Liberal Party formally abandons net zero by 2050 climate target

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The climate policy merry-go-round in Australian politics is rotating once again. The Liberal Party is dumping its commitment to net zero by 2050. The Shadow Ministry agreed to scrap the target but remain in the Paris agreement.

Transcript

00:00So the Liberal Party today has formally announced that it is dumping that target of net zero

00:06emissions by 2050. We were expecting that announcement to be made given that that was

00:12nearly a five-hour meeting yesterday in where the majority of Liberal MPs and Senators said

00:17that they did want that target to be dumped. Keep in mind this was a target that was agreed

00:22to by former Liberal Prime Minister Scott Morrison back in 2021. Now while that target

00:28is dumped the Liberal Party has agreed to stay in the Paris Agreement and what that means is it does

00:33need to outline five yearly targets. But Susan Lee was pushed on you know what what is a successful

00:40reduction in emissions like what does that look like? She couldn't give an answer or a figure

00:45saying that her focus was more so around reducing power prices. Now the Liberal Party policy is to

00:53reduce emissions in line with other countries. Let's take a listen to the opposition leader Susan

00:58Lee outlining the broad idea of this policy. The Liberal Party has decided to put affordable

01:05energy first. We will have an energy and emissions policy driven by two key objectives. Affordable

01:15reliable power and responsible emissions reductions. And our energy and emissions policies will use

01:23Australian resources for Australian families so you pay less for your power. So Stephanie the focus

01:31for the Liberals is on getting electricity prices down. Did they explain exactly how this policy will

01:37achieve that? Well they put forward some examples and suggestions of what they believe will help reduce

01:45power prices. Insisting that there needs to be new supply and faster supply are what that supply is Joe. The Liberal

01:52Party says it's technology agnostic. In other words it's willing to use whatever technology at the time of

01:58year or day they deem necessary. Now leaving open essentially the door to even financially supporting

02:05new coal fire power stations. As you said there it really has been the focus of the Liberal Party today.

02:11It's all about the cost of power. So the question was put to the opposition leader Susan Lee, well when would

02:17power prices come down under a Liberal government? Does it take months? Does it take years? It's not a question

02:22that she could answer. Instead just insisting that the Liberals could bring power prices down quicker than the

02:29current Labor government. This does create a significant shift in the climate war debate again. Now we've got the Labor

02:37government where they've promised to reduce emissions, net zero emissions by 2050. They're also promising to

02:43move to more renewable energy and reduce power prices. And then you've got the Liberal Party, their focus

02:49mainly, while they say is to reduce emissions, their main focus though is on power prices. Let's take a listen

02:55to the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. He spoke earlier today. They're walking away from climate action because

03:03they fundamentally do not believe in the science in climate change. They're also walking away from

03:11reliable and affordable energy. Renewables backed by storage and backed by gas for firming capacity.

03:20Australians cannot afford to keep paying the price of coalition infighting when it comes to climate

03:28policy and energy policy. So Steffi, what are the next steps for the Liberals and the Coalition?

03:34Doesn't stop, Jo. We've still got a few more days to go until policies are finalised. So what's

03:39happening now is that there's three Liberals and three Nationals. They're forming essentially a new

03:44little team and they're discussing what the coalition climate and energy policy should be. Because at the

03:50moment we've got a national plan and a Liberal plan, but obviously they need to come together and create

03:56that coalition policy. So that group will be nutting out details over the next couple of days. The Nationals

04:02leader David Littleproud though suggesting this afternoon that it's looking pretty positive that

04:06some deal will be reached. Today what we've heard from the Liberal Party gives us great hope that in

04:13the coming days that we'll sit down constructively with them to work through the pathway that they've

04:18articulated that in many ways mirrors what the National Party was able to articulate last Sunday.

04:25And that takes leadership, that takes maturity. To say to the Australian people, unlike the Prime

04:30Minister who wants to have a 2015 debate about the science, we want to have a 2025 debate about the

04:38economics. Now the coalition climate and energy plan, we're expecting that to be released on Sunday.

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