The country’s energy ministers will meet for breakfast in Sydney tomorrow, but missing from the agenda is any talk of reducing greenhouse gas pollution from the power sector.
“The leaked COAG agenda paper indicates Federal Energy Minister, Angus Taylor wants to ignore the elephant in the room. Reducing emissions isn’t even officially up for discussion,” said the Climate Council’s energy expert, Petra Stock.
“This is extremely unfortunate. Australians want lower power prices and they want action on climate change. The good news is we can have both with low cost renewable energy,” she said.
Back in August, the Federal government dumped its proposed national energy policy. It means Australia no longer has any official overarching policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions beyond 2020.
“Fortunately, in the absence of Federal government leadership on this issue, the states and territories have stepped into the vacuum and are leading Australia’s transition to clean power,” said Ms Stock.
“The ACT, for example, is on track to achieve 100% renewable electricity by 2020 and Tasmania is likely to follow a few years after that,” she said.
“As part of our Paris climate commitments, Australia has promised to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 26% by 2030 based on 2005 levels. These are woefully inadequate targets and we’re not even on track to reach them.”
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