A future Coalition government would strip emissions reductions from the objectives of the electricity market operator, focusing instead on lowering consumer power prices, and track cuts achieved by similar nations to form Australia’s carbon targets.
Coalition MPs endorsed the plan in a special partyroom meeting on Sunday afternoon, days after conservative Liberals engineered moves to drop net zero by 2050 policies to match their junior partner, the Nationals.
Announcing details of the confirmed plan, the opposition leader, Sussan Ley, quickly moved to head off another potentially messy policy flare up, promising to release a new Coalition immigration policy within weeks.
She said overseas arrivals into Australia were “far too high” under Labor, but offered no detail on which parts of the intake would be cut.
Ley and the Nationals leader, David Littleproud, said a future Coalition government would intervene to stop “premature” closure of coal fired power plants and use taxpayer funds to prop up supply as part of efforts to cut power prices.
At the first meeting of state and territory leaders in government, Ley would seek to change Australia’s national electricity objectives, and the work of the Australian Energy Market Operator, to focus on consumer interests including focusing on lower power prices over emissions reductions.
“We know as Labor looks Australians in the eye, they’ve got this all wrong, but we also know that our plan … is all about affordable energy and responsible emissions reduction,” she said.
“We’re not anti-renewables, but they have to be in the right place and they have to be balanced by base load power,” Ley said.
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Moderate Liberals questioned aspects of the plan in Sunday’s virtual meeting. After losing the internal debate to the conservative bloc last week, a small group of MPs queried Ley’s moves to add coal to the existing capacity investment scheme. The scheme underwrites renewable energy and storage projects.
The shadow energy and emissions reduction minister, Dan Tehan, confirmed a Coalition government would make targeted investments across the energy system, including in fossil-fuel technology, describing the opposition’s approach as “technology neutral”.
Q&A
What is net zero emissions?
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Net zero emissions is a target that has been adopted by governments, companies and other organisations to eliminate their contribution to the climate crisis. It is sometimes called “carbon neutrality”.
The climate crisis is caused by carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases being pumped into the atmosphere, where they trap heat. They have already caused a significant increase in average global temperatures above pre-industrial levels recorded since the mid-20th century.
Countries and others that set net zero emissions targets are pledging to stop their role in worsening this by cutting their climate pollution and balancing out whatever emissions remain by sucking an equivalent amount of CO2 out of the atmosphere.
This could happen through nature projects – tree planting, for example – or using carbon dioxide removal technology.
CO2 removal from the atmosphere is the “net” part in net zero. Scientists say some emissions will be hard to stop and will need to be offset. But they also say net zero targets will be effective only if carbon removal is limited to offset “hard to abate” emissions. Fossil use will still need to be dramatically reduced.
After signing the 2015 Paris agreement, the global community asked the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to assess what would be necessary to give the world a chance of limiting global heating to 1.5C.
The IPCC found it would require deep cuts in global CO2 emissions: to about 45% below 2010 levels by 2030, and to net zero by about 2050.
The Climate Action Tracker has found more than 145 countries have set or are considering setting net zero emissions targets.
Photograph: Ashley Cooper pics/www.alamy.com
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Ley said her plan keeps Australia in the Paris climate agreement, reducing emissions by tracking “the real performance of OECD countries” in achieved cuts. Reductions would only be achieved as fast as technology allows, and without “imposing mandated costs on families or industry”.
Staying in Paris was a red line for some Liberals, and is designed to give moderate MPs in suburban seats some cover against attacks from Labor and teal independents on climate credentials.
A Coalition government would lift the national moratorium ban on nuclear power and pursue investments in technology including carbon capture and storage, solar uptake, biofuels and low emissions metals.
The opposition’s standing in recent polling has plumbed new lows and despite her policy backdown on net zero last week, some Liberal MPs expect Ley to face a leadership challenge, likely from Andrew Hastie or Angus Taylor.
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The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, lashed the Coalition on Sunday, accusing them of policy inconsistency and poor leadership over emissions reduction.
Australia signed up to net zero under former prime minister Scott Morrison, with the support of the Nationals. Ley has previously argued net zero is good for the economy.
“Australians shouldn’t pay the price of Coalition chaos because that is what we are dealing with now, is their failure to put in place any energy policy,” Albanese said during a stop in Melbourne.
“If anyone thinks that there is certainty in the Coalition going forward, then they’re not paying any attention to the rabble and clown show the Coalition have become when it comes to energy policy and climate policy.”
Albanese said the move to ditch net zero by 2050 policies would hurt investment in renewable energy and hurt consumers.
Littleproud said plainly the Coalition emissions policy was not predicated on science, but instead on economics.
“Families are hurting, businesses are under pressure and regional communities are watching productive farmland and bushland being carved up for projects that make no sense,” he said.
The shadow home affairs minister, Jonathon Duniam, and the shadow immigration minister, Paul Scarr, will finalise the immigration policy within weeks. Duniam was appointed after Hastie quit the frontbench over a dispute with Ley on policy development.
Immediately after the net zero decision on Thursday, conservative Liberals said immigration would be the next policy battleground.
