The Climate Authority has warned that Australia is going too slow on emission cuts, and says that “time is running out” on its ability to reach its already modest 2030 targets, which it must meet to stay on track for net zero by 2030.
In its first report since being reconstituted by the Labor government – after years of being defenestrated and ignored by the previous Coalition government – the CCA gives a blunt warning about the state of the climate and Australia’s own attempts to cut emissions.
The CCA, now chaired by former Origin boss and carbon price critic Grant King, says Australia has to boost its efforts by nearly half – from an average annual cut of 12 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent to 17mt – if it is to meet its 2030 and its 2050 targets.
“This a significant challenge that is getting harder as time runs out,” the CCA says. “Australia needs a big upwards shift in momentum.”
The key to that, it says, will be in cutting emissions in the electricity grid, and meeting the federal government target of 82 per cent renewables by 2030.
In a plain rebuttal of the pro-nuclear nonsense of the federal Coalition parties and conservative media, the CCA says that the technologies to meet that renewables target exist, the only question is about the pace and rollout.
The report comes on the same day as the start of what will be the biggest UN climate conference – controversially hosted in the UAE by one of the biggest fossil fuel exporters in the world, and chaired by the head of one of the world’s biggest gas companies.
Australia will come under close scrutiny over its role in the global trade of fossil fuels, despite the ambitious renewables targets at home, and will come under pressure to ramp up its short term targets.
The CCA will advise next year on what it thinks the 2035 target should be. And climate scientists insist that if the world is to have any chance of capping global temperatures at 1.5°C – they hit a peak of more than 2.0°C above pre industrial levels for a day earlier this month – net zero will be to be reached by 2040.
Climate minister Chris Bowen responded to the CCA report, and his own department’s state of the climate report, by documenting Labor’s achievements and intentions, but conceded that much more needed to be done.
“While I am pleased with our progress, I am not yet satisfied,” Bowen told parliament on Thursday. “The job is far from done.”
His department’s own assessment suggested that Australia is only on track to reach a 37 per cent cut in emissions by 2030, but could narrow the gap to 42 per cent with the “additional measures” such as the newly announced Capacity Investment Scheme expansion, and the yet to be announced fuel efficiency standards.
That may explain Bowen’s announcement last week that the CIS would be significantly expanded, not just on storage but also to include 23GW of new wind and solar capacity – an announcement that has caught the industry a little off-guard.
However, the federal government says it has rejected the CCA call for a national ban on new gas connections – a call made all the more remarkable by King’s own position as one of the gas industry’s strongest believers – and to aim for “meet zero” emissions for cars by 2040.
The federal government’s rejection comes as the ACT introduced its own legislation that will make new gas connections in the capital territory illegal from the start of next month. Victoria is also imposing a ban.
Bowen leaves for the UAE next week to be involved in what will be the usual frantic series of meetings and negotiations that will try and keep the UN climate talks – and the Paris target of 1.5°C – on track.
However, scientists, and the likes of the UN and the IEA, say these targets mean no new coal, gas or oil projects, something that the world’s biggest fossil fuel nations, including Australia, are willing to sign up to.
