World must face up to cost of carbon reductions, says European climate expert

The former European commissioner for climate action Connie Hedegaard has urged countries to acknowledge the cost of reducing emissions to fight climate change, and called on politicians to shift away from short-term thinking.

Speaking at the City of Sydney’s CityTalks 2015 on Tuesday, Hedegaard urged action to reduce emissions in the lead-up to the Paris climate conference in December.

“It’s extremely important to acknowledge it’s not for free to make this sort of change. But neither is continuing business as usual,” she said.

“Either we pay as consumers or we pay as taxpayers. How we split the burden, that’s of course a very different political discussion. We must tell people it is going to cost.”

This month Australia announced a target of a 26%-28% emissions cut on 2005 levels by 2030. Tony Abbott has defended the target on the grounds that deeper cuts would damage the economy. Abbott’s announcement sparked a war of words between the Climate Change Authority and the environment minister, Greg Hunt, over estimates of the cost of Labor’s climate policy.

Hedegaard resisted commenting directly on Australia’s target, but referred to Abbott’s previous comments about the aesthetics of windfarms and the pricing of carbon and binding targets in the European Union.

“We have set up targets, binding targets, and we are actually on track to meet them … we have this some might say strange tradition of pricing things we don’t like,” she said.

“When the heads of states of governments at some point wanted to study where did the jobs come from ... it turned out that the green sector … was even during the crisis year the big driver for new jobs.

“I know that some would say wind turbines are not exactly beautiful. But I would say the same about power plants, which also can be visually awful.”

Speaking at the same event, Greens deputy coleader Larissa Waters said Australia should be seeking to reduce emissions by 60% to 80% by 2030 and criticised the Coalition’s attitudes towards climate change.

“The prime minister’s science denialism just pervades across all of the talking points,” she said. “One marvels at the abject rejection of science that seems to be emanating from the government, which I believe is totally out of step with the community sentiment.”

She called for binding pledges for the Paris conference and the phasing out of fossil fuel subsidies.

City of Sydney mayor Clover Moore also urged the federal government to take more substantial action, and said the current plan “places us at the back of the pack internationally”.

“We can and must do more. Australia emits more greenhouse gases per capita than any other developed nation,” she said.

“We think it’s tragic that the current federal government does not have a cities policy … it’s the wrong thing for cities now. What cities need to be doing is taking all the actions they can to be keeping emissions down.”

MC Adam Spencer said a number of government members had declined invitations to attend the panel.

The former Liberal leader John Hewson said he was disappointed they did not attend, and said the target set by the government was “about half” what it should be.

On the cost of action to reduce emissions, he said: “That’s a false choice. You can have growth, and you can deal with the climate at the same time. The technology will allow you to do that.”

Labor’s environment spokesman, Mark Bulter, said the government’s emission target was “the minimum possible, with lots of fudging, and a hell of a lot of internal inconsistencies”.

But he refused to outline Labor’s commitment to emissions reductions, or whether the party will provide their policy before the Paris summit.

Guardian Australia is a sponsor of the CityTalks 2015 series.