Australia urged to increase climate goal after UK announces ambitious 81% reduction target

One expert says climate targets can seem abstract but matter because they serve as an ‘investment signal’ to cashed up investors

The UK’s announcement of an 81% emissions cut below 1990 levels by 2035 shows the Australian government should set an ambitious climate target that will quickly drive investment and create clean industries, experts say.

The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, was praised by campaigners and experts after confirming the pledge at the Cop29 UN climate summit in Azerbaijan, though they said it would need to be backed by clear plans. The UK is one of the first larger countries to announce a 2035 target before a UN deadline next February.

The UK target translates to a 78% cut below 2005 levels, the benchmark against which Australia measures its climate goals.

The Albanese government has delayed announcing its target, possibly until after the next federal election, saying it is waiting for a recommendation from the Climate Change Authority. The authority chair, Matt Kean, says its advice has been pushed back to consider the ramifications of Donald Trump – a climate denier – winning the US presidential election.

Initial advice from the authority earlier this year suggested a target of at least 65% and up to 75% would be ambitious, but achievable.

Kean told the ABC on Wednesday it was good to see high ambition from the UK because it would focus “everyone’s attention on what’s possible”.

Erwin Jackson, policy director with the Investor Group on Climate Change, said Australia should follow the UK – which accepted a recommendation from that country’s Climate Change Committee – in tying its target to independent advice.

He said Australia was better placed than many other countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions at relatively low cost as it still used a lot of coal and that could largely be replaced with renewable energy.

“The UK and Australia are different economies,” he said. “Australia is blessed with some of the world’s best and cheapest renewable energy resources and any target we put forward needs to be making sure we’re taking advantage of that considerable advantage and going to the highest possible ambition.”

Jackson said people often viewed a climate target as an abstract commitment, but it mattered because it was “essentially an investment signal”. “The fundamental point is if you want to be prosperous as an economy you have to have a strong target because if you don’t investors will take their capital elsewhere,” he said.

Alison Reeve, the Grattan Institute’s deputy energy and climate change program director and previously a public servant working on climate policy, said the UK differed from Australia, in part because it has lost a lot of heavy industry.

She said it could be harder for the UK to make deeper emissions cuts than Australia in parts of its economy because its climate was colder, its housing stock was older and it was more reliant on gas for heating.

Reeve said an important point that some in Australia had yet to grasp was that it could not be a fossil fuel economy and a renewable energy superpower at the same time because “being a renewable energy superpower relies on its customers stopping buying fossil fuels”.

She said emissions reduction targets were “as much about ambition for what the future economy will look like” as the number. “Maybe the UK has grasped that upside – that it’s also about creating new industries and capitalising on the transition,” she said.

The Greens and teal independent MPs have urged the major parties to announce 2035 targets before the election. Several called for at least a 75% cut by 2035 to protect the environment and the economy.

Amanda McKenzie, the chief executive of the Climate Council, said the UK’s commitment showed action to cut emissions was in the national interest of countries across the globe.

She said the council’s scientific analysis found Australia should be reaching net zero emissions by 2035, and the world should reach this mark by 2040, if it was to meet the Paris agreement goal of limiting global heating to well below 2C since pre-industrial times. She said it would require Australia cutting emissions by 75% by 2030. “The lion’s share of effort has to happen this decade,” McKenzie said.

The few countries to announce 2035 commitments at Cop29 include Brazil, the host of next year’s Cop30 summit. It set an emissions reduction target of between 59% and 67% compared with 2005 levels.

Brazil is one of the world’s 10 top emitters, but as a developing country is not expected to act as rapidly as wealthy nations. Campaigners said its plan was an improvement, but that more detail and deeper cuts were needed.

An Australian government spokesperson said there was a process to setting UN climate commitments – known as nationally determined contributions, or NDCs – that included receiving advice from the Climate Change Authority.

“We’re on track for our 2030 targets and we’ll set 2035 targets that are in the best interest of Australia,” they said. “Those targets will be ambitious, but achievable.”

The spokesperson contrasted the government’s position with the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, who has said he would abolish Labor’s 2030 target (a 43% cut) – a position that would put Australia at odds with the Paris agreement – and not announce a replacement 2030 target or a 2035 target before the election.

Coalition plans include slowing the rollout of large-scale renewable energy, extending the life of ageing coal plants and supporting more gas-fired power while it develops a plan to eventually build publicly owned nuclear generators. It says it could do this by 2037, but experts say creating a nuclear industry would take until after 2040.

The government announced on Wednesday it would support international climate action in the region by guaranteeing up to US$200m for the Asian Development Bank to lend to Pacific and south-east Asian countries. It said it would enable the bank to make more than US$900m in additional loans for climate mitigation and adaptation projects.

Climate finance – both setting a new global goal to help poor countries and working out how to reach it – is a central focus of the Cop29 summit. Developing countries want guarantees of US$1tn a year in funds by 2035 to help them cut emissions and adapt to worsening extreme weather.

Cover photo: Windfarms are helping the UK chase an ambitious emissions reduction. Photograph: Islandstock/Alamy