It is an encouraging step forward for the climate that Australia has just taken. The government reached a landmark deal on Monday that will force the country’s biggest polluters to cut emissions. Under the deal, Australia’s 215 dirtiest facilities, such as coal mines and gas-fired power stations, will have to reduce their net emissions by almost 5% per year until 2030. Fossil fuels and l ing is the backbone of Australia’s economy. Attempts to reduce carbon pollution have been undermined in recent years by bitter political wrangling.
The centre-left government reached this agreement after several weeks of tense negotiations with the Greens party. Australia is finally meeting its obligations after “10 years of denial, delay and inaction”, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said. The country is committed to reducing its emissions by 43% before the end of 2030, which will remove some 200 million tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere, the government predicts. The adopted text should be submitted to Parliament this week and come into force on July 1.
Previously skeptical the Greens, whose backing is needed to push the bill through the Senate amid opposition from Tories, agreed to back the plan after convincing the government to set a hard cap on emissions. Companies will therefore have to reduce their level of pollution each year.
A beginning
While some conservationists have said the cuts are too low, Australia’s mining industry has warned the new policy could lead to massive job losses. Global mining giants Rio Tinto and BHP, operators in Australia, will be forced to comply. For David Schlosberg, director of the Sydney Environment Institute, this plan is “better than the policy of inaction pursued by Australia for more than a decade”, but it is only “a beginning “.
Australia is one of the biggest coal exporters in the world and as a result one of the biggest laggards when it comes to climate defense. For more than a decade, political wrangling has crippled attempts to cut emissions.
But a series of severe natural disasters helped convince leaders to take the climate emergency seriously, including the catastrophic floods of 2022 on Australia’s east coast and the ‘Black Summer’ fires of 2019-20. , which burned more than eight million hectares of vegetation.
Anthony Albanese’s Labor government swept to power last year on a promise to break away from the pro-fossil fuel policies of the previous Conservative government.