Government announces 2035 target of 62–70% emissions reduction

The Albanese government has announced Australia will commit to cutting emissions by between 62% and 70% on 2005 levels by 2035.

The wide range seeks to straddle, to the extent possible, those in business pressing for the target to be kept relatively modest and environmentalists who want more ambition. The government said it took into account the unpredictability of changing technology.

Announcing the target at a news conference on Thursday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said, “This is a reasonable target supported by science and a practical plan to get there, and built on proven technology.

"It is the right target to protect our environment, to protect and advance our economy and jobs and to ensure that we act in our national interest and in the interest of this and future generations,” he said.

“We think we’ve got the sweet spot.”

The target is in line with the advice by the Climate Change Authority, headed by former New South Wales Liberal minister Matt Kean, who attended the news conference with Albanese, Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen and Treasurer Jim Chalmers.

The government has announced a raft of measures, totalling more than $8 billion, to help deliver the target, including:

• a $5 billion Net Zero Fund in the National Reconstruction Fund, to assist industrial facilities decarbonise and scale up more renewables and low emissions manufacturing

• $2 billion for the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to continue to drive downwards pressure on electricity prices

• $1.1 billion to encourage production of clean fuels

• $40 million to accelerate the roll out of kerbside EV charging

• $85 million to help households and businesses improve their energy performance

• $50 million for sports clubs to decarbonise.

Albanese said the target range was consistent with comparable countries. “The European Union have just announced that over the next 24 hours they will be considering a target range between 63% and 70%.”

Bowen said the government’s target was “ambitious and achievable, sensible and serious. It is a target that has been very carefully calibrated and is one that is very well compared with like-minded and similar economies around the world.”

He said that a target of more than 70% would not be achievable.

Kean said his authority “sought targets that will future proof our industries, our economy, our way of life and our planet”.

Chalmers released treasury modelling of various scenarios of getting to net zero. This work found “an orderly path to net zero is a path that leads to growing wages and living standards, more jobs and economic opportunity”.

The treasury modelled a “disorderly transition scenario” that assumed Australia didn’t set a creditable target but in 2040 resumed a trajectory to net zero by 2050. This showed a much poorer economic outcome than the orderly transition models.

“Treasury did not model a pathway that abandoned reaching net zero by 2050 but concluded that that approach would be worse than the results of the Disorderly Transition scenario.”

Albanese joked off a question about how much power prices would come down under the government’s plan. This follows the government’s unfulfilled promise before the 2022 election of reducing household power bills by $275.

The target range has received a predictably mixed reaction.

The Australian Industry Group said the range “is a big lift”.

“While it is not straightforward to achieve, it is also in the realm of the feasible – with hard work and a tight focus on making Australia a place where it is easy to invest and to build,” the group’s chief executive Innes Willox said.

“We should not spend the next ten years arguing about this target range. We should get on with sensible measures that make it ever more achievable.”

The Greens slammed the decision, with leader Larissa Waters saying, “Labor has sold out to coal and gas corporations with this utter failure of a target”.

She said it was “a betrayal of people and the planet.”

“Labor is the worst type of climate hypocrite: they claim to care and then approve more coal and gas projects.”

The Australian Conservation Foundation said the target was “timid”.