VIRGINIA TRIOLI, HOST: Glasgow is a summit that’s still not over, even if say you’ve got the Prime Minister of Australia not there. One left behind is Pat Conroy who is the Shadow Minister Assisting for Climate Change and he’s there in Glasgow this morning, representing the Labor Party and interest for him, Pat Conroy good to talk to you, good morning or good evening your time.
PAT CONROY, SHADOW MINISTER FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND THE PACIFIC, SHADOW MINISTER ASSISTING FOR CLIMATE CHANGE: Well, Good Morning to you.
TRIOLI: So, who is left behind now?
CONROY: Well, there’s a delegation from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade that are doing the negotiations.
I understand Minister Taylor has been reported as leaving with the Prime Minister, which is unusual because a Minister does the final negotiations. That report could be wrong, I have seen those reports that he left with the Prime Minister Morrison this evening, so it is unclear who exactly is doing the negotiations on behalf of Australia.
When I’ve talked to participants in the conference, there a fair amount of despair about the attitude the Australian government has taken so far at the conference, so I’m not sure whether the Minister leaving will change that much to be honest.
TRIOLI: So, we’ll try and establish, like you, whether he has gone or not but what has he worked on now, the final communique, will there be any thing substantially different in that communique from what we understand right now with the leaders going?
CONROY: There is huge potential. So, there is detailed work on the broad communique but there’s also themed days that the UK Government is coordinating. For example, tomorrow is a day focused on climate finance, which is really important in supporting developing nations to deal with climate change.
The day after that is focused on energy, which would have the potential for huge ramifications for Australia, as they’ll be discussing the future of coal fired electricity, possible moratoriums on coal exports, obviously things that directly impact the economic future of Australia.
There were big announcements today, you talked about the methane announcement, the United States lead a gigantic announcement about deforestation which unfortunately the Australian Government chose not to be part of as well. Those sorts of things are expected to continue over the next few days.
TRIOLI: But we can talk and we probably will as part of this conversation about what the government has or hasn’t agreed to and whether or not that’s disappointing and that going to be a key focus of Q&A tomorrow night which I am hosting and I will talk a little later on about who is going to be on Q&A.
When it comes to Labor’s climate policy yours in pretty light on detail at the moment and you’re not going to announce your full climate plan until after the climate in talks in Glasgow, those don’t finish until November 12.
What can we expect to hear from you after November 12?
CONROY: You can expect a policy that is more ambitious than the government’s that does respond to the science of climate change in more responsible and accurate manner.
We’ve made a series of announcements around $20bn for rewiring the nation to bring more renewables into the grid to lower power prices.
We’ve announced electric vehicle policies that will lower the price of electric vehicles by $9,000 and community batteries.
We will have our broader policy announced closer to the election.
The truth is we’re not the government so there was little point us announcing our policy pre-Glasgow, as influential as we might think we are, we weren’t going to influence the negotiations at the climate conference, unlike the Australian Government’s position.
We will see what other nations come up with and we’ll announce our full policy. It will be much more ambitious and much more progressive. We’ve got the runs on the board in terms of emissions reduction under the last Labor Government.
TRIOLI: I know but I don’t really think it’s acceptable to say you didn’t have to release it because you’re not going to influence the international community.
What the Australian community needs to see is a proper dialogue and a proper discussion and argument about what is the better way to get to net zero and well beyond and to build our industries to the future.
You need to be giving us those details and not as you’ve indicated just there, Pat Conroy, only waiting until you get to the election, if I heard you correctly a moment ago, you said yeah there’ll be something after Glasgow but then closer to the election you’ll release those details.
We don’t have from you a plan to reduce emissions in the agricultural sector that’s beyond land carbon offsetting. We don’t have details from you that come to actually come to dealing with or trading out of being an exporter of minerals and energy.
We need those details soon.
CONROY: Oh, absolutely and you will receive those details, the Australian Public will receive those.
We’ve announced a series of policies already and I should point out that we’ve taken detailed policies on climate to every single election since 2001.
The policy we announced in the 2019 cycle was the most detailed climate policy any political party has taken to an election from opposition.
We will do so again, it will be backed up with plenty of analysis and evidence, but we actually had to wait until we saw the Government’s updated projections of where they thought emissions were going to be, this has to inform our work, that’s the responsible…
TRIOLI: Okay, we’ll you’ve seen it so let’s get to, I reckon, the key issue for us this morning then, Pat Conroy, is 2030.
Tell us, we heard some wonderfully ambitious and clearly serious commitments such as the United States and the UK on reducing emissions by 2030, on 2005 standards.
What figure do you say you can hit?
CONROY: Well, I’m not going to announce that policy this morning that’s a task for Anthony Albanese, the Labor Leader…
TRIOLI: He’s had so much time and so many opportunities to announce that policy.
CONROY: He’s been very clear we’ll announce it before the election, and he was also very clear that we weren’t going to announce before or during the Glasgow Climate Conference.
We will announce it before the election but right now the focus, quite rightly, should be on the Government’s inaction.
Yes, you might say that’s politicians blaming each other but they are the government. They’ve been in power for eight years, they don’t have a plan, that led to a serious international embarrassment by the attitude of the Prime Minister, where he told a room full of global leaders yesterday that they’re not relevant to solving this problem and he hasn’t come with a renewed increased commitment to 2030, so yes, we’ll announce our policy, but we aren’t the government, we haven’t been in power for eight years and…
TRIOLI: Okay.
CONROY: …the focus should be on the Government.
TRIOLI: Sure, which it has been, but I’ve got you on the program this morning so I was hoping to speak with you in detail.
Let me try this one, we can’t get 2030, so let me try this.
If you and Anthony Albanese had been at Glasgow, if you were in power, would you have signed on to that methane reduction commitment that the other major countries did.
CONROY: We’ve indicated, at this stage, that we didn’t think we were in a position to do that particular announcement because the lead up work hadn’t been done over the 6-8 years so there’s…
TRIOLI: So, there’s no difference at all then between you and the government on that one.
CONROY: Well, no, not on that one but…
TRIOLI: Rightio…
CONROY: But on the economy target, which is the most important thing, we have indicated that we would have taken a more ambitious, a scientifically responsible target to Glasgow and you will see a more ambitious 2030 target prior to the next election.
That was the entire focus of the climate conference. It wasn’t net zero by 2050, that was sort of the entry ticket.
What Boris Johnson and UN had made very clear they were hoping that every global leader would come to Glasgow with an increased target for 2030, which is essential if we are to keep global warming well below the 2 degrees and ideally, one and a half degrees…
TRIOLI: Absolutely, one and a half, one point five, stay alive but we’ll wait with bated breath to hear your 2030 target at some point. Give us a call when you’re ready to release it.
CONROY: Absolutely. Thanks Virginia.
TRIOLI: Pat Conroy there, who is the Shadow Minister Assisting for Climate Change in Glasgow right now.