“World is watching:” Climate think tank urges Albanese to aim high on 2035 target

Australia is being urged to trace a pathway away from fossil fuel exports and temper its use of land carbon sequestration to meet emissions targets.

With just a month to go before the federal government must reveal its 2035 emissions target and updated plans to contribute to global temperature goals, leading global think tank Climate Analytics has joined the call for an ambitious policy refresh for Australia.

The Berlin-based outfit, headed by climate scientist Bill Hare, calls for a net emissions reduction target of 81 per cent below 2005 levels by 2035.

It also wants the 2030 target of a 43 per cent reduction upped to 72 per cent.

Dr Hare views these goals as ambitious but “technologically and economically feasible”, and importantly aligned with limiting warming as close as possible to the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C limit.

“The world will be watching Australia’s target as the government bids to co-host next year’s climate talks with Pacific Island countries whose very existence is threatened by warming exceeding 1.5C,” he said. 

The 2035 emissions-reduction recommendation exceeds the 65 per cent to 75 per cent range flagged by the Climate Change Authority, the independent body set up to advise the government on climate matters.

The federal government has heard from advocates of both the upper and lower ends of this limit – and either side – with environmental groups favouring ambitious goals while some business groups angle for temperance.

The latest emissions figures suggest Australia is broadly on track to meet its 2030 climate goals. 

But Climate Analytics wants the government to taper its reliance on land sector sequestration to meet emissions goals and improve the transparency of these cuts.

Land is a viable carbon sink and planting trees, restoring wetlands and other management techniques are useful in the fight against climate.

But the think tank says relying on land sequestration is obscuring a lack of action across other sectors.

Net emissions, which include land sequestration, have fallen 29 per cent between 2005 and 2024, while gross emissions have only sunk two per cent.

Fossil fuel exports do not fall under the scope of nationally determined contributions outlined by the Paris Agreement, but the analysts say Australia still has an obligation to phase them out, a requirement spelled out clearly in a recent International Court of Justice advisory opinion.

Dr Hare said Australia must break free from the “drug dealer defence”, that is, the argument that if it stops supplying fossil fuels, other countries will do so in its stead, so it might as well continue. 

Signatories of the Paris Agreement must provide updated contributions to world temperature goals every five years.

Australia and several other states are yet to produce their updated targets ahead of the next climate talks in Brazil in November, and late September has been flagged as a hard deadline.

Debate about the Labor government’s emissions targets continues as the federal coalition’s commitment to net zero wavers, with some members of the opposition pushing to ditch the overarching 2050 goal entirely. 

Source: AAP