Labor and the Greens are playing chicken over climate change ahead of next month’s resumption of Parliament.
Mr Albanese again warned there would be no negotiating a higher target or anything else the Greens want. Business groups which attended the UN signing ceremony, were owed investment certainty after more than a decade of dysfunction, he said.
The Greens believe the 2030 emissions reduction target should be as high as 75 per cent and Mr Bandt said as a condition of entering negotiations, a Labor government must cease all new coal, oil and gas approvals, including the Beetaloo gas field in the Northern Territory, and Narrabri in NSW, until at least the COP27 global climate change summit in Egypt in November.
A government source said the timing of the UNFCCC signing ceremony was in part designed to send a message to the Senate that the 43 per cent target for 2030 was non-negotiable. South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas, whose state is the lead legislator for the NEM, told Energy Minister Chris Bowen his government stood ready to enact whatever changes were deemed necessary to fix the crippled market.