Extract from ABC News
Energy Minister Angus Taylor refuses to detail cost to taxpayers of 2050 climate plan.
The federal government is refusing to detail how much taxpayers will have to fork out over the course of the next three decades, as Australia charts a path to carbon neutrality by 2050.
Key points:
- Angus Taylor said the government's plan for net zero was funded up to 2030
- He said what future governments did in the 2040s was "a matter for them"
- The Coalition accused Labor of failing to properly explain the cost of climate policies during the 2019 election campaign
World leaders will meet in Glasgow for the COP26 climate summit from tomorrow, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison travelling to Scotland armed with his freshly minted net zero target.
He revealed the policy last week after securing the support of the junior Coalition partner, the Nationals.
The Prime Minister's plan for net-zero (achieving a balance between greenhouse gas emissions produced and taken out of the atmosphere) is based largely on existing Coalition policies, while also relying on emissions reductions from technology yet to be developed.
The government had already earmarked $20 billion in investment for new technology.
Labor has been fiercely critical of the proposal, accusing the government of failing to come up with any new ideas, avoiding increasing its short-term emissions reduction targets and hiding from scrutiny by not having the modelling which underpins its plan ready to go at the time it was unveiled.
Energy Minister Angus Taylor argued the funding already announced would only stretch to 2030.
"We are committing between now and 2030, we're looking 10 years out — governments often look only four years out, we've looked 10 years out," Mr Taylor told the ABC's Insiders program from Rome, where the Prime Minister is attending the G20 Summit ahead of the Glasgow talks.
"We've established a pipeline over the next 10 years of what we're spending and part of the reason for that is making sure the private sector investment is coming in, so they can see the pipeline of support we are providing over that 10-year period.
"What a government does in the late 2040s is a matter for them."
The Prime Minister has repeatedly stated the Coalition's net zero target is about "technology not taxes".
Mr Taylor was pressed on whether the Commonwealth would have to stump up more money beyond 2030, to get the nation through to that 2050 deadline.
"What a government in the 2040s, or 2045 or 2047 spends will be up to that government," he said.
"Over the next 10 years, we've allocated $20 billion of funding.
"Future governments will allocate as they see fit into the 2030s, and 2040s – I'm not going to commit for future governments in the 2030s and 2040s."
The Coalition hammered Labor during the 2019 election campaign, accusing then opposition leader Bill Shorten of failing to properly explain the cost of his climate changes policies.
Shadow Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen accused Mr Taylor of "slipping and sliding" and failing to answer fundamental questions about the government's plan.
"He says governments in the future can worry about it, well only if you have a proper plan to get medium-term reductions can you leave the heavy lifting to future governments," Mr Bowen said.
"Angus Taylor's plan is to do not very much by 2030 and leave it to future governments to do the rest.
"The government which engaged in all sorts of scare campaigns in the past about the costs of Labor's policy is not able to release the modelling of its own and is not able to answer basic questions about their own policy."
Joyce claims he has always supported ambitious climate action
Former Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, who is now at the helm of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), has used his platform to call for countries around the world to adopt more "stringent" and "coordinated" carbon prices.
Mr Corman was a member of the Abbott government which repealed the Gillard Labor government's carbon tax in 2014, describing it as a "very expensive hoax".
Mr Taylor said he had spoken to his former ministerial colleague while he was in Rome, but did not agree with his position.
"You can either reduce the cost of low-emissions technologies or increase the cost of traditional fuel sources," he said.
"Our view, from the work we've done, is we can get the cost of low-emissions technologies to a cost where they are cost-competitive in reasonable timeframes that will allow us to get to net zero by 2050."
The Acting Prime Minister mocked Mr Cormann's view on Sky News, arguing his views had shifted now he was living in Europe.
"He's seeing the Colosseum and the Louvre, and he's changed his mind," Barnaby Joyce said.
Mr Joyce argued he had always supported ambitious action on climate change.
"I have had a consistent view always that in order to be genuinely effective and publicly supported over the long run, you need a globally coordinated approach," he told Sky News.
"I mean, climate change can only be resolved through global action.
"We ought to have, in the same way as we've had an inclusive framework approach for tax, bringing all of the G20 countries and 136 countries around the world onto the same page on tax — which was very difficult — we need a similar approach to the pricing of carbon emissions."
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