Debelle attacks ‘complacency’ in carbon reduction efforts
Fortescue Future Industries director Guy Debelle has accused the federal government of lacking urgency in backing up climate targets with actual measures to drive decarbonisation, saying that another horrendous summer of bushfires might be needed to galvanise Canberra into action.
Mr Debelle criticised a “sense of complacency” around emission reduction, saying the Albanese government seemed to be satisfied that the gap between Australia’s climate action and most other countries had ceased to widen.
FFI’s Guy Debelle at the Australian Business Economists breakfast in Sydney on Tuesday. Oscar Colman
“We actually have to close the gap. It’s great to have all these building blocks in place, but we need to actually follow through on them, and follow through on them sooner rather than later because we actually just don’t have time,” he told an Australian Business Economists breakfast on Tuesday.
“It’s great to have stretch targets but they’ve got to be realistic stretch targets,” he said, questioning the means for achieving the goals beyond the “seed capital” provided through agencies such as the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.
“I am slightly concerned that we will have a repeat of 2019-20 again and that’s what’s going to be needed to galvanise the sense of urgency.”
The call was echoed by Zurich Australia and New Zealand chairman Geoff Summerhayes who provided a “reality check” on carbon emissions, given that the scant progress on decarbonisation so far meant the global carbon budget for staying under 2 degrees warming will be essentially extinguished by 2030.
“I like the ambition… but the sobering thought is that ambition and physics, there’s a mismatch there,” Mr Summerhayes told the breakfast, at which Climate Change
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