Australia’s CCA recommends 30pc GHG cut by 2025

OREANDA-NEWS. The Australian government's Climate Change Authority (CCA) has recommended that Canberra should propose a 30pc reduction target in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2025 from 2000 levels for its post-2020 targets, which it has to submit ahead of the December UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meeting in Paris.

But it is unlikely that the conservative Liberal-National coalition government will adopt this recommendation given that Australian prime minister Tony Abbott wants to disband the CCA. He has downplayed any discussion of a cut that would be consistent with a global effort to keep world temperatures from rising more than 2°C.

Australia has a GHG reduction target of 5pc by 2020 from 2000 levels. If Australia does not improve its current reduction target by the end of the decade, but is prepared to match what comparable countries are planning to do by 2025, the authority recommends a 2025 target of 30pc below 2000 levels, the CCA said in its draft report on Australia's future emissions reduction targets.

The CCA report follows on from a paper it released in February last year when it recommended a 19pc GHG reduction target for 2020 from 2000 levels, or almost four times the current 5pc target level, a trajectory range of between 40-60pc in emissions cuts by 2030. The authority has maintained its recommended target for 2030.

Australian environment minister Greg Hunt in December requested a review of the country's GHG reduction policy. Abbott has also established a taskforce that will be led by his own department, which will propose a post-2020 target for Australia by mid-year to take to the Paris UNFCCC meeting when all countries are expected to sign-off on their post-2020 contributions.

The Abbott government has shown no inclination to move beyond the unconditional 2020 target, the CCA said. The consequences of limiting Australia's emissions reductions to this minimum 5pc target have been factored into the authority's consideration of appropriate post-2020 targets, it said.

Some countries have already submitted their post-2020 reduction targets, including the US with a reduction of between 26-28pc below 2005 levels by 2025, Russia 25-30pc below 1990 levels by 2030, the EU of at least 40pc below 1990 levels by 2025 that includes Germany pledging a 55pc reduction below 1990 levels by 2030.

The IEA last month reported that CO2 global emissions were flat last year compared with 2013, the first time in 40 years that such an event has not been tied to an economic downturn.

Global CO2 emissions stood at 32.3bn t in 2014, even as the global economy expanded by 3pc last year. There have only been three periods in the past 40 years in which emissions have either remained flat or fallen compared with the previous year and all were associated with global economic downturns during 1981-82, 1992 and 2009, the IEA said.