Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has accused Opposition Leader Peter Dutton of being worse than former prime minister Scott Morrison on climate change, in a direct attack on the Coalition’s plans to ditch Australia’s 2030 emissions reduction target.
Albanese’s attack, during a press conference in Canberra on Monday, comes after Dutton declared he would reverse Australia’s legally binding climate target to cut emissions 43 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030.
Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton have butted heads on climate targets.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
On Sunday, this masthead revealed analysis that the opposition’s nuclear energy plans would force Australia to fall massively short of the nation’s emissions target, and generate more than 2 billion tonnes of extra greenhouse gas 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.
“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.”
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The Coalition further flamed the climate wars when Dutton told The Australian on 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 only to meet 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 claimed Labor had “Buckley’s chance” of meeting its emission-reduction target of 43 per cent by 2030 and should abandon it.
Source Agencies
