Hazy aims (Image: Ross Barnett/Getty)

Australia is set to weaken its targets for carbon emissions ahead of the UN’s climate-change summit in Paris this December, contrasting with a push by the US, China and other countries towards more ambitious cuts.

Australian prime minister Tony Abbott announced on Tuesday that the country would aim to cut emissions by between 26 and 28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.


This is significantly weaker than recommended reductions by the country’s Climate Change Authority – which Abbott previously tried to axe.

The government emphasised the economic cost of making deeper cuts to emissions. “This is a responsible and achievable target,” Abbott said. “It is comparable to the targets of other developed countries and allows our economy and jobs to grow strongly.”

Mathias Cormann, Australia’s finance minister, said in a press conference that “it is very important for us to make a strong and responsible contribution to global efforts to reduce emissions, but one which does not detract from our economic prosperity moving forward”.

The government argued that the new target would put Australia within the range of Japan and Canada, which have respective targets of 25 and 30 per cent.

But using the same baseline year of 2005, the US aims to cut emissions by 41 per cent by 2030 and the UK by 48 per cent.

Flawed assumptions

“The government’s assumption that setting a globally responsible, stronger target will damage the Australian economy is deeply flawed,” Alan Pears of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology told the Australian Science Media Centre.

The move was criticised by the opposition Labor Party and the Greens. “This is what denial looks like,” said Greens senator Scott Ludlam.

John Connor, CEO of Australian NGO The Climate Institute, said in a statement that the target would not help the country to play its part in limiting warming to less than 2 °C, which is considered the threshold above which warming would become dangerous.

He added that if other countries took similar action, warming would be between 3 and 4 °C by the end of the century.

“The maximum amount of pollution Australia can emit to 2050 to do its part in avoiding 2 °C is around 8-9 billion tonnes,” Connor said. “The proposed target would see this limit breached in just 14 years’ time, by 2029.”