Behavioural economics has a name for Dutton’s 2030 emissions target delay

If you are anything like me, the nearer you get to a deadline, the more desperately you want to postpone it, no matter how much harder that makes things down the track.

It’s what the Coalition wants Australia to do about its 2030 emissions reduction target — the one signed into law in 2022 and registered with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The Coalition says it remains “fully committed” to the more challenging target of net zero by 2050, but it wants to postpone some of the work needed to achieve it until later, nearer 2050.