Australia’s government acknowledged on Thursday that the country is not currently on course to meet the ambitious climate goal it unveiled barely two months ago, despite framing the target as both within reach and essential to its long term transition. The admission came through a new set of emissions projections that paint a far more modest decline than Canberra had hoped to achieve.
In September, Australia committed to cutting its planet warming emissions by 62 to 70 percent by 2035 compared with 2005 levels, a pledge touted as a marker of the country’s renewed climate ambition. But fresh modelling released this week shows that with the policies now in place, emissions would fall by only 48 percent over that period, leaving a significant gap between aspiration and trajectory.
Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen, addressing parliament, said the shortfall does not spell failure, describing it instead as the natural distance between a forward looking target and the policies still under construction. He argued that the projections reflect today’s settings rather than tomorrow’s decisions, and insisted that new measures will narrow the gap as they take shape. Targets, he said, exist to drive the work needed to meet them.
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Bowen noted that the latest forecast does not incorporate recently announced initiatives, including parts of Australia’s expanded net zero strategy, which promises investment in low carbon fuels, cleaner manufacturing, and new technologies intended to accelerate the pace of cuts.
Even so, the Climate Change Authority, the government’s independent advisory body, warned that the country stands at a delicate turning point. To stay aligned with the 2035 goal, it said, emissions would need to decline at twice the current rate before 2030, and then quicken further in the decade that follows.
Australia has poured substantial public money into solar and wind power and casts itself as a future renewable energy superpower, a narrative central to its economic and political identity. But the country remains one of the world’s largest coal exporters and a major supplier of liquefied natural gas, a duality that continues to complicate its climate promises.