“It’s important to have a balance in your emissions reductions policies. You’ve got to have the cool head as well as the passionate heart,” Mr Morrison said.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has launched a new pre-election climate change policy, pledging $2 billion for projects to bring down Australia’s emissions.The Climate Solutions Fund is an extension of former prime minister Tony Abbott’s Emissions Reduction Fund.”Our Government will take, and is taking, meaningful, practical, sensible, responsible action on climate change without damaging our economy or your family budget.”
The Prime Minister has repeatedly said Australia would meet its Paris commitment of reducing emissions by 26 to 28 per cent by 2030 “in a canter”, despite recent government projections casting doubt over that figure.
Mr Morrison said the Emissions Reduction Fund had delivered 193 million tonnes of emissions reductions so far and the new scheme would play a “key” role in meeting the 2030 target.”It’s been an incredibly successful program, both improving the economy and supporting the environment,” he said.”It was always our intention that we would need to extend that out to ensure we met our 2030 targets, which we will.”
The Prime Minister also announced $56 million to fast-track the development of a second Bass Strait interconnector as part of an extra $1.5 billion package of measures.Further details are yet to be announced but Mr Morrison said the measures would include improving energy efficiency standards and developing an electric vehicles strategy.
Questions have also been raised about whether meeting the 2030 target would rely on counting credits left over from the Kyoto targets, a move criticised by some experts.
Senior Liberals have flagged need for new policies
Senior Liberals, including federal president Nick Greiner, had flagged the need for new climate change policies ahead of the election, expected to be held in May.A number of Coalition MPs are facing challenges from high-profile independents campaigning on the need for more action on climate change, including in Mr Abbott’s seat of Warringah.Shadow Climate Change Minister, Mark Butler, said a Labor government would scrap the Prime Minister’s policy. “The question really here is whether people would trust a Government that has spent five years trashing climate policy, trashing climate science, led by a Prime Minister who brought a lump of coal into the Parliament, suddenly to have had some last-minute conversion in the shadow of an election campaign to take climate change seriously.”
Labor has set its own emissions reduction target of 45 per cent by 2030, a figure Mr Morrison said was “reckless” which would put a “wrecking ball” through the economy. With ABC news