Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Senator Waters, for your question. To be very clear—and you and I have discussed this before in this chamber and I've made it pretty clear what the government's commitment is—I absolutely reject the last part of your question, quite frankly. It really is important to note, Senator Waters, that Australia's emissions are at their lowest levels since records began in 1990, that emissions in 2020 were more than 20 per cent lower than in 2005, which, of course, is the baseline for the Paris Agreement, and that Australia, since 2005, has achieved reduction in our emissions faster than have Canada, Japan, New Zealand and the United States. We're on track to beat our 2030 Paris target of reducing emissions by 26 to 28 per cent. On a per person basis, that's a reduction of 48 to 49 per cent on 2005 levels. That is more than France, Germany, Canada, New Zealand or Japan are expected to achieve.

In 2020 alone, Australia deployed more renewable energy than in the six years of the previous Labor government, but I don't hear that welcomed by those at the end of the chamber. I don't hear any commentary in relation to that. In fact, we are building wind and solar around three times faster than is Europe or the United States on a per person basis. We have the world's highest uptake of rooftop solar, with one in four homes having rooftop solar panels. Our government is building Snowy 2.0—one of the largest pumped hydro projects in the Southern Hemisphere—Tasmania's Battery of the Nation and an interconnector. I don't hear much about that from the end of the chamber either. There will be enough clean energy stored to power around a million homes. We're also investing in transmission projects to support our record levels of renewable and to continue to deliver affordable, reliable energy. That's the record that this country will take to Glasgow.