Australia to head to COP26 with net-zero by 2050 target, PM says

Sydney (dpa) - Australia will head to COP26 with a net-zero emissions by 2050 target, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Tuesday.

Canberra has been accused of dragging its feet on setting net-zero targets, and Morrison received criticism for suggesting he might not even attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP26, which opens in Glasgow on Sunday. He has since confirmed he would attend.

"At Glasgow I will confirm that Australia will continue to play our part. We will set a target to achieve net zero by 2050, and have a clear plan for achieving it," Morrison wrote in an opinion piece published in News Corp media.

At a press conference unveiling the target, Morrison said modelling showed Australia was set to reduce emissions by up to 35 per cent by 2030. He said the country would however not update its existing target of 26 to 28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.

The net-zero plan will focus primarily on offsets, Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction Angus Taylor said. Taylor cited carbon capture and the country's 90 million hectares of agricultural land that could be a significant "carbon sink."

Taylor said the plan would focus on "technology not taxes," while Morrison said there would be no mandate or legislation for the plan.

Morrison repeatedly said the plan would protect jobs and the "way of life" of regional Australia, which is dominated by the mining industry.

The government estimates that plan will create 62,000 new regional mining and heavy industry jobs, Australian news agency AAP reported.

The key parts of the plan include investing some 20 billion dollars of investment in low-emissions technology by 2030, with existing technologies used to meet 85 per cent of the goal, according to AAP.

Morrison's Liberal party and its junior coalition partner the Nationals reached a final deal on climate targets after much wrangling in recent days.

Morrison said Australia was now past the "if and the when" and would now focus on "the how."

Morrison said all of the related policies would come out before Australia's next federal election in 2022.

A UN report released Monday said the latest climate action plans from the 192 countries participating in COP26 were insufficient and put the global average temperature on track to rise 2.7 degrees Celsius by the end of this century.

COP26 is seen as the most crucial conference on global warming since the 2015 Paris climate agreement, which saw nations set a target of staying below 2 degrees Celsius, and preferably below 1.5 degrees, above pre-industrial levels.​

Published by dpa International (October 25, 2021)