Australia must cut carbon emissions by 30% by 2025, says Climate Change Authority

The Climate Change Authority says Australia needs to cut carbon emissions by 30% by 2025 and sign up to further cuts of 40-60% by 2030 to catch up to other countries in the international effort to mitigate the risks of global warming.

The authority’s call for Australia to show increased ambition and global leadership comes ahead of the Abbott government announcing its final decision on the post-2020 targets Australia will take to United Nations climate talks in Paris later this year.

“The authority believes its recommendations constitute a credible package for the Australian government to take to the Paris conference,” the Climate Change Authority (CCA) said in its final report on emissions reduction targets, released on Thursday.

“It is credible in terms of what the science requires – and what many comparable countries are doing – to move the world back towards a global emissions reduction path consistent with a reasonable chance of limiting the increase in global warming to 2C.

“It would also send a credible signal to domestic and international stakeholders alike that the government is intent on playing a leadership role in guiding Australia’s long-term transition to a sustainable, low-carbon world.”

The foreign minister, Julie Bishop, said this week Australia’s post-2020 target for Paris would be “economically responsible, proportionate and, I believe, appropriate for Australia”.

The environment minister, Greg Hunt, told the ABC on Thursday he would not pre-empt an imminent cabinet discussion about the new target, but he said it would be a more ambitious number than the current commitment, which is 5% on 2000 levels by 2020.

“I’m confident we can do better,” Hunt said. He said Australia would beat the pre-2020 commitment and come close to matching the performance of the United States. “We are going to meet and beat the target to 2020.”

But climate groups fear Australia is lagging behind other countries. China this week announced policies that would allow carbon emissions to peak in 2030, which followed the announcement of an ambitious target from South Korea.

Bishop said this week Australia’s position would be influenced by the commitments of comparable countries.

The CCA report looked at commitments from Canada and Japan, noting their targets were “rather less ambitious than those announced by the United States and some other developed countries”.

It said Japan’s efforts to reduce emissions were dealt a blow by the nuclear disaster in Fukushima and the “consequent increased reliance on coal for its electricity generation”.

But Canada had just proposed a weak target. “The Canadian target suggests that much of the running on climate change in that country will remain with the provincial governments, some of which have adopted their own emissions reduction targets and policies.”

Some environmental groups believe Australia will ultimately propose a Paris target comparable to Canada’s.

The authority’s chairman, the former Reserve Bank governor Bernie Fraser, was dismissive of that effort when he spoke to the media after the release of the report. He characterised Canada as languishing in the “laggard” class.

The authority flatly rejected sectoral arguments that its proposed targets, first outlined in April, would put an onerous burden on Australia compared with the rest of the developed world because it is an emissions-intensive economy.

The authority said Australia’s comparative emissions intensity underscored the need to catch up with developed economies further down the path of decarbonisation.

The question was not whether Australia should embark on the catchup, but whether the ambitious targets recommended by the authority were realistic.

“It is challenging, but not, in the judgment of the authority, unrealistic,” the report said.

It said the evidence showed the emissions intensity of the Australian economy had halved between 1990 and 2012 “in response to structural changes, new technologies, fuel switching and improvements in energy efficiency”.

The authority said this trend was likely to continue, although Fraser said on Thursday the government should resist scaling back targets because of sectional interest.

Asked about the political debate on the renewable energy target, Fraser said the government should have an open mind on low-carbon technologies and “not hold back possible new investments”.

He said the bias against some technologies had been evident “in the remarks from the prime minister and the treasurer”. Both have been critical of wind power.

The authority said the ambition of the targets was realistic. “On the authority’s figuring, achievement of the recommended target of a 30% reduction in emissions by 2025 would still have Australia with a more emissions-intensive economy (and higher per person emissions) than any major developed country other than Canada.”

The Climate Institute said the authority should have gone further with its recommendations. “We are disappointed that the CCA didn’t strengthen its draft pollution reduction targets,” the Climate Institute chief executive, John Connor, said on Thursday.

“As they are, the suggested targets may not be enough to help achieve the internationally agreed goal of avoiding 2C warming above pre-industrial levels.

“These targets should be considered the bare minimum, at best, when it comes to climate credibility as well as Australia’s carbon competitiveness.”