David Van (Victoria, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Under the Paris Agreement, Australia committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 43 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 and to the net zero ambition by 2050. These targets are part of Australia's nationally determined contribution, our NDC, which must be updated every five years. The next update a 2035 target, is due by the end of February 2025, only a few short months away, and this will be Australia's opportunity to set a much more ambitious target. Australia will be applauded if we truly understand the challenge ahead of us, get better solutions in place and significantly enhance our commitment for 2035.

Back in 2022, when the government was legislating its 43 per cent Paris target, during that debate I stood up in this place and I said, 'I don't believe that 43 per cent is ambitious enough.' But nor could I see, on the plans before us at that time, how Australia would reach that target. The 2023 annual progress report by the Climate Change Authority, delivered to the minister last October, revealed a sobering truth: Australia is not yet on track to meet its 2030 target.

I should, however, go on record to say that I do commend the government on some of its policies and initiatives that I believe will go some way to helping meet our target. Sadly, they are not enough, not fast enough, and our emissions reduction progress remains inadequate. This is particularly true with respect to our electricity grid, where Australia could potentially quite quickly cut one-third of our emissions. This is a critical wake-up call for our energy system planners and regulators, the energy industry as a whole, and all stakeholders involved in Australia's energy transition.

To meet the 43 per cent target we need to decarbonise at an average rate of 17 million tonnes of carbon per annum. This is no small feat. The scale of the transformation needed is immense. It is also achievable if we focus on the real challenges ahead of us and recognise where our easiest and fastest gains can be made—that is, getting rid of our coal-fired electricity in favour of renewables, backed up by storage that smooths out the peaks and troughs when electricity is dispatched to the grid.

The current belief that this timing problem—and it is a time-of-day problem—can be solved by geographic diversity of generation, connected by transmission, is neither economic nor useful, especially given that the NEM , the national electricity market, sits almost entirely in one time zone. It is time to optimise the grid to get more out of our existing distribution networks, get control of energy assets behind the meter and invest in front-of-the-meter solutions such as community batteries and EV charging.

We need to get deep storage into this system, including pumped hydro—lots of it—and large batteries co-located with wind and solar farms, to balance generation with demand. Doing so will reduce curtailment, enhance energy security, bring down energy prices and help us achieve our emissions targets faster. If we do all these things, Australia will be able to proudly make a much more ambitious 2035 NDC.