TRANSCRIPT
10 June 2024
Topics: Paris Climate Accord, CSIRO GenCost report
James Glenday
Now the federal government says Australian businesses will suffer if the opposition walks away from Australia’s 2030 emissions reduction target. Under the Paris Agreement, Australia has committed to deliver a 43% reduction in emissions. For more on this Shadow Energy Minister Ted O’Brien joins us from the Gold Coast. Ted, good morning. Thanks for speaking with us.
Ted O’Brien
Pleasure, James to be with you from the Sunshine Coast.
James Glenday
First of all, I just wanted to clear something up over the weekend, particularly yesterday, it was reported you plan to scrap the legislated 2030 climate target. This morning you are quoted in the Australian newspaper saying that the coalition’s position has not changed. So if you win the next election, will you scrap it or not?
Ted O’Brien
James, we are absolutely committed to the Paris Agreement. We are absolutely committed to achieving net zero by 2050. And we will have a plan to do so. What we have done is we’ve called Labor out. Labor legislated for a 43% emissions reduction cut by 2030. They have buckley’s chance of achieving that. Their own climate change authority and last year’s progress report at the end of the year, also made that clear. What we are now saying is, well, Chris Bowen and Anthony Albanese, you are not going to achieve your target of 43%. You need to come clean with the Australian people on that they refuse to do so. It’s like their promise of a $275 reduction in household power bills.
James Glenday
Mr. O’Brien, sorry to interrupt. I just want to go back to those figures. I mean, some departmental projections last year suggested Australia would get very close to around 42%. The government says no, no, we’re still on track. But I’m just curious, are you going to scrap the legislated target if you win the next election?
Ted O’Brien
What we are saying is that target is unachievable, James. And it doesn’t matter because…
James Glenday
Will you get rid of it or will you keep it [inaudible] the question?
Ted O’Brien
Well, it’s unachievable. That’s the point. The question that now needs to be put to the Labor Party because they are in government. We’re holding them to account. Still to this day, they have not come out with a plan to achieve it. They haven’t said how much it’s going to cost. They haven’t said who is going to pay. Now, this should be of no surprise in terms of the coalition’s position on this. Our track record stands – we beat every single target that we put, and when it came to the 43% target that Labor put in, James, we voted against that. In the past.
James Glenday
So what would you have as a target instead? Would you go back to the 26 to 28% target that was under the former coalition government? Will you go to an election saying this is the target that we think’s achievable for 2030?
Ted O’Brien
So James, while of course, I won’t be announcing the coalition’s climate and energy policy today, what I can tell you when it comes to targets, is firstly, unlike Labor, we won’t be plucking a number out of thin air. That has already proven to be a absolute train wreck for the Australian economy. Insolvencies have tripled. Australia is now paying among the highest electricity prices in the world right now. And this is all as a direct consequence of Labor’s climate and energy policies. We won’t be plucking a number out of thin air, the second point I want to make James…
James Glenday
So you won’t take a number to the election? I just want to ask then – the government said yesterday…
Ted O’Brien
The second point…
James Glenday
Sorry, Mr. O’Brien, we are short on time, but the government, the government says that if you don’t commit to this 2030 target if you change the target that you could be in breach of the Paris Agreement, and I looked up the agreement itself, and it says that a country can at any time adjust its targets, but with and I quote, a view to enhancing its level of ambition. Does your position and if you were to scrap this target mean that you would be in breach of the Paris Climate Accord?
Ted O’Brien
Two points on that if I can, James. Number one, if Labor is saying that failure to deliver on 43% by 2030 constitutes a breach of the Paris Agreement, they have a lot of questions to answer because that is precisely the pathway they are taking us down. We are going towards a failure. Labor has gone sideways, at best, on emissions. Every single year they’re meant to reduce emissions by 17 million tonnes. Last year they went to COP, I was there, announcing emissions in Australia have increased by 4 million. They were off target by 21 million tonnes. If Labor is saying this is going to be a breach of the Paris Agreement, well, they better come out very quickly with what answers they’re going to give. This as their target ,their commitment, they legislated it, they’re failing on it. That’s the key thing. The second point I would make James is you know reports suggests the EU, the United States, are also likely not to hit their 2030 targets. So it’s Chris Bowen and Anthony Albanese out there genuinely suggesting that, that President Biden is leaving Paris. You know, these issues are too important. We’ve got to get this right as a nation, and we cannot have Albanese and Chris Bowen just making numbers up and telling porkies pretending to the Australian people, it’s going swimmingly well. Whereas in the real world, it’s a train wreck.
James Glenday
It’s still unclear to me exactly what position – your position is actually, on this, whether you’re going to have a target or not at the next election. But the Energy Minister Chris Bowen said yesterday that the uncertainty your comments on this create will be disappointing to Pacific Island Nations. And he said that even the suggestion that Australia could be toying with its commitments could pose a national security risk to Australia’s diplomatic ties, do you think that is a reasonable thing to say?
Ted O’Brien
I think it is reasonable to have concerns about not just how the Australian people feel about the government pretending they can meet a target they’re failing on, but also, it is a risk to our international reputation, including in the Pacific, when we have an Australian Government pretending they’re going to meet a target that everybody knows they’re gonna fail at. That is a serious breach of faith. All we are calling for is honesty in this debate. The facts do the talking right now, the coalition left government with 29% reduction on 2005 levels. Today, two years after Labor in office, it’s still at 29% they are failing miserably. Now, if they want to tell untruths to the people of the Pacific and the people of Australia that is on them. But you will not find Peter Dutton, at all, putting up with that nor his team. We are not going to be associated with what is a Labor lie.
James Glenday
Okay. And Labor rejects that – they say they’re on track, they point to various different modeling. But I do want to just go on to a slightly different side issue of this. Your party wants to get to net zero by 2050 and plans to do so in part by nuclear energy. Have you decided how many nuclear reactors you would like to build and where you would put them?
Ted O’Brien
We’re not announcing the policy today, James, but you’re spot on. We’re just talking about net zero and climate change targets before, as we know whether it be the IPCC that states that nuclear energy is a mitigating technology for climate change, or even the United States where John Kerry, their climate envoy, makes it very clear you cannot get to net zero without zero emissions nuclear energy. Well, so too the coalition in Australia is looking at a balanced energy mix – technologies, working together. That’s renewables, we have an ongoing role for gas. And as coal exits the system, it should be replaced with zero emissions nuclear energy. We’ve been very upfront about that. I look forward to announcing our policy with Peter Dutton in due course.
James Glenday
Okay. How far is that policy away, and when you announce it will you announce the cost as well, because recently the CSIRO put out a report and said that nuclear energy would cost 50% more than wind, solar and battery energy, and would take 15 years to deliver.
Ted O’Brien
Two questions you had there. Firstly, we are at advanced stages, and we’ll be announcing our policy for cheaper, cleaner and consistent 24/7 power in due course, then when it comes to costings, we’ve done an enormous amount of work on this, I make the point that still today, Labor have not come out with its costings. And it’s in government, by the way, we don’t see anything from Labor. But the consumers know that they’re the ones copping the pain. When it comes to the CSIRO’s report, we’ve already made comments on that. The assumptions that we are making as a coalition is that nuclear power plants work as designed. That is 24/7. They don’t work only half the time, which is what the GenCost report suggested. And their life is more than 30 years, that’s all was suggested by the GenCost report. You know, these are assets that could last up to 80 years, possibly 100 years. And when you look at that enormous time span, one asset running 24/7, you can understand while other countries are seeing their power bills come down, and the lights stay on while they reach net zero. We’re going to learn and be humble enough as a nation to learn from other countries.
James Glenday
Right, of course. So just the context is of course of the Labor government says that would create much more expensive power than renewables but we are out of time. Ted O’Brien, thank you so much for actually coming on and fronting up and speaking to us this morning.