Canberra, Aug 3 (BUS) – The Australian government said it is confident its goal of reducing greenhouse gases will be enshrined in law after negotiating amendments with senators outside the ranks of the new administration.
A bill to enshrine the centre-left Labor Party’s electoral pledge to cut Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions 43% below 2005 levels by 2030 was the first piece of legislation presented to Parliament when it convened last week for the first time since the May 21 election. , the Associated Press reported.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said his government had negotiated enough support for the bill to pass the Senate without changing the 43% commitment.
“I am very confident that it will pass through the House and through the Senate,” Albanese told reporters.
Green party leader Adam Bandt said all 12 senators from the small Green party, which wants to cut emissions by 75% by the end of the decade, had agreed to support the revised bill.
“The Greens have improved a weak climate bill and we will pass it,” Bandt told the National Press Club.
“But the fight to stop Labour’s new coal and gas mines continues, and in this parliament the only obstacle to stronger climate action is action,” Bandt added.
Backed by the Greens, the bill only needs the support of one of the six remaining unbiased senators to achieve a majority in the 76-seat chamber.
Albanese did not mention which senator or senators had promised support or what his government had waived.
He said senators from outside the government didn’t get “a lot of the things they wanted.”
We have made our position very clear. “There will be some amendments passed by the House that are reasonable and consistent with our position,” Albanese said.
The Labor Party has a slim majority in the House of Representatives.
Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen said a legally enforced target would instill confidence in companies to invest in clean energy.
“It is now clear that our legislation will pass Parliament,” Bowen said.
The conservative coalition that ruled for nine years until the election will not renege on its 2015 Paris commitment to cut emissions by between 26% and 28%.
When Labor was in power between 2007 and 2013, its climate plans were dismissed as too ambitious by the Conservatives and not ambitious enough by the Greens.
Environmentalists criticized the Greens for rejecting a labor law in 2009 that would have made polluters pay for greenhouse gas emissions through an emissions trading scheme because the Greens wanted deeper cuts.
Labor and the Greens agreed to legislate a carbon tax on 350 of Australia’s biggest polluters in 2012, but the Conservative government scrapped the tax two years later.
ZHB