Liberal frontbencher Jonno Duniam insists backing away from climate targets doesn’t breach Paris Agreement
Senior Liberal frontbencher Jonno Duniam insists dumping Australia’s targets to cut emissions would still comply with the Paris Agreement.
Liberals and Nationals are meeting on Sunday afternoon to decide the Coalition’s final policy after each party individually decided to scrap the legislated net zero by 2050 target.
The Liberals have also proposed dumping Labor’s interim targets lodged under the Paris Agreement and dismantling systems to reduce emissions such as the safeguard mechanism and incentives for electric vehicles.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.The Government claims the Opposition’s new policy amounts to walking away from the Paris Agreement because the international deal forbids “backsliding” on targets.
But Senator Duniam says there is scope within the agreement for taking the economic impact of the green transition into account.
“The economic impact on our country of Labor’s blind pursuit of net zero by 2050, and their targets between now and then, have cost us dearly,” he told Sky News on Sunday.
“And so we need to factor all of the elements of the Paris Agreement in. You can’t read one paragraph of Article 4 separate from others, all of them need to be read together. And our belief is we are not in breach.”
The section of the agreement he cited says that countries should take into consideration the “concerns of parties with economies most affected by the impacts of response measures, particularly developing country parties”.
Australia is not considered a developing country. It accounts for about 1 per cent of global emissions, despite having about 0.3 per cent of the world’s population.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong – who was Australia’s first climate minister – accused the Coalition of being “overrun by the fringes” and trying to be “more Pauline than Pauline” Hanson, the One Nation leader.
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley said last week that she was determined to cut both emissions and power prices, and “it there are reasons why people in Paris or in some United Nations organisation don’t like it, I can deal with that”.
