Australian PM Calls 62-70% Emissions Target the ‘Sweet Spot’ Between Ideal and Achievable

Australia’s prime minister says the country’s new emissions reductions target marks the “sweet spot” as competing parties broadly condemn it as terrible for either the economy or the planet.

“There will be criticism from some who say it’s too high, there’s some who will say that it’s too low,” Anthony Albanese told a Sept. 18 news conference to announce the government’s new emissions target of between 62% and 70% of 2005 levels by 2035.

Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen explained at the same event that aiming for greater reductions by 2035 was “not achievable,” and that the new target is aligned with the 1.5°C pathway outlined in the Paris climate agreement.

Climate campaigners and Australia’s Green Party condemned the reductions as insufficient to address climate change, while the opposition Coalition leader Sussan Ley described it as “economy-wrecking” and “a fantasy that rests on flawed assumptions and cannot be believed,” reports the Guardian.

Albanese’s cabinet based the target on final advice from the Climate Change Authority led by Matt Kean, who had previously served as Australia’s minister for energy from 2019 to 2023. It comes after a national climate assessment, released Sept. 15, outlined a dire future of severe climate impacts facing Australia, including more frequent and severe floods, cyclones, heatwaves, droughts, and bushfires.

With the country already set to experience 1.5°C warming, impacts are unavoidable but become increasingly severe under scenarios with more warming. For example, annual heat-related deaths in Sydney would rise by 190% compared to today’s levels at 2°C warming, or 444% with 3°C warming, the assessment states.

Albanese called the Sept. 15 report “a wake-up call” for Australia on Hawaii Public Radio.

In an opinion piece, Guardian Australia’s climate and environment editor Adam Morton said the lower end of the target risks falling short of what is needed for Australia to carry its weight in international efforts to address climate change. Morton described the targeted reduction as a “political solution” that risks poorer performance than some past analyses have suggested are economically and technically possible. The discrepancies between the Albanese cabinet’s proposal and more ambitious suggestions comes down to what is “socially possible.”

“Put another way, what pace of change is the public prepared to put up with before there is pushback that would disrupt the entire project and elect a Coalition government hell-bent on abolishing the climate policies Labor has introduced?” Morton writes.

But the Climate Change Authority says even reaching the lower end of the range will be difficult. A recent forecast suggests Australia is on track to cut emissions by 51% from 2005 levels by 2035, so the government will need to increase efforts to reach even the bottom of the target, the Guardian says.

“The authority finds that an emissions reduction target of 62-70% from 2005 levels represents Australia’s highest possible ambition, taking account of the matters set out under the relevant legislation, [that] is achievable, and is in Australia’s national and economic interest,” the Climate Change Authority says in its report.

“While some analysis suggests it would be technically possible for Australia to achieve even more, our analysis finds that doing so would involve higher delivery risks and may require policies with considerably higher near-term social, environmental, or economic impacts.”