Australia should aim to slash its greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2025, compared with 2000 levels, in order to catch up to other countries’ efforts and prove it is a “good global citizen”, according to a Climate Change Authority review.
The CCA, an independent statutory agency that advises the government, also recommended that Australia ramp up its emissions cuts even further by 2030, within a target range of 40% and 60%, again based on 2000 levels.
The report restates the authority’s position that Australia should raise its immediate emissions reduction target from 5% by 2020 to 19% by the same year, warning that in the absence of stronger action “the task of achieving credible 2020 and subsequent targets will become progressively more challenging.”
The Australian government has issued a discussion paper on what the country’s post-2020 emissions target should be, ahead of crunch UN climate talks in Paris in December.
The US has already committed to a 26-28% cut in emissions below 2005 levels by 2025, while the European Union has a goal of a 40% cut on 1990 levels by 2030. China has agreed to peak its carbon output by around 2030, while the UK, Russia and Germany have all also submitted new targets.
Australia, by comparison, has missed a UN deadline to reveal its post-2020 emissions target and has faced questions from China, the US and Brazil over the effectiveness of its Direct Action policy, which replaced the carbon pricing system, scrapped by the Coalition last year.
The CCA report notes that while Australia contributes only 1.3% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, its fossil fuel-heavy economy is the largest per capita emitter in the industrialised world and that its efforts “should be comparable with those of other wealthy developed countries and free of any special pleading.”
The report adds that it is in Australia’s interests to keep to an internationally agreed goal of limiting warming to 2C above pre-industrial times, noting that if this limit is breached, the Great Barrier Reef will be greatly diminished, the number of heatwaves will soar and southern Australia could face an 18% drop in spring rainfall by 2090.
Bernie Fraser, chairman of the CCA, said that if the 30% target was adopted, Australia would still be an “outlier” in terms of high per capita emissions but it would gain credibility at the Paris talks.
“This would likely be considered the behaviour of a good global citizen, and go some way to answering those who have questioned Australia’s commitment to climate change policy in recent times,” he said. “It would also give Australia the right to expect other countries to behave in like fashion.”
However, Fraser said that Australia will have to work hard to catch up with other countries and that failure to beef up the current climate policy – which several experts doubt will achieve the 5% goal – will make it “pretty challenging” for the country to meet a 30% reduction target by 2025.
“We are starting behind others in this race and the others aren’t slowing down,” he said. “The US and others are planning to increase the pace of their gallop.
“If Australia were to put together an effective package of measures, we could get to the 30% target.”
The CCA has previously raised doubts over whether Direct Action, which pays businesses that wish to reduce their emissions, will ensure the 2020 target is met but Fraser said it may be enough due to “slackness” in the economy, which pushes down energy consumption.
It remains to be seen how closely the government will ponder the CCA’s recommendations, given that it tried and failed to scrap the advisory body.
“We haven’t got a very good strike rate,” Fraser said. “We did recommend a rather more ambitious target than the minus 5%, but that didn’t get much of a run.
“We recommended that the large scale renewable energy target scheme remain at 41,000 gigawatt hours and that didn’t get much favour. So that’s two strikes and we’ve stepped up to the plate for a third time. Let’s see what happens this time.”
The CCA will produce further reports on the costs and methods of achieving its recommended emissions reduction.
