• Australia will stick to its goal of reducing greenhouse emissions by 26-28% by 2030, after Prime Minister Scott Morrison dodged setting ambitious new targets.
• Speaking at a global climate conference on Thursday, Morrison said Australia’s long-criticised goals are “bankable”.
• But the US, Canada, the UK, and Japan used the summit to lock in radical new 2030 targets, putting Australia’s climate ambitions in sharp relief.
• Visit Business Insider Australia’s homepage for more stories.

Australia will focus on “bankable” emission reductions instead of locking in ambitious new targets, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced at a global climate summit, as nations like the US, UK, Canada, and Japan announced radical reductions to their greenhouse gas output by 2030.

Speaking at the virtual Leaders Summit on Climate on Thursday night, Morrison told 40 world leaders that instead of committing to further carbon emission cutbacks, Australia will continue its plan to lower greenhouse gas production by 26-28% of 2005 levels by 2030.

Experts believe that Australia must commit to emissions reductions of between 50% and 75% in the next decade to comply with the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit global warming to 1.5-2 degrees Celcius above pre-industrial levels.

But Morrison said Australia — the world’s 14th-biggest greenhouse gas emitter — is well on its way to meeting its Paris targets.

“Australia has a strong track record of setting, achieving and exceeding our commitments to responsibly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and playing our part to keep the 1.5 degrees within reach,” he said.

Australia has already reduced its carbon emissions 36% on 2005 levels, Morrison added.

But the leader of the world’s largest coal exporter conceded that when exports were counted, that figure is just 19%.

Morrison’s steadfast position cuts across that of US President Joe Biden, who used the summit to announce America will cut greenhouse gas emissions in half over the next nine years.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson highlighted his nation’s recent pledge to cut emissions by 78% before 2035; Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirmed up to 45% of his nation’s emissions would be slashed by the end of the decade.

After the summit, Australia’s carbon commitments differ not just quantitatively, but qualitatively.

Biden hailed a comprehensive infrastructure and investment overhaul, and in his speech, Canada’s Trudeau celebrated his nation’s carbon emission price of C$170 (A$176) a tonne, saying “only serious climate policies will produce serious results.”

By contrast, Morrison disavowed any form of carbon price — a pollution-reducing mechanism long demonised by the Coalition — and instead promoted hydrogen production and carbon capture technologies to solve Australia’s emission woes.

“Australia is on the pathway to net zero,” he said.

“Our goal is to get there as soon as we possibly can” without overhauling polluting industries, or “the jobs and livelihoods they support and create, especially in our regions,” he added.

SBS reports Biden administration officials have already dismissed Australia’s strategy, briefing reporters that technology alone will not drive emissions down at scale.

“You have to have a set of policies, you have to have national intent, you have to follow up with actions and commitments,” the spokesperson said before the climate summit.

Australia already stood apart from leading world economies in terms of green pandemic-era spending and its gas-powered economic recovery plan.

With Morrison’s assertion that future generations will thank the government “not for what we have promised, but what we deliver,” it may have fallen another step behind.

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