most of Australia's emission cuts, put Labor on a collision course with the Baird government, which will soon ease clearing rules. Labor also pledged to lift the share of renewable energy to 50 per cent by 2030, or roughly triple the current level, reiterating an earlier pledge.

Some $2.5 trillion dollars would be invested in renewable energy in the Asia-Pacific by 2030, a "mega market" that Australia runs the risk of missing out on, Labor said. To that end, it will restore $300 million of the $1.3 billion proposed to be cut from the grant budget of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency by the Coalition. Most of that money would be targeted at the solar thermal industry which has the potential to generate and store electricity from the sun. "Malcolm Turnbull wants to duck a debate about renewable energy and climate change," Mr Butler said. "This is [a plan] that we've reflected on deeply, it's one we've consulted industry and all other stakeholders closely over the last several months," he told Fairfax Media.