Net zero is not dead: environment minister
Sussan Ley #SussanLey
Environment Minister Sussan Ley is digging in on net zero carbon emissions by 2050 despite the new deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce’s opposition.
“Net zero is not dead in the water,” she told journalists in Canberra on Tuesday.
“Net zero will happen as soon as possible and the prime minister has made that very clear.”
She said the strength of the Liberal and National coalition was the ability for people to hold different views.
Mr Joyce has been sworn in as Scott Morrison’s deputy at Government House, after ousting Michael McCormack as Nationals leader on Monday.
Shadow minister for climate change and energy Chris Bowen said Australia could be hit with a carbon tax as part of the economic cost of not having a net zero target.
“It will be imposed not in Australia but on Australia by other countries,” he told Sky News.
Mr Joyce has vowed to protect jobs in farming, mining and manufacturing, which is expected to be a central pillar of the new coalition agreement yet to be struck with the prime minister.
Overnight, UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee blindsided the Morrison government with a draft listing of the Great Barrier Reef as “in danger” because of ongoing damage from reef bleaching.
Ms Ley slammed the listing as “politics”, even as Australia grapples with its own political stoush on climate and energy.
Mr Bowen said the government clearly has a prejudice against renewable energy, such as Resource Minister Keith Pitt’s veto of a loan for the Kaban commercial wind farm and battery storage project in Queensland.
The project is a centrepiece of the state government’s Northern Queensland Renewable Energy Zone.
“There are questions to be answered by Sussan Ley and her refusal to approve the Asian Energy Renewable Hub in the Pilbara,” Mr Bowen told Sky News.
The hub would have powered mining in the region but the bulk of the energy was intended for large scale production of green hydrogen products to export to Japan and other “new energy” markets.
Liberal MP Warren Entsch, special envoy for the reef, said there was not a single agricultural representative body in Australia that did not support 2050 as a target.
“And the same goes for the mining sector – most of those are on board,” he said.
But Queensland Nationals senator Matt Canavan, who called the spill motion that reinstalled Mr Joyce, is calling for a harder line on emissions and support for coal-fired power.
“There’s been a lot of talk about international agreements and what other countries want us to do,” he told Nine.
“If there are people in the Liberal Party who support, who are against those interests and jobs and the people I represent, I will fight against them,” he said.