Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Birmingham. Today, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on the world to make peace with nature and to address the climate emergency. He said:

The state of the planet is broken. Humanity is waging war on nature.

Secretary-General Guterres has called on nations to be more ambitious. The planet is already sick. The Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, meanwhile, is fiddling around with dates in the second half of the century to reduce carbon pollution to net zero. The goalposts have shifted. Net zero by 2050 is no longer enough. Does the Prime Minister know this? Does he understand that we need net zero by 2035 or earlier? What is the Prime Minister doing to address this crisis and this war on nature?

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Hanson-Young for the question. It is tempting to refer her to the answers that I have given during the course of the week to Senator Waters, and I forget which other Greens senators have asked almost identical questions. I think Senator Faruqi asked a very similar question.

Let me, again, remind the Greens senators in relation to Australia's position that we have committed very clearly to the Paris Agreement, to reduction targets under the Paris Agreement and to deliver those targets and indeed strive to exceed those targets as we have done in relation to our commitments under Kyoto protocols 1 and 2. Our effort to date in terms of emissions reduction is real and world-class in terms of the level of those emissions reductions. If you take examples of reductions between 2005 and 2018, Australia has achieved a 13 per cent reduction in emissions. Compare that with others—Japan at eight per cent, the United States at 10 per cent, New Zealand at one per cent and Canada at 0.1 per cent. Our emissions reduction activities have been clearly delivered and our approach is to continue that.

You asked about plans. Our approach is to continue to achieve those reductions through our investment in technology rather than the types of taxes or other mechanisms that the Greens, of course, would love to see applied. Our approach is to back technologies; to work with counterparts around the world like the United States in terms of investment in technologies along our tech roadmap; to build upon the partnerships we have struck in new technology areas like hydrogen with countries like Germany, Japan and Korea and to drive investment in those spaces; and to achieve positive outcomes that continue that track record of emissions reduction.

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Hanson-Young, a supplementary question?

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's this type of faffing around and lack of action that the Secretary-General calls 'suicidal'. That is the truth here. What is your government going to do? We need net zero well before 2050, and you don't even have a proper 2030 target. What are you going to do?

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We're going to keep implementing the policies that have been driving down Australia's emissions already. I just outlined the extent to which Australia has been achieving real reductions in our emissions relative to 2005 levels compared with other countries not meeting the same scale of achievement by Australia.

What are we going to do? Over the next decade, our government will invest $18 billion in low-emissions technology. Out of that, we're going to leverage $50 billion worth of new investment. This is all about getting the technology points, like hydrogen or carbon capture and storage or otherwise, to the financial tipping point where they are not only used and adopted in Australia but are economically viable for other countries. Do you know what? We're not going to see a transformation in terms of China's emissions or India's emissions or other countries' emissions without cost-effective technological solutions. That's why we're investing in it—to get solutions here that can also be adapted in other countries around the world to fix what is actually a global problem. (Time expired)

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Hanson-Young, a final supplementary question?

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Will the government cancel the surplus Kyoto credits, as countries like the UK, New Zealand and Germany have already done, so they cannot be used now or in the future, or will you continue to hide, to squander and to faff about while the planet burns?

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let me try to give a little bit of an explanation about why it is that Australia has surplus credits. Do you know why we have surplus credits? Because, when it comes to the first Kyoto commitment period, we overachieved. We made a commitment to the world that we would reduce our emissions and we did so not only by the margin we'd promised but by more than that, and that generated a surplus. Guess what's happened with the 2020 target—the second Kyoto commitment period? We made a commitment to the world again that we would reduce our emissions, and we met that commitment, and we overachieved. We overachieved for a second time. That is why Australia has carryover credits. Do you know what other countries do? Other countries don't achieve the emissions reductions in their own country and go and buy credits from elsewhere around the world. We've achieved the reforms in Australia—overachieved—and that's why those credits exist.