Zali Steggall (Warringah, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To the Prime Minister: times are serious. Peak medical bodies last week declared a health climate emergency, recognising the severe effect climate change will have on human health, especially children, who are more vulnerable to heat-related illnesses, respiratory disease and allergenic conditions. Today emergency services are describing the conditions of the fires in northern New South Wales and Queensland as unprecedented this early in spring. Scientists have been warning of this for years. With the gathering of these very grave concerns, does the Prime Minister agree that Australia needs a real plan to decarbonise every major polluting sector by 2050, and will such a plan be presented to this parliament?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government agrees that you need to take action on climate change, and that's why we are.

Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a joke!

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's why we set and will meet the targets that were set—

Mr Conroy interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Shortland is warned.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was the Labor Party when they were in government who set the 2020 targets. When we came to government we were going to miss those targets by some 700 million tonnes of abatement. What is going to happen now? We are going to exceed meeting those targets by 367 million tonnes. There has been over a billion tonne turnaround—

Mr Dreyfus interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Isaacs is now warned.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

as a result of the policies that this government has put in place over the last six years to ensure that we are meeting and we are beating our emissions reduction targets. We have a plan to meet our 2030 targets as well, as we set out at the last election. We set out tonne by tonne responsible targets to ensure that we meet our 2030 commitments. We take these commitments extremely seriously and we will ensure that they are met. On top of that we will have emissions per capita fall by 50 per cent by 2030 under the policies we took to the last election. Emissions per capita are now at the lowest level in 29 years.

We are taking the action that is needed to address climate change. Our renewal investment per capita is currently the highest in the world. We are in the middle of a renewable energy investment boom. That is the reason why we will also be meeting our Renewable Energy Target, which we committed to meet as a government. So whether it's emissions reduction or renewable energy our government has a plan, has committed to targets, is implementing our plan and will meet our targets. Our government are taking action on climate change, as we should, and we will continue to take that action in a responsible way where we don't have to sell out the jobs for the future to also ensure that we have the future of a clean and green environment.