"If you don't have a plan to get out of coal,you don't have a plan to deal with the climate crisis. We stopped selling asbestos and we need to phase out coal exports,too."
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The co-convener of the Labor Environmental Action Network,Felicity Wade,said the Greens appeared to not understand the Paris agreement on reducing global emissions,which assigns emissions to where they are produced.
Ms Wade also criticised Senator Canavan for his attack on Mr Albanese.
"This is just more cheap point scoring while Australia burns. Bandt and Canavan seem to work in lockstep,equal and opposite sides of a destructive culture war,ensuring the national cohesion needed to progress this challenge is rendered impossible,"she said.
"We all know the task is overwhelming and urgent,but smashing the globally agreed pathway and our chance for shared progress is politics at its most cynical and destructive."
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China is the world's biggest coal producer,with 47 per cent of production according to the International Energy Agency,followed by India,the United States,Australia and Indonesia.
Labor's shadow assistant minister for climate change,Pat Conroy,said the focus on Australia and Indonesia as major coal exporters often overlooked the fact many countries produced their own coal and would fill any gap in the market if Australia halted exports.
"These activists are going for lazy symbolism rather than doing the hard yards of fighting for strong domestic action to cut carbon emissions,"Mr Conroy said.
"All their campaign does is divide the progressive side of politics and make it harder to get strong climate policies.
"They're aiding and abetting the re-election of Coalition governments."
Labor backbencher Meryl Swanson,whose electorate of Paterson includes coal workers from the NSW Hunter Valley,said Mr Albanese was"absolutely right"to argue for action on climate change without a halt to coal exports.
"We have to stop pitting the environment against our economy – I think that is what we've got wrong for ten years,"she said.
"The emotional stuff from Adam Bandt helps no-one. It's bordering on hyperbole and hysteria."
Labor is facing a long internal debate on a new target to replace its election pledge to reduce Australian greenhouse gas emissions by 45 per cent by 2030,with frontbencher Joel Fitzgibbon calling for a lower target.
Caucus members cited the attack from the Greens as a sign that an agreement in Parliament would be difficult.
"We can get there is we work together rather than tearing each other apart,"Ms Swanson said."That hasn't worked for ten years. How about we try something different?"
Mr Albanese toldThe AgeandThe Sydney Morning Herald that progress on the Adani coal mine would depend on its ability to get finance,subject to environmental approvals.
"The market will determine that,"he said.