The government insists it is on track to reach its 43 per cent emissions reduction target for 2030, despite current projections showing Australia will only reach a 42 per cent reduction by the end of the decade.
It was one of the first moves by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese after Labor's 2022 election win - legislating an ambitious emissions reduction target for the end of the decade."What we didn't do was set a target and then work out how to get there. What we did was work out what good policy looked like, and it happened to come out with a 43 per cent target by 2030."
Chief Executive of the Climate Council, Amanda McKenzie, says it's not surprising the change isn't noticeable. "We've seen quite a broad agenda implemented by the current federal government. First and foremost, the 82% renewables target, so shifting our electricity generation from fossil fuel based generation to solar and wind, and ensuring we've got the energy storage and transmission networks and everything that needs to go along with that. And it has a measure called the capacity investment scheme, which is designed to push that along.
"One of the challenges at the moment is that most of the attention is paid to the electricity sector. What we need to do is not just focus on the electricity sector, which gets most of the attention, but that's only 30 per cent of our greenhouse gas emissions, we need to focus on the other 70 per cent.
Light vehicles, which are covered by the fuel efficiency standards, are responsible for 59 per cent of transport emissions.Mr Archer says emerging technologies will play a part in reducing those emissions.
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