The chair of the Local weather Change Authority, Matt Kean, has declared Australia should take “strong and decisive action” to handle the local weather disaster regardless of Donald Trump’s return to the White Home, arguing the world wants low-cost renewable vitality and the nation can present it.
Kean, a former Information South Wales Liberal treasurer and vitality minister, instructed Guardian Australia there have been “enormous opportunities and benefits” in taking motion to chop greenhouse gasoline emissions, regardless of who was US president.
“We don’t know exactly what Trump will do, but climate change waits for no one and will spare no one and no country. That’s why we will continue to need to act – to take strong and decisive action to address this great challenge of our times,” he stated.
“The world still needs cheap renewable energy, and the products that come with that, and Australia is in a very strong position to meet the world’s needs, and in doing so create huge jobs and prosperity for our country that we’ve never seen before.”
Kean stated previous proof, together with in Trump’s first time period as president, confirmed states, territories and the non-public sector would proceed to behave. “I have no doubt that will continue to be the case,” he stated.
His feedback contrasted with these from the Nationals MP Keith Pitt and Senate colleague Matt Canavan, who argued the federal Coalition ought to dump its dedication to internet zero emissions by 2050 after Trump’s re-election.
“We need to consider our policies around net zero and their impact on the cost of living for every Australian and adopt policy that the Australian people can actually afford,” Pitt instructed Guardian Australia on Thursday.
He stated Trump’s decisive victory supplied clear steerage on one of the best ways ahead on local weather change and different points.
“Clearly president-elect Trump took bold positions on a number of policies and was successful,” he stated. “We will be in a contest with an Albanese government, which, in my view, went too far, too fast and at too high a cost to the people on their climate policies and, if we want there to be a contest at the next election, we will need to have a policy position that is sufficiently different.”
He stated any choice on a coverage rethink could be “up to the shadow cabinet”.
However a spokesperson for the opposition chief, Peter Dutton, instructed Guardian Australia on Thursday that the coverage on internet zero stands. “There’s no change in our position,” the spokesperson stated.
Earlier on Thursday, the Coalition’s international affairs spokesperson, Simon Birmingham, emphasised the significance of sticking to the online zero goal.
“I want to see Australia stay committed to net zero by 2050,” he instructed ABC Radio Nationwide. “I don’t anticipate any change in those commitments.”
Anthony Albanese additionally recommitted to the federal government’s current insurance policies regardless of Trump’s acknowledged intention to tug the US out of the Paris local weather settlement.
“Even if you were a climate sceptic and didn’t believe any of the science and didn’t notice that there were more floods and more bushfires and more cyclones – it would still be good policy because it will produce the cheapest form of energy, not the most expensive, which we know as nuclear,” the prime minister stated on Thursday.
However he declined to decide to a 2035 emissions discount goal earlier than the following federal election, saying the federal government was centered on 2030. The Local weather Change Authority is making ready recommendation to the federal government on a 2035 emissions discount goal, but it surely won’t be prepared till subsequent 12 months.
Preliminary recommendation from the authority discovered a 65-75% minimize under 2005 ranges could be “ambitious, but could be achievable”.
The federal government will not be eager to reactivate the local weather debate in Australia as a result of the results of local weather change proceed to generate anxiousness in the neighborhood and Albanese is pushing a message of optimism concerning the future.
Together with urgent the significance of pursuing internet zero, Birmingham additionally talked up the Coalition’s nuclear vitality coverage, saying it was taking “hard and difficult policy positions and decisions to be able to achieve that” and “moving into a space in the policy debate nobody has been game to go into before”.
“But doing so because we see it as necessary if you are to be credible in achieving net zero whilst protecting Australia’s industrial base in the future.”
Birmingham’s feedback got here after Canavan took to the social media web site X early on Thursday to sentence the online zero objective.
“The re-election of Trump means that we can all say what we think again,” he wrote. In a subsequent publish he stated Australians ought to “stop whining” about potential tariffs like “some kind of hopeless basket case” and “take charge of our own destiny for a change”.
“We should get out of the Paris climate agreement, dump net zero (which is dead anyway because of Trump) and unleash a New Age of Australian Energy Abundance,” he posted.
Canavan insisted Australia had all of the pure assets to turn out to be “the richest country in the world” with out some other assist and will additionally turn out to be a “manufacturing powerhouse”.
“We just need to dig up our coal, drill for our gas and use our uranium and we will have the cheapest energy prices in the world.”
The Local weather Council chief govt, Amanda McKenzie, emphasised the necessity for Australia to remain the course on the clear vitality transition.
“During his first presidency, Trump tried to withdraw the US from climate diplomacy, but state and local governments powered ahead,” McKenzie stated in an announcement. “Countries and US states know the Trump playbook – and they’re determined to keep driving climate action forward.”
