Australia’s progress on tackling the climate emergency is at risk of being reversed by “the alternative prime minister from the alt right”, Peter Dutton, who is leading a Coalition containing a “cabal of climate denial”, the climate and energy minister, Chris Bowen, says.
In a speech on Tuesday morning in Sydney to the annual Australian Clean Energy Summit, Bowen mixed fresh details of the Albanese government’s carbon emissions plans with criticism of the opposition’s stance on climate action.
Bowen unveiled plans to work with “industry, the climate movement, experts, unions and the community” to develop sectoral decarbonisation plans for six areas of the economy. These include agriculture, transport and buildings – sectors not previously set targets.
“The sector plans will feed into both our net zero 2050 plan and strong 2035 targets which we will lodge in keeping with our Paris commitments,” Bowen said, according to his written speech.
In addition, Bowen said he would write to the Climate Change Authority asking it to advise on the 2035 target to be provided by late next year.
Industry groups including the Business Council of Australia had recommended that the government set “optimal decarbonisation pathways for all sectors of the economy so that the electricity sector and the large industrial sector are not inefficiently and unfairly burdened” with meeting Australia’s climate pact commitments.
Bowen used his speech to outline the government’s achievements, including legislating carbon reduction targets. He also criticised the opposition’s policies under Dutton’s leadership.
“Australia’s currently lodged 2050 plan is a fantasy, invented by the Morrison government,” he said.
“Scott Morrison was a terrible prime minister for climate change. I say to you deliberately and soberly, Peter Dutton would be worse. Even worse than Dutton is the cabal of climate denial that runs policy in the federal opposition.”
Bowen said it was “replete” with climate crisis deniers. He singled out Gerard Rennick and Alex Antic, in particular, as occupying the “dark nether regions of the kooky right”.
All up that made Dutton “the alternative prime minister from the alt right”.
“The fact that the Coalition is perfectly happy to accommodate these denizens of denial should fill anyone concerned about climate change or cheaper energy with dread,” Bowen said.
As for the sectoral plans, the minister promised “heavy rounds of engagement”.
“The level and quality of dialogue and collaboration with industries, experts and citizens will set these plans apart from anything that’s been done before,” he said.
Bowen said the groups had to work together “to do what’s both possible and practical to stop dangerous climate change and realise the economic opportunities of net zero”.
“The end result will be six net zero sectoral plans that are robust, ambitious but achievable, and accepted by the broader community,” he said.
Ted O’Brien, the opposition’s energy spokesperson, was in the audience for Bowen’s speech and said it contained “disparaging remarks” about MPs and senators.
“To use an industry event to attempt spiteful personal character assassinations is completely inappropriate and reflects on his own character more than those he sought to criticise,” O’Brien said.
“Australian households and businesses are paying some of the highest energy prices in the world and the best the minister could announce today was that Labor will spend the next 18 months putting together plans to get Australia to net zero.”
O’Brien argued Labor was not on course to meet its 2030 target and should focus on that instead of 2035.
