Recently, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton promised he’d scrap Australia’s 2030 emissions target (a 43% reduction on 2005 levels) if elected prime minister in 2025. He won’t reveal the replacement target unless he wins.
Dutton’s logic is that the existing 43% target is “unachievable” (at least without apocalyptic social collapse). There is “no sense in signing up to targets you don’t have any prospect of achieving”, Dutton insists. Plenty of political journalists repeated that line, such as the ABC’s David Speers, who says “plenty of experts also believe it will be a stretch”.
The Albanese government, two years in power now, claims it’s working hard to hit what the party describes as an “ambitious” level of reductions, something that has pulled it into a state of urgent action, which Labor claims it is rising to meet.
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