Australian Greens Leader Adam Bandt has slammed Anthony Albanese’s move to adopt a net zero by 2050 pollution target, saying it will blow the 2 degrees budget and mean Australia gives up on the Paris agreement.

It is expected that Anthony Albanese will tomorrow announce that Labor will adopt a target of net-zero by 2050, without any target for 2030. Based on current projections, a simple straight-line reduction from 2022-2050 would blow Australia’s ‘2 degrees’ budget (as determined by the Climate Change Authority) and would likely exceed the 2 degrees budget as early as 2034. 

The Prime Minister's leaked plan to adopt a so-called "technology target" instead of committing to Australia reaching net zero emissions by 2050 is nothing more than a smokescreen, said Leader of The Australian Greens Adam Bandt, MP.

"We're in a climate emergency and yet instead of coming up with a plan to phase out coal like Germany has done, Scott Morrison is throwing up a technology smokescreen," Mr Bandt said.

Australia is in the midst of an unprecedented heatwave and bushfire emergency, but the Prime Minister has been missing in action. Scott Morrison must show some leadership and immediately convene emergency meetings with fire chiefs, peak medical bodies and cross-party political leadership to craft a response to this crisis, said Leader of the Australian Greens Dr Richard Di Natale.

”The country is in crisis and the Australian people are crying out for leadership, but Scott Morrison has been missing in action," said Di Natale.

It’s time that the fossil fuel companies whose products are responsible for the climate crisis start footing some of the bill for cleaning it up. A $1 levy per tonne of carbon pollution from the country’s biggest polluters, proposed today by the Australia Institute, is the very least that these companies can do, said Leader of the Australian Greens Dr Richard Di Natale.

The Morrison Government’s decision not to consider the impacts of Adani sucking up 12.5 billion litres of water from a region in deep drought shows the Government has been completely captured by big mining companies, according to Greens Co-Deputy Leader and Mining spokesperson, environmental lawyer Senator Larissa Waters.

Australian Governments must do more to keep UNESCO from declaring the Great Barrier Reef ‘in danger’ including bold action on climate change and water quality, according to the Greens.
 
Co-deputy leader and Senator for Queensland Larissa Waters said, “The Reef report out today is an exercise in spin and not enough work has been done to ensure the natural icon’s long-term survival.
 
“The World Heritage Committee gave Australia homework four years ago, to show why the Reef shouldn’t be listed as “in danger”.
 

Greens climate and energy spokesperson Adam Bandt MP has slammed the government’s latest push for carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, dismissing it as a useless pipedream.

“As the climate bushfires continue to devastate the country, the government’s only climate proposal is a pipedream,” said Mr Bandt.

The Australian Government’s push for liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a low-emissions fossil fuel has been exposed with a new report finding no evidence LNG  is any ‘cleaner’ than coal.

The Conservation Council of Western Australia’s Clean State report states an international review of LNG infrastructure found the threat to the climate from LNG is ‘as large or larger than coal’ when levels of methane emissions are included.

Acting Greens leader Adam Bandt MP and Greens spokesperson for Oceans, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson, have called on Scott Morrison to show some climate leadership and offer to host the upcoming crucial COP25 Climate Summit.
 
COP25 was due to be held in a fortnight in Santiago, however Chile has withdrawn from hosting due to ongoing civil unrest.

We are gathered today on stolen land. This land always was and always will be aboriginal land.

I acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land, the Bedegal people, and pay my respects to their elders, past, present and emerging.