Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Christinamiot.
Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, September sixteenth, twenty twenty five. Just since Alan
Speaker 1: says Victoria won't turn its back on China, the Victorian
Speaker 1: premiere unveiled her plan to supercharge Chinese investment in the
Speaker 1: state's public transport, clean energy and higher education sectors in
Speaker 1: a speech delivered in Beijing on Monday night. Hunters and
Speaker 1: Collectors frontman Mark Seymour cut ties with his mother in
Speaker 1: his twenties, thinking it would be forever, but writing for
Speaker 1: The Australian Today, he says they reconnected following her dementia diagnosis.
Speaker 1: You can read his tribute right now at the Australian
Speaker 1: dot com dot au. The Albanzi government has set the
Speaker 1: stage for its most ambitious emissions reductions targets ever. But
Speaker 1: while the government is boosting renewable energy programs and ev incentives,
Speaker 1: the trans position is proving much harder than anyone expected.
Speaker 1: Today Political editor Jeff Chambers joins us to unpack the
Speaker 1: government's doomsday warning and what it does next.
Speaker 2: We are living climate change now. It's no longer forecast,
Speaker 2: a projection or prediction. It is I live reality, and
Speaker 2: it's too late to avoid any impacts, but it's not
Speaker 2: too late to avoid the worst of the impacts.
Speaker 1: This is Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen. On Monday, he
Speaker 1: released a report that suggests our collective future is looking
Speaker 1: pretty hairy if we don't take decisive action and fast.
Speaker 1: It's called the National Climate Risk Assessment, and it says
Speaker 1: no Australian community will be spared from potential catastrophe if
Speaker 1: temperatures rise by just a couple of degrees in the
Speaker 1: coming decades.
Speaker 2: As report makes clear, the difference in terms of impact
Speaker 2: between one point five and two degrees are warming littlone
Speaker 2: three is very real for Australia, so hence our efforts
Speaker 2: on mitigation must and will continue.
Speaker 1: According to The Australian's Political editor Jeff Chambers, it's less
Speaker 1: science paper, more Hollywood blockbuster.
Speaker 3: I've described it as a bit of a doomsday report
Speaker 3: and it reads like a script from a Hollywood natural
Speaker 3: disaster movie.
Speaker 1: The report says natural disasters could increase hundreds of millions
Speaker 1: of dollars could be wiped from property values, heat related
Speaker 1: deaths could increase by more than four hundred percent. Industries
Speaker 1: could crumble and supply chains could be obliterated. Insurers could
Speaker 1: jack up premiums, social cohesion could fracture, and first nations
Speaker 1: people will bear the brunt of it, and on and
Speaker 1: on it goes.
Speaker 3: The National Climate Risk Is said basically compiles a bunch
Speaker 3: of information from the Bureau of Meteorology, the Australian Bureau
Speaker 3: of Statistics, Geoscience Australia and CIRO, and they set up
Speaker 3: an independent body to actually do this work. So I
Speaker 3: very much see this report as a cover a prelude
Speaker 3: to the twenty thirty five target, telling all Australians that
Speaker 3: if we don't strive for stronger action, these will be
Speaker 3: the consequences. And one interesting takeout from this report For me,
Speaker 3: I've got two young daughters and a lot of nieces
Speaker 3: and nephews in high school, and I know for a
Speaker 3: fact that already school children all the way up two
Speaker 3: year twelve and then into university are very anxious about
Speaker 3: the risk of climate because their whole lives they have
Speaker 3: been warned that these really catastrophic situations will materialize in
Speaker 3: their lifetimes. So you just wonder the duty of care
Speaker 3: with a report like this. The flip side of that,
Speaker 3: which the government would say is that this report outlines
Speaker 3: the true scenarios and outcomes of doing nothing or not
Speaker 3: doing enough on climate change.
Speaker 1: So let's break this down. There are a number of
Speaker 1: milestones referenced in the report. There's twenty thirty five and
Speaker 1: twenty fifty, which most people will have heard about in
Speaker 1: debates and discussion about climate change. Those are the deadlines
Speaker 1: that most governments around the world are working towards to
Speaker 1: reduce greenhouse gas emissions with a view to preventing these
Speaker 1: one point five to two degree temperature rises. But the
Speaker 1: National Climate Risk Assessment has introduced a new twenty ninety
Speaker 1: milestone and a twenty one hundred milestone, and it goes
Speaker 1: really hard on those milestones. Tell me a bit about that.
Speaker 1: What's the point of it?
Speaker 3: Look, I could only see the point of it as
Speaker 3: being the further you look down the track, the more
Speaker 3: extremes of a scenario that you are assuming is going
Speaker 3: to make the situation look even scarier. And what does
Speaker 3: that mean, Well, it means that the government should go
Speaker 3: even harder than what they currently are doing. And it's
Speaker 3: really interesting because we're seeing around the world, like minded
Speaker 3: Western democracies pulling back a little bit on some of
Speaker 3: the hopes and aspirations that they had because obviously with
Speaker 3: the biggest polluters in the well being China, India, in
Speaker 3: the United States under their current governments, they're not interested
Speaker 3: in targets. And then I saw last week in Canada
Speaker 3: Mark Karney, who's forged a pretty close relationship with Anthony Alberinezi,
Speaker 3: and he was asked about Canada's twenty thirty and twenty
Speaker 3: thirty five targets, and he talked down a firm commitment
Speaker 3: to achieving those targets and said he was more focused
Speaker 3: on results rather than objectives. My concern about some of
Speaker 3: the numbers in this report is not only is it
Speaker 3: looking at various scenarios out to twenty fifty, it also
Speaker 3: introduces these new milestone dates, So it makes you think,
Speaker 3: how on Earth can you reasonably model anything accurately that
Speaker 3: is seventy five years away from now.
Speaker 1: The National Climate Risk Assessment was released in tandem with
Speaker 1: a so called National Adaptation Plan. It's basically the blueprint
Speaker 1: for how the government thinks it'll meet its various emissions
Speaker 1: reductions targets, and it calls on households and the private
Speaker 1: sector to walk in lockstep with all levels of government
Speaker 1: on climate action, and.
Speaker 2: So the National Adaptation Plan is a framework for that
Speaker 2: conversation about how to crowd in the funding, how to
Speaker 2: ensure that we're all fulfilling our responsibilities, that we're working
Speaker 2: together on that task.
Speaker 3: Adaptation that's all about getting the write infrastructure in place,
Speaker 3: and obviously that means supporting that clean energy revolution to
Speaker 3: try and lower Australia's emissions. But Australia is a pretty
Speaker 3: wild and wooly country. We've been experiencing cyclones, storms, floodings, bushfires,
Speaker 3: heat waves for many centuries and there is a level
Speaker 3: of adaptation that is already in place and the government
Speaker 3: is obviously calling for that to be turbocharged, and I
Speaker 3: think aligned with that push, we're seeing a lot of
Speaker 3: alban easy government programs established by Chris Bowen. So that
Speaker 3: might be your batteries at home, your solar panels at home,
Speaker 3: people taking up electric vehicles. So you're seeing a lot
Speaker 3: of different programs which are costing taxpayers, which is ultimately
Speaker 3: Australian's a lot of money to fund. And the higher
Speaker 3: we push up that ambition, the more expensive this mission becomes.
Speaker 3: We don't really know how much extra will all be
Speaker 3: expected to pay for this. So I think it's about,
Speaker 3: I guess, changing the culture and the way that families live,
Speaker 3: households approach things. The problem I see in it. You've
Speaker 3: got millions upon millions of people who have chosen to
Speaker 3: live in these climate impact zones, who've been allowed to
Speaker 3: live in these areas. How do you wind all that back?
Speaker 1: Coming up? We've seen the opening Act, Now get ready
Speaker 1: for the big show. The timing of the National Climate
Speaker 1: Risk Assessment released by Chris Bowen on Monday is no coincidence.
Speaker 1: The Climate Change Minister will make his final recommendations for
Speaker 1: the government's greenhouse gas emissions reductions target to the Prime
Speaker 1: Minister and Cabinet any day now more.
Speaker 3: When will we know soon?
Speaker 2: I received it on Friday afternoon. I'm working through it.
Speaker 2: I'm giving it due and proper regard. You won't be
Speaker 2: the first to know what my recommendation is. The Cabinet
Speaker 2: will be the first to know. You'll be the second.
Speaker 3: Tonight.
Speaker 1: Here's Jeff Chambers.
Speaker 3: So the government has pushed this process out as far
Speaker 3: as they possibly can. As we know, there's already twenty
Speaker 3: thirty targets forty three percent reduction on two thousand and
Speaker 3: five levels by the end of the decade and eighty
Speaker 3: two percent of renewables in the grid. Now, on both
Speaker 3: of those fronts, the Albanese government is already struggling to
Speaker 3: achieve those. On current trajectory levels, they won't achieve those,
Speaker 3: but under the Paris Agreement u N rules, by the
Speaker 3: end of this month, Australia has to lodge its new
Speaker 3: nationally determined contribution. The headline of that is the twenty
Speaker 3: thirty five targets. We're expecting the Prime Minister and mister
Speaker 3: Bowen to unveil that new target by the end of
Speaker 3: this week. I believe that both men, certainly the Prime
Speaker 3: Minister is heading to New York for his first United
Speaker 3: Nations General Assembly, and they will be selling to the
Speaker 3: world what we're doing, because obviously they are still trying
Speaker 3: to land the un COP thirty one summit, which is
Speaker 3: notionally slated to be held in Adelaide next year, co
Speaker 3: hosted with Pacific Nations, and I'm sure that the Prime
Speaker 3: Minister and Chris Bowen will be trying to use that
Speaker 3: twenty thirty five target to try and make that final
Speaker 3: push to land the summit. I believe that the government,
Speaker 3: while only officially receiving the advice on Friday, would have
Speaker 3: had a pretty clear idea of which way that they
Speaker 3: were going to look. I understand that it'll be a range,
Speaker 3: and I'm expecting that will probably be in the sixties.
Speaker 3: Some of the more conservative types in the labor movement
Speaker 3: and some in the business community believe, to be realistic,
Speaker 3: we should be close to where Canada is and be
Speaker 3: in the fifties, potentially in the late fifties. But there
Speaker 3: is a lot of internal pressure and pressure from Greens
Speaker 3: and labor voters and stakeholders that at the very least
Speaker 3: the government doesn't go under what the Climate Change Authority
Speaker 3: has been consulting on in that sixty five to seventy
Speaker 3: five range, so you know, you might see something that
Speaker 3: looks like, say sixty three to sixty five. They've got
Speaker 3: to strike a balance there because there is a lot
Speaker 3: of challenges coming down the line in terms of not
Speaker 3: building enough renewables, not getting transmission up and running quick enough,
Speaker 3: and not seeing evs being adopted quick enough. So if
Speaker 3: you have this really ambitious twenty thirty five target, it
Speaker 3: carries a lot of political risks if you are too ambitious,
Speaker 3: and obviously for Labor it carries some risks from their
Speaker 3: left flank if they are not ambitious enough.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Just lastly, you mentioned there that the Coalition is
Speaker 1: kind of at war with itself over net zero. There
Speaker 1: are factions of the Liberal and National Parties who want
Speaker 1: Susan Lee to abandon that policy entirely, and then there
Speaker 1: are others who want her to stay the course, whatever
Speaker 1: that course may be. At this point, how does the
Speaker 1: coalition navigate this issue going forward?
Speaker 3: I don't think they've actually worked that out, and I
Speaker 3: think for Susan Lee and her supporters they hoped that
Speaker 3: they could have time. They thought it was such a
Speaker 3: devastating loss that surely people will give them the space
Speaker 3: and time to work out coherent policies and try and
Speaker 3: put themselves in a bit of a more competitive position.
Speaker 3: And ultimately, as we always see with the coalition, elements
Speaker 3: inside both the Nats and the Liberal Party have a
Speaker 3: clash of ideology when it comes to things like net
Speaker 3: zero and emissions targets, and we're starting to see that
Speaker 3: bear out very publicly. It's not a news story for
Speaker 3: the Coalition and really has become an existential problem.
Speaker 1: Jeff Chambers is The Australian's Political editor. You can read
Speaker 1: his full analysis of the National Climate Change Assessment right
Speaker 1: now at the Australian dot com dot au