ALP Releases Climate Change Policy

The ALP has released its climate change policy for the 2016 federal election.

The policy includes a commitment to 50% of electricity coming from renewable energy by 2030.

The Climate Change Action Plan includes a commitment to an emissions trading scheme but without a fixed price. The policy says: “Labor’s plan does not include a carbon tax or a fixed price on pollution.”

The policy booklets are shown below.

Email statement to supporters by Bill Shorten.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten

Today I launched Labor’s plan to tackle the devastating consequences of climate change.

The cost of refusing to take real action on climate change will be shocking for Australia and our economy. It will hurt the economy, mean more pollution and less investment. The Labor Party I lead will not stand by and let that happen.

While senior Ministers in the Liberal Government are still disputing whether the ‘science is settled’ on climate change, Labor knows it is.1 More talk won’t help tackle climate change, but more investment in renewable energy like solar and wind power will.

I firmly believe that the key to tackling climate change is to drastically increase our investment in renewable energies like solar. Australia must modernise our economy now for the renewable energy revolution that’s already underway.

That is why we’ll commit to 50% renewable energy by 2030 because it will cut pollution, help create jobs of the future and lower energy prices. But it’s not just renewables. Our six key points for tackling climate change are:

1. Making Australia a leading renewable energy economy by ensuring at least 50% of our electricity comes from renewable energy by 2030 and providing certainty and flexibility for the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, more funding for the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and funding community renewables projects.
2. Cleaner power generation by transitioning from old coal fired power stations to modern clean energy in a orderly fashion with support for workers and communities.
3. Focusing on jobs and industry by maximising the job opportunities from clean energy and technology.
4. Reducing pollution through an emissions trading scheme which places a legal cap of emission of the largest polluters through a cap and offsets scheme.
5. Capturing carbon on the land by reinvigorating the Carbon Farming Initiative to encourage carbon storage in the land and through agriculture, and take decisive action to deal with broad scale land clearing.
6. Increased energy efficiency by doubling Australia’s national energy productivity by 2030 and implementing new emissions standards for motor vehicles.

While this is a complex policy area, it’s also true that there are few policy areas that are so black and white — failure to act on climate change is simply wrong and irresponsible. Failure to act betrays future generations and leaves the world’s most vulnerable carrying the greatest burdens inflicted by climate change.

I know that we can make these plans a reality, if we all work together to make sure Australians know about our serious plan to invest in renewables and tackle climate change. So please share our website, http://www.laborsclimatechangeactionplan.org.au, and tell your friends about our positive plan.

Together we can tackle climate change action and we can build a better Australia that puts people first.