Speaker 1: And today I'm joined by the two ministers, the Minister
Speaker 1: for Climate Change and Energy the Treasurer, but also by
Speaker 1: Matt Kean, the Chair of the Climate Change Authority.
Speaker 2: Having released the National Climate Risk Assessment, a report full
Speaker 2: of apocalyptic climate warnings, earlier this week, the government has
Speaker 2: now announced its twenty thirty five emissions target. Although it's
Speaker 2: not a target exactly, it's a target range.
Speaker 1: Today I announced that we have accepted their advice at
Speaker 1: Australia's twenty thirty five emissions target be sixty two to
Speaker 1: seventy percent. This is a responsible target, back by the science,
Speaker 1: back by a practical plan to get there, and built
Speaker 1: on proven technology.
Speaker 2: The government says the target is both achievable and ambitious,
Speaker 2: but there are others who say the government has set
Speaker 2: themselves a target that means they don't have to do
Speaker 2: or change anything.
Speaker 3: These states, the collective action from the States would already
Speaker 3: each that target range by twenty thirty five, so nationally
Speaker 3: we are adding absolutely nothing. And they know that what
Speaker 3: they're doing is not enough on the science, on the modeling,
Speaker 3: on what we're being told from every serious climate agency,
Speaker 3: and so they don't want to set themselves a target
Speaker 3: that they will fail into the future. So what we
Speaker 3: have is a target range that will mean no change
Speaker 3: to anything that they're doing and no drastic action.
Speaker 2: I'm Ruby Jones and you're listening to seven AM today
Speaker 2: contributing editor of The New Daily and Euymicus on how
Speaker 2: ambitious Australia's missions target really is and whether it's enough
Speaker 2: to keep global warming below one point five degrees. It's Friday,
Speaker 2: September nineteen.
Speaker 1: Alongside our twenty thirty five target today and the release
Speaker 1: of this report here Australia's net zero plan going forward,
Speaker 1: we're announcing significant new measures that build on our existing plans.
Speaker 2: Amy the Abbadezy government has just announced its updated emissions
Speaker 2: reduction target, committing to a reduction of somewhere between sixty
Speaker 2: two and seventy percent by twenty thirty five. And along
Speaker 2: with the target, they've announced some measures to help get there,
Speaker 2: including a five billion dollar a zero fund and two
Speaker 2: billion dollars to drive down electricity prices.
Speaker 1: This will help to accelerate long term renewable projects right
Speaker 1: across our nation. In addition to that, we know that
Speaker 1: getting emissions down in the resources sector and heavy industry
Speaker 1: is the next major area and will help heavy industry
Speaker 1: to do the heavy lifting.
Speaker 2: So tell me what you make of these announcements.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean all of these things are basically just
Speaker 3: expanding on existing programs and existing targets. They're basically saying,
Speaker 3: we're going to expand the amount of renewable energy that
Speaker 3: we're putting into the grid, which is something that they've
Speaker 3: been doing since the first time that they were elected.
Speaker 3: And we're going to start funding other projects and other
Speaker 3: technologies that we think are going to help us get
Speaker 3: to the point that we need to get to. But
Speaker 3: the one thing that they're not doing, the absolute crucial
Speaker 3: thing they are not doing, is stopping new coal and
Speaker 3: gas expansion. And if they just did that, we could
Speaker 3: meet our climate targets. We could actually plan for a
Speaker 3: future where we would have the technology on top of
Speaker 3: building upon the cut from admissions from not having new
Speaker 3: coal and gas. But they won't do that. And so
Speaker 3: all of these announcements that they're making in terms of oh,
Speaker 3: we're going to expand this renewables program, Oh, we're going
Speaker 3: to fund green hydrogen, we're going to start funding green steel,
Speaker 3: none of that really matters because we're not doing the
Speaker 3: one thing the science, the UN, every climate agency is
Speaker 3: telling us we need to do, which is stop new
Speaker 3: coal and gas projects.
Speaker 2: And the big question in regards to the target range,
Speaker 2: obviously is how does this range of sixty two to
Speaker 2: seventy percent stack up in terms of being able to
Speaker 2: limit global warming to one point five degrees? Can that
Speaker 2: be achieved?
Speaker 3: No, it can't. We've already passed that. I mean, I
Speaker 3: think the Climate Risk Assessment Report, which was released quite
Speaker 3: recently also showed that we're already past that.
Speaker 4: Australia's first National Climate Risk Assessment is warning one and
Speaker 4: a half million Australians are at risk from sea level
Speaker 4: rises by twenty to fifty unless climate change can be limited.
Speaker 4: The assessment also warns climate related hazards will increase, heat
Speaker 4: related deaths will soar, and the cost of disaster recovery.
Speaker 2: Will jump to more than forty billion dollars a year.
Speaker 3: The minimum we needed to do was about seventy five percent.
Speaker 3: That was the bare minimum we needed to commit to
Speaker 3: by twenty thirty five, and instead we're saying, oh, you know,
Speaker 3: we can be somewhere in the low sixties and that'll
Speaker 3: still get us there. I mean, the entire Furfee around.
Speaker 3: How the Albanezy government is framing its climate emissions reduction
Speaker 3: plan is that there is going to be technology that
Speaker 3: doesn't exist yet that is going to save us in
Speaker 3: the future, that we don't need to do too much
Speaker 3: because this technology is going to come at some point
Speaker 3: between twenty fifty and that's going to make everything better,
Speaker 3: so we don't actually need to rush. That is not
Speaker 3: what the science is telling us. And I don't know
Speaker 3: how many people have actually read the Climate Risk Assessment Report.
Speaker 3: It didn't get as much coverage as it should, and
Speaker 3: that's probably because I think we all have a bit
Speaker 3: of fatigue, and I think when we're looking at modeling,
Speaker 3: we're just like, oh, well, you can model anything, but
Speaker 3: this is some serious modeling. And one of the things
Speaker 3: that was so striking to me was it basically said
Speaker 3: we are going to have one and a half million
Speaker 3: people have unlivable homes by twenty fifty.
Speaker 5: By twenty fifty, the number of coastal communities located in
Speaker 5: high and very high risk areas will increase substantially, and
Speaker 5: if current population remains the same, that will represent an
Speaker 5: increase to one point five million people impacted in coastal
Speaker 5: areas by civil rise, corrosion and other impacts.
Speaker 3: If you are currently twenty, that is when you're in
Speaker 3: your midlife, your super is still going to be another
Speaker 3: two or three decades away. From that point, you will
Speaker 3: be just starting to pay off your mortgage, if indeed
Speaker 3: you've managed to have one, you still have decades and
Speaker 3: decades of your life to live. And essentially, what the
Speaker 3: government is saying with this this target range that it's
Speaker 3: set is we don't have to rush to do anything
Speaker 3: about that, because we'll eventually work it out sometime in
Speaker 3: the future, just not now.
Speaker 2: And when you say the government is waiting on technology
Speaker 2: that doesn't really exist yet, you're talking about things like
Speaker 2: carbon capture and storage and what else.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean carbon capture and storage is probably the
Speaker 3: one that we know the most about, which is this
Speaker 3: idea that you can basically capture the carbon bombs and
Speaker 3: then bury them in the ground or under the sea.
Speaker 3: Australia recently is changing laws to allow you to bury
Speaker 3: carbon bombs within the ocean seabed. We don't know if
Speaker 3: it works or not, but it's like this idea of
Speaker 3: offsets as well, which is the idea that you can
Speaker 3: choose not to burn a forest or cut down a
Speaker 3: forest and not get rid of the sea grass, or
Speaker 3: basically just get land put aside and you're not going
Speaker 3: to touch that, and that's going to offset any of
Speaker 3: the emissions that your project is generating. But this idea
Speaker 3: that you can just offset it by not cutting down
Speaker 3: those trees and that's going to allow you to continue
Speaker 3: emitting or in some cases increasing emitting, depending on how
Speaker 3: much you're offsetting with your project, that that is going
Speaker 3: to be what saves us doesn't even make sense on
Speaker 3: the mass. But this is the sort of technology, the
Speaker 3: sort of ideas that we're being sold as the solutions
Speaker 3: to the climate crisis. So people aren't even really being
Speaker 3: able to have faith that this technology is going to
Speaker 3: come down the line and save us because what we're
Speaker 3: being told so far doesn't make sense.
Speaker 2: Coming up why climate targets aren't just an environmental problem
Speaker 2: but a diplomatic one too.
Speaker 6: This is a range that I'm hopeful that we can
Speaker 6: overachieve on our range positions Australia as a global leader
Speaker 6: on climate ambition. In fact, we are presenting a higher
Speaker 6: ambition than most other advanced economies.
Speaker 2: The Chair of the Climate Change authorities. Matt Kean. He
Speaker 2: says that this target it positions Australia as a global
Speaker 2: leader in terms of climate ambition. The government will take
Speaker 2: this target to the UN General Assembly alongside other world leaders.
Speaker 2: So how do our targets compare to what other countries
Speaker 2: are promising?
Speaker 3: Well, not great And I mean we don't even have
Speaker 3: to go that far to find people who are going
Speaker 3: to be very upset with us. The specific is going
Speaker 3: to be very, very upset with this target. They're already
Speaker 3: very upset with what Australia is doing and continuing to
Speaker 3: approve colon gas, and they've made that eminently clear in
Speaker 3: all sorts of forums.
Speaker 7: Fossil fuel production expansion is an internationally wrongful act under
Speaker 7: international law.
Speaker 3: We know from the ip PCC reports that Australia needs
Speaker 3: to do more in stopping new coal and new gas.
Speaker 3: That has been made very very clear. Even if we
Speaker 3: switch to renewables, we do all of the things that
Speaker 3: the Albanezy government is doing, and those are good things.
Speaker 3: But even if we do all of that, if we
Speaker 3: continue to open up coal and gas which is burned
Speaker 3: in other countries which you know aren't as far along
Speaker 3: the line of the renewable transition, or their economies haven't
Speaker 3: managed to transition to what we're all trying to do
Speaker 3: by twenty fifty. We're still responsible for that. And it's
Speaker 3: things like that that are brought up at the UN
Speaker 3: meetings that we conveniently just kind of push to the
Speaker 3: side whenever we talk about climate action, because we're trying
Speaker 3: to pretend that what we export and what we send
Speaker 3: out doesn't count to what we are doing. Of course
Speaker 3: it does. And I'm not saying we stop or coal
Speaker 3: and gas that we currently have. I'm saying that we
Speaker 3: don't need to open up up any more.
Speaker 2: And as you mentioned, our emissions targets are not just
Speaker 2: an environmental or economic issue, they're a diplomatic one. Australia
Speaker 2: has been trying to strengthen its security ties with the
Speaker 2: Pacific island nations. We've recently seen more than one agreement
Speaker 2: fail to get over the line, in particular with Papua
Speaker 2: New Guinea. So how much was climate policy a sticking
Speaker 2: point in terms of that defense agreement.
Speaker 3: Well, we know it's a sticking point not just for
Speaker 3: that defense agreement but with all of our relations with
Speaker 3: the Pacific.
Speaker 8: The government hope to emerge from the Pacific over the
Speaker 8: last two weeks, holding aloft two documents or two treaties,
Speaker 8: one from Vanuuatu, the Nakamal Agreement that it hoped to
Speaker 8: sign last week, and this defense treaty that has been
Speaker 8: talked about so widely and so broadly for the last
Speaker 8: three or four weeks in particular, and in the end
Speaker 8: it's emerging with none.
Speaker 3: So we have had Vaniwatu also say no to an agreement.
Speaker 3: It's the second time in two years where Vdiwatu has said, actually, no,
Speaker 3: we're not willing to sign away our strategic sovereignty for
Speaker 3: whatever you're offering us Australia.
Speaker 7: Some of my ministers and my mbs, they feel that
Speaker 7: it requires more discussions through particularly on some of the
Speaker 7: specific wordings in the agreement.
Speaker 3: We know from the Pacific Island Forum, from the multiple
Speaker 3: statements that have been put out by Pacific Region leaders
Speaker 3: that they want Australia to actually act seriously on this.
Speaker 3: It's because Pacific Islands know better than any of us
Speaker 3: the impacts of climate change. They are already living it.
Speaker 3: They know what it's like to see your home start
Speaker 3: to disappear underwater. Australia knows what that's like too, because
Speaker 3: we've started working on refugee deals climate refugee deals with
Speaker 3: some Pacific island regions, where basically we're saying, well, you
Speaker 3: can migrate to Australia because your home is no longer
Speaker 3: going to exist. So all of these things do count
Speaker 3: in terms of how the Pacific views us. So when
Speaker 3: we go to them and we say, oh, hey, guys,
Speaker 3: we'd really like you to make us the security partner
Speaker 3: of choice, they're increasingly saying, actually, we're not sure that
Speaker 3: that works for us, because you're not listening to what
Speaker 3: we're saying when it comes to climate, when it comes
Speaker 3: to how you treat us, when it comes to these
Speaker 3: agreements that you make with us, Why should you only
Speaker 3: ever view us through the lens of defense when you
Speaker 3: can't actually see that our entire lives, culture and nations
Speaker 3: are at risk and you're not actually doing anything about that.
Speaker 3: And it comes to a shock to a lot of people.
Speaker 3: But I speak to quite a lot of people in
Speaker 3: the Pacific or who work in the Pacific trying to
Speaker 3: get agreement from the government, and we are not popular
Speaker 3: in the Pacific, and you can see the reasons for that.
Speaker 3: So it is going to have further repercussion. So everybody
Speaker 3: who worries about China getting inroads into the Pacific, These
Speaker 3: sorts of decisions that Australia makes when it comes to climate,
Speaker 3: when it comes to the environment, when it comes to
Speaker 3: proper action, all impact on that and we're not exactly
Speaker 3: telling them that they can count on us.
Speaker 2: Well, Amy, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Also in the news today, reactions are trickling in after
Speaker 2: the Prime Minister's emissions productions announcement yesterday. Opposition leader Susan
Speaker 2: Lee says the target quote fails on both counts, on
Speaker 2: both cost and credibility, with National's leader David Little Proud
Speaker 2: also adding they will not support the target. Meanwhile, Independent
Speaker 2: Senator David Pocock has criticized the Prime Minister for not
Speaker 2: being ambitious enough, saying the government is not listening to
Speaker 2: the science and that quote. We cannot give up on this.
Speaker 2: And Alan Jones has pleaded not guilty to twenty seven
Speaker 2: charges of indecent assault and some alleged victims have withdrawn
Speaker 2: from the case. In the first hearing for the disgraced
Speaker 2: former broadcaster held yesterday. Jones had been charged with a
Speaker 2: number of offenses in New South Wales between twenty one
Speaker 2: and twenty nineteen. Yesterday, eleven of his charges of aggravated
Speaker 2: indecent assault were downgraded and the number of victims involved
Speaker 2: in the case dropped from eleven to nine. The case
Speaker 2: will go to trial in front of a magistrate next month.
Speaker 2: I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am. Thanks for listening.