Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton have butted heads on climate targets.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
On Sunday,this mastheadrevealed analysisthat the opposition’s nuclear energy plans would force Australia to fall massively short of its emissions target and that it would generate more than 2 billion tonnes of extra greenhouse gases by 2050. This would break Australia’s commitments to the Paris Agreement.
“[Dutton’s] decision to abandon the target means him walking away from the Paris Accord. If you walk from the Paris Accord,you’ll be standing with Libya,Yemen and Iran and against all of our major trading partners and all of our important allies,” Albanese said.
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“Peter Dutton is worse than Scott Morrison on climate change. He is all negativity and no plan,and what we’ve seen now for two years under Peter Dutton is a reluctance to announce any policies.”
The Coalition further inflamed the climate wars when Dutton toldThe Australianon Saturday that the government’s renewable goal was unattainable and “there’s no sense in signing up to targets you don’t have any prospect of achieving”.
He pledged to meet only a goal of net zero emissions by 2050,earning swift rebukes from Albanese and climate change experts.
Opposition climate change and energy spokesman Ted O’Brien on Monday said Labor had “Buckley’s chance” of meeting its emissions-reduction target of 43 per cent by 2030 and should abandon it.