More than $1 billion will be pumped into producing low-emission fuels in a bid by the federal government to help heavy industries across the nation curb their carbon pollution.
The spending promise comes as a former defence chief warns runaway climate change could cause a millions-strong influx of regional climate refugees into Australia as areas become unliveable.
Labor is preparing to unveil its 2035 emissions-reduction target, a key milestone on the way to net zero carbon emissions by 2050, within days.
In the lead up to that announcement, the government has promised a $1.1 billion funding boost low-carbon fuel production such as renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel.
The exact design of the 10-year Cleaner Fuels Program is still being worked out, but it will likely involve grants to help companies make their processes more efficient.
Australia imports about 90 per cent of its liquid fuels.
The changes would help key industries reduce their carbon emissions, while also protecting the nation’s fuel supply, Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen said.
“Making cleaner fuels here, from Australian feedstocks, creates the path for emissions reduction in sectors that are hardest to clean up, like plane travel and construction machines,” he said.
As the 2035 target is set to be unveiled, former Australian Defence Force chief Chris Barrie called for urgent action to reduce climate pollution.
The retired admiral suggested escalating flooding and storms could render parts of Southeast Asia almost unliveable.
“There are two existential threats to human beings on the planet. One is nuclear war and one is climate change,” he told AAP.
Mr Barrie said as many as 80 million people from Bangladesh alone could seek shelter in Australia from increasingly severe natural disasters, suggesting young families with children would be the most likely to flee their home countries.
“It’s a guess… (but) shouldn’t we be thinking it’s a possibility?” he said.
After the release of the government’s landmark National Climate Risk Assessment, which forecasts catastrophic consequences for Australia if temperatures are allowed to continue rising, Mr Barrie said the nation was unprepared for the realities of a warming Earth.
The comments follow revelations government officials have been working on Australia’s next critical emissions-reduction target for well over a year, and have honed in on a single figure, not a percentage range as previously suspected.
Under questioning at a Senate inquiry, Treasury bureaucrats wouldn’t say what the government’s 2035 climate target will be, but did admit they had been asked to model a single figure because it was easier than analysing a range.
Early advice from the Climate Change Authority suggested cutting greenhouse gas emissions by between 65 and 75 per cent would be an achievable goal.
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