Greens Leader Adam Bandt has released new analysis showing that because pollution has increased so much since the Liberals repealed the carbon price, Australia’s emissions reduction targets would now need to be at least a 48% cut on 2005 levels by 2030 to be consistent with the Paris Agreement aim of keeping global warming well below 2 degrees. So much of the carbon budget has been spent that future governments will need to tighten their carbon belts even further, not relax targets as has been mooted.

Today’s pathetic emissions reduction figures confirm the government is set to waste another year in reducing carbon pollution instead of embracing a renewable-powered hydrogen revolution, Leader of the Australian Greens, Adam Bandt MP, said today.

“Angus Taylor must be looking at the graph upside down. Today’s emissions data confirms we will not meet the Paris Agreement goals and that global warming will exceed dangerous thresholds,” Mr Bandt said.

If the Labor Party dumps its current target of 45 percent emissions reduction by 2030, they will lose whatever credibility they have left on the climate crisis and prove that they’ve learnt all the wrong lessons from the election, said Leader of the Australian Greens Dr Richard Di Natale.  

“Queensland and New South Wales are burning, our firefighters and emergency responders on the ground are screaming out for support and Labor’s response is to join the climate deniers in the Liberals,” Di Natale said.