Culture wars reignite over 'disingenuous' energy change

MP Ted O'Brien says climate change debates must focus on how to reach net zero by 2050. Video via AAP.

Transcript

00:00I think we all know that climate change and energy is a very hot topic, lots of good argy-bargy

00:08politically, but if there is an area of bipartisanship, it's a good place to start, it's just here.

00:17We have joined global efforts to reach net zero by 2050.

00:22It is a bipartisan goal here in Australia.

00:27The question therefore is no longer a debate about why, but how.

00:35How do we get there?

00:37Now, as the shadow minister for climate change and energy, when I first put my mind to this,

00:45believe it or not, the first thing for me was not a question of necessarily emissions

00:53reduction, energy security or prices, but rather what sort of Australia we will be

01:01in the year 2050 and beyond.

01:06Each of us have our own loved ones.

01:08So for me, it's these three, three little ones at home.

01:17What is the Australia and what is the world they live in by 2050, when they are somewhere

01:23between their mid-twenties to late thirties?

01:29Australia will either be a rich, strong and fiercely independent nation, which is precisely

01:36what I'm hoping it will be, so that those children I have and their peers have every

01:43bit as much an opportunity as we have had.