In the face of a challenge from Oliver Yates, Josh Frydenberg has defended the Coalition’s record on climate change action.
Well he tried to … with a load of rubbish.
“The Coalition takes very seriously our international and domestic responsibilities and obligations to reduce emissions.”
Oh really?
The Coalition’s Monash Forum has called for us to pull out of the Paris Agreement. We have reneged on our commitment to contribute to the UN Green Energy Fund. We have earned the Colossal Fossil Award for obstructing progress at climate change talks. Unlike other countries, we are using carryover credits in an accounting trick to make it look like we are meeting targets when we are not.
He said he was “proud of the work we’ve done to support the renewable energy target”. First they called for it to be scrapped. Then they reduced it from a 41,000 gigawatt hour target to 33,000. And now Abbott et al are calling for it to be scrapped again.
There are strident calls from the Coalition to cut any subsidies to renewables but for the government to, as well as continuing with fossil fuel subsidies, actually underwrite new coal-fired power stations and to subsidise coal infrastructure.
Josh is “proud” of the Emissions Reduction Fund, but not proud enough to put any more money towards it, which is not surprising since it hasn’t worked to reduce emissions, has allowed the big polluters to increase their emissions without penalty, and has had several contracts revoked for not delivering on promised reductions.
He is “proud” of Snowy Hydro 2.0, “the world’s biggest pumped hydro scheme”, except it is still only an idea that no-one has committed to pursuing because it is going to be hellishly difficult and expensive to build and will take a long time to complete.
Josh bragged that his government had seen emissions reduce to their lowest per capita level in ages – which means absolutely nothing when total emissions have been rising every year since they got rid of carbon pricing. The latest government projections show that Australia will miss its 2030 emissions reduction targets, with emissions in 2030 projected to climb 4% above 2020 levels.
You have nothing to be proud of, Josh and your lies will be exposed by a far more capable and well-informed opponent.
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