MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia on Thursday set a new target of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by between 62% and 70% below 2005 levels by 2035.
The new target adds to Australia’s ambition of a 43% cut by the end of this decade and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, leader of the center-left Labor Party, will take his government’s 2035 target to the United Nations General Assembly next week.
Under the Paris climate agreement signed a decade ago, nations must increase their emissions reduction targets every five years.
“This is a responsible target backed by the science, backed by a practical plan to get there and built on proven technology,” Albanese told reporters.
“It’s the right target to protect our environment, to protect and advance our economy and jobs and to ensure that we act in our national interest and in the interest of this and future generations,” he added.
Albanese said the target was consistent with the European Union considering for themselves a reduction target range of between 63% and 70% below 1990 levels.
Matt Kean, chair of the Climate Change Authority that advises the government on climate policies, said Australia’s 2035 target demonstrated a “higher ambition than most other advanced economies.”
Environmental groups had argued for a reduction target exceeding 70%.
But business groups had warned cuts above 70% would risk billions of dollars in exports and send companies offshore.
The conservative opposition Liberal Party, which has lost the last two federal elections, is considering abandoning its own commitment to net-zero by 2050, its only reduction target.
Opposition leader Sussan Ley said the 2035 target was not credible because the government would fail to meet its 2030 target.
“These targets cannot be met. They are fantasy: we know, Australians know, and they’re very disappointed in this prime minister,” Ley told reporters.
The government maintains Australia is on track to narrowly achieve its 2030 target.
Larissa Waters, a senator leading the environmentally-focused Australian Greens, said the government’s actual target was 62%, which she described as “appallingly low.”
The government was not addressing Australia’s coal and liquefied natural gas exports, which were among the world’s largest of those fossil fuels, she said.
“Labor have sold out to the coal and gas corporations with this utter failure of a climate target,” Waters told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Andrew McKellar described the 2035 target as “ambitious.”
“One of the biggest issues that industry faces at the moment is the costs that we incur in terms of energy. We’ve got to have a sustainable pathway forward. We’ve got to have energy security and we’ve got to have energy affordability as well,” McKellar said.
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