Content updated: 3rd Nov 2025
The National Party has abandoned their target of net zero climate pollution by 2050. So what is net zero and why is it so important? Let’s get into it.
Pollution from coal, oil and gas is overheating our planet, and putting Australians in harm’s way. Our communities are now suffering through more frequent and intense extreme weather events, like the Black Summer Bushfires of 2019-20, devastating, back-to-back floods that hit Queensland and New South Wales, and more frequent, intense and longer lasting heatwaves, and intensifying storms like tropical cyclones.
By slashing global climate pollution we can help limit the worst impacts and keep Australians safer, while creating new jobs and industries.
Australia has set a legislated target to reach net zero by 2050. To help drive the transition to net zero, the Australian Government has set a target to reduce climate pollution by 62-70% below 2005 levels by 2035.
Net zero is a goal to cut climate pollution.
In the 2015 Paris Agreement, which in addition to its well-known temperature target of holding “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and pursue efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, also added a complementary goal:
“To undertake rapid [emissions] reductions … so as to achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removal by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century.”
In other words, net zero essentially means reaching a state in which climate pollution going into the atmosphere is balanced by removal out of the atmosphere. It’s like a bath tub (which represents the atmosphere) being filled up with water (climate pollution from burning coal, oil and gas as well as land clearing). The tap has been on high since the industrial revolution, causing the tub to fill rapidly. Climate pollution can be reduced by ending fossil fuel use, and reducing deforestation can help us turn down the tap so that less water fills the tub. But it’s unlikely that we can turn the tap off completely or stop all climate pollution in the time required. For the small amount of climate pollution remaining, we will need to deploy carbon removal approaches that remove climate pollution from the air to counterbalance any emissions still entering the atmosphere. This is net zero.
Reducing climate pollution and achieving net zero as soon as possible is the only solution to the climate crisis. Moving too slowly, or abandoning this goal altogether, would have deadly consequences.
What are carbon offsets?
Carbon offsets are used by a company or organisation to compensate for what they are emitting and thereby decrease their net emissions. While this sounds like a fair balance, offsets never effectively account for the harmful greenhouse gases created by burning fossil fuels.
At the moment, corporate and government plans to reach net zero rely far too heavily on offsetting, and we must do much more to cut climate pollution at its source, this decade. For households and small businesses, it is also important to prioritise actions which genuinely and permanently reduce emissions – like electrifying buildings or installing solar panels – instead of buying ‘carbon neutral’ products based on offsets.
What about the pollution that’s already in the atmosphere?
Climate pollution has been building up in our atmosphere since the industrial revolution, overheating our planet, and supercharging devastating extreme weather and other climate impacts. All of it is doing us harm.
To keep global warming to no more than 1.5°C – as called for in the Paris Agreement – global climate pollution needs to be reduced by 45% from 2010 levels by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050. Once net zero is reached, global mean surface temperature will likely stabilise. However, more substantial cooling of the planet can be accomplished by striving for net negative emissions, which will reduce climate risks further.
Global climate pollution is not reducing fast enough and it will be difficult to eliminate all emissions, like methane from cows and rice paddies or some industries like cement or aviation. And so there will be residual emissions, which will need to be removed out of the atmosphere. We will need technologies that are designed to remove the historic build-up of carbon from our atmosphere – known as drawdown or carbon dioxide removal.
There are two approaches:
- Nature-based.
- Novel approaches.
Nature-based approaches rely on doing things like planting trees, improving soil carbon levels and increasing carbon stores in coastal ecosystems such as mangroves or kelp/seaweed forests. These approaches are also critically important for conserving ecosystems and protecting biodiversity.
But unfortunately, many of these natural carbon stores or “sinks” are already becoming saturated. They will also become increasingly vulnerable in a warming, more volatile climate. For example, forest fires are releasing billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere annually. And wet rainforests in Queensland have switched from absorbing carbon to emitting it as they die from the effects of climate change and rising temperatures.
To reach net zero emissions, the world will need to find more durable ways to remove climate pollution at scale from the atmosphere. Novel carbon dioxide removal is associated with storage timescales from centuries to tens of millennia. Examples being considered include adding crushed carbonate or silicate rock to the ocean or farmland to absorb climate pollution. While other approaches, such as direct air capture and storage, currently face technical challenges in extracting climate pollution from the air without consuming high amounts of energy. And some are downright fanciful, like carbon capture and storage (CCS) and carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS). They are not genuine solutions because they do not stop large amounts of carbon pollution being released into our atmosphere. Often, this is used as a reason for coal, oil and gas projects to keep polluting.
Drawdown or carbon dioxide removal will play an important role in limiting global average temperature this century and beyond. But they must not be a substitute to the end of extracting, and using fossil fuels.
A net zero goal on its own, gets us nowhere
It’s important to point out that if you only have a “net zero” goal then you won’t get anywhere. You also need a plan to reach this goal, as well as the policies and resourcing to drive cuts to our emissions in specific areas. All of this is needed to reduce our pollution as quickly as possible.
What are Australia’s climate targets?
Both the ALP and Coalition have introduced climate targets for 2030 and committed to net zero by 2050 while in government.
Australia’s current targets are:
- 43% below 2005 levels by 2030 (legislated in 2022)
- 62-70% below 2005 levels by 2035 (announced in 2025, not yet legislated by the Govt)
- Net zero by 2050 (legislated in 2022)
According to Climate Council analysis, Australia’s targets are not high enough to be aligned with what the science recommends is necessary to contribute towards keeping global temperature rise to well below 2°C. This raises the level of risk for our families, community, economy and national security to potentially catastrophic levels.
Can we meet our targets?
Yes, and we can go further.
The Climate Change Authority’s advice clearly articulates that Australia’s new climate target of 62-70% reduction in climate pollution by 2035 should be considered the bare minimum.
There are opportunities to do more, which the Government should take.
Independent analysis from four different organisations have shown that climate pollution cuts of at least 75% by 2035 are technically possible and will be economically beneficial. Economic modelling by Deloitte Access Economics has demonstrated that a cut of 75% would deliver $227 billion in greater GDP, compared to a 65% target.
There are several ways the Government can achieve stronger targets, while saving Australian families thousands of dollars, growing our economy by up to $227 billion, and keeping all of us safer from climate impacts. Electrifying homes can save Australian families $600 per year on energy bills by 2035, while switching to an Electric Vehicle can save households over $2,000 per year in fuel costs. The Albanese Government must also stop undermining our targets by approving new and expanded fossil fuel facilities. Since 2022, Labor has approved 31 new and expanded coal, oil and gas projects, impacting Australia’s 2035 target. The starting point for Australia’s 2035 target could have been up to 2% higher (closer to net zero), had they not approved these projects.
But the good news is, there is strong momentum towards shifting our economy to clean energy: 43% of our electricity comes from renewables, the costs of batteries and EVs are dropping, and new industries in clean metals are drawing in huge levels of investment.
Twenty years ago, there were a few thousand homes with solar panels – now it is more than four million. We often underestimate our capacity to change to new technology. We should aim to ratchet up our targets to what is necessary as technology improves.
Reaching net zero, as quickly as we can, will benefit all Australians
As the sunniest country in the world and one of the windiest, Australia is forecast to have the world’s third-cheapest renewable power by 2030 and 2050 relative to other regions. Our power is expected to be particularly cheap when compared to many of our neighbours and trading partners, including South East Asia, Japan, and other Asian nations (Graham and Havas 2023). With this comparative advantage, combined with our ample land, world-class resources of metal ores and critical minerals, and our proximity to some of the world’s fastest growing economies in East and Southeast Asia, Australia has an enviable set of advantages and opportunities.
The economic opportunity of these new industries is extensive.
- The Superpower Institute has estimated that the market for Australian exports of zero-emission commodities could approach $1 trillion per year by 2050. Australia’s clean exports potential is eight times greater than our combined annual coal and LNG export revenues, so seizing even a fraction of the potential market could see Australia’s polluting exports entirely replaced.
- Accenture has estimated that Australia’s green export opportunity could create over 400,000 jobs by 2040, growing the economy by $100 billion per year. Notably, this includes more than 80 thousand jobs in renewables-related services, including engineering, ICT, and education, representing $80 billion per year in economic value added by 2040.
The choices we make today will shape the climate future of every Australian. The evidence is stark and urgent: climate change is accelerating, its impacts are deepening, and current global efforts – including those by Australia – remain dangerously inadequate.
As a country, Australia must strive towards reaching net zero as quickly as possible, to keep our communities safer and reap the benefits associated with transforming our economy to being powered by clean and abundant renewable energy.
