Renewable energy: Labor puts forward 50 per cent target by 2030; pledges to introduce emissions trading scheme

Extract from ABC News

By political reporter Anna Henderson

Updated about 3 hours ago

Photo: Opposition Leader Bill Shorten is set to announce an ambitious renewable energy target. (AAP: Alan Porritt)

Labor is drawing the battlelines on climate policy ahead of the next election, with plans for a 50 per cent renewable energy target by 2030.

The Coalition aims for about 23 per cent of Australia's energy to come from renewables by 2020, but is yet to settle on its own post-2020 target.
Ahead of the ALP national conference this weekend, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten declared voters would have a "clear cut choice" as they head towards the next election.
"There couldn't be a clearer choice between Mr Abbott's Liberals and the Labor Party I lead," he told reporters in Launceston.
"The rest of the world is already moving on renewable energy.
"You do no favours for the people of Australia, no favours to your own families and successive generations by saying we can't do anything about climate change."

Do you think Labor's plans for a 50 per cent renewable energy target by 2030 is doable or too ambitious?

Labor has also promised to revive legislation for an emissions trading scheme (ETS), with Mr Shorten maintaining the dramatic increase in the renewable energy target would take the pressure off an ETS to do "all the heavy lifting" to meet emissions targets.
"Labor has learnt some of the lessons of the past," Mr Shorten said.
"We are proposing a reasonably soft emissions trading scheme and it will be linked to the rest of the world."
But Environment Minister Greg Hunt said Labor cannot avoid the fact it is still planning to bring in an ETS which will push up prices.
Video: Mark Butler speaks to News Breakfast (ABC News)
"They still intend to have a carbon tax," he said.
"They'll call it an emissions trading scheme but it has exactly the same effect, in exactly the same way.
"One is a fixed price, one's a floating price but they cover all of the electricity emissions in Australia.
"That means the price of electricity will go up."
Mr Shorten said Labor would not introduce a carbon tax to reach the party's renewable energy target and said he would not be intimidated by "ridiculous scare campaigns".
Meanwhile, the Australian Council of Trade Unions said such a dramatic shift to renewable energy would have an impact on jobs in the traditional energy sector.
Council president Ged Kearney said the transition would need to be "managed carefully" but that new markets would also open up.
"The whole purpose of any sort of renewable energy target is to encourage new investment so that new jobs are created, and that ultimately at the end of the day we want less pollution and a cleaner planet," she said.
Australian Solar Council chief executive John Grimes said the target was "eminently achievable".

"This is fantastic news, this is a bold and visionary policy," he said.