Australia's 2035 climate targets on path to net zero judged by the experts
After much anticipation, Australia has set its new climate targets: a reduction of 62 to 70 per cent within the next 10 years.
Climate groups have already criticised the targets as "timid, weak, and a failure".
Under the Paris Agreement, countries have to submit increasingly ambitious targets every five years with the goal of keeping warming below 1.5 degrees.
Professor Frank Jotzo, head of the Centre for Climate and Energy Policy at ANU, is more focused on the policy settings and regulations the Australian Government will need to apply to bring emissions down.
"A target in the 60 per cent range… is not a disappointment in terms of lack of ambition," he said. (re Australia)
"Achieving 65 per cent emission reduction by 2035 would mean halving emissions levels between now, 2025, and 2035.
"So that would be an enormous transformation of aspects of Australia's greenhouse gas-emitting sectors."
Even at 62 per cent, the floor of the newly-announced targets, Australia will need to work much harder because most of our emissions reductions so far have come from changes in the natural world, as opposed to cutting back on fossil fuels.
Between 2005 and March 2025, Australia's emissions decreased by 28 percent.
However, when you remove the land use sector, emissions have only dipped by a small 4 per cent.
How much do Australia's actions matter?
There will also be much conversation about whether Australia can have a tangible impact on the world's progress towards net zero.
Australia accounts for around 1 per cent of global emissions, but is also one of the world's top fossil fuel exporters. When those emissions are quantified, it rises to 4 per cent.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen hand down a 2035 target more ambitious than Australia's Canadian or New Zealand allies, but below the United Kingdom's, which is one of the most ambitious in the world.
The next major climate commitment, one of the most significant decisions Labor will make this term, will strike a middle path between like-minded nations.
It is expected to be committed in a meeting of cabinet today, before being taken to New York next week, where other world leaders will also gather to confirm their 2035 targets at a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.
The commitment follows the release of the first National Climate Risk Assessment on Monday.
That report warned 1.5 million people could be affected by sea levels rising by 2050, an increase in heat deaths and frequent flooding in major cities if global warming rises above 2 degrees Celsius.
