E&OE….
Topics: ABC cuts, China-US emissions
MARK PARTON:
I’ve got the Federal Environment Minister on the line. G’day Greg.
GREG HUNT:
And good morning Mark and I was sure you were going to talk to me about the fact that Australia’s achieved its emissions targets whereas other countries have completely missed theirs. But anyway – how are you?
MARK PARTON:
Well I do want to get on to that but I just had to start with the ABC thing. It’s a tough one to defend.
GREG HUNT:
Look, all up the state of the Budget was catastrophic and we were heading towards $25,000 of debt for every man, woman and child. So a family of four, a $100,000 debt, you know, before kids get started in life.
You do have to make changes. That is part of the difficulty. Our number one task was, above all else, to protect the health of the economy and what we’re trying to do is to make sensible savings and to ask the country to make savings in some areas. In the end, we’ve got to share that.
MARK PARTON:
Well, the benefit of hindsight, do you think it might have been beneficial for the Prime Minister to say, ‘look, I’m going to do my darndest to not cut from the ABC, but I can’t promise anything’?
GREG HUNT:
Oh look, with the benefit of hindsight the best thing would have been if the Budget figures had been represented correctly. You remember we were told we were heading into four years of surplus.
In the end we’ve got we had deficits that were inherited right out to, you know, for the next decade and we have to do things. That’s just the way it is and not to do that would have been utterly irresponsible and so there are difficult decisions but that’s the way it is.
MARK PARTON:
Alright, a lot of discussion in the last week or so over this deal that was struck between the US and China over emissions. But, you know, it’s very clear without having to delve all that far into it that the Chinese actually don’t have to do anything for the next 15 years. The Americans have got to do a bit of heavy lifting.
There’s a fascinating article from Sid Maher in The Australian this morning about the growth in China’s carbon emissions over the next 15 years will absolutely swamp emission reductions by both the US and Australia over that same period and the figures are astounding.
GREG HUNT:
Yeah I know, it’s incredible. If you look at what’s happened in the US and China, the US between 1990 and 2020 increased its emissions by 530 million tonnes. That’s almost equivalent of a whole Australia. You would think, listening to the Labor Party, that the US had some massive decrease.
They pledged a minus 7% target, they blew their target out by 18%. Australia, on the other hand, made its pledges and came 5% under our target compared with what we’d promised. So we over-delivered, others may not have delivered and may have completely blown what they said they’d do.
And in the case of China which is bringing literally hundreds of millions out of poverty so there’s no criticism here – they went from 3.3 billion or 3.35 billion to 9.77 billion, or in other words they went up by 6.4 billion tonnes of emissions and what the Labor Party is proclaiming as a wonderful thing is somewhere between now and 2030, closer to 2030, that growth might stop.
Now, it’s good for the world that China will take action, but in the meantime over a 40 year period, China’s emissions will have increased between 9, 10, 11, 12 billion tonnes. So…
MARK PARTON:
It’s amazing.
GREG HUNT:
It’s astronomical.
MARK PARTON:
And one of the greatest ways to illustrate it is this – as China has industrialised, its emissions have risen in the last ten years, let’s have a look at it per person. 2.7 tonnes per person was the figure in 2000. Alright – 2.7. It’s now gone up to 6.2 tonnes per person.
And when you consider the size of the Chinese population, scope that out and you begin to see that the increase in emissions is just going to be astronomical.
GREG HUNT:
Yeah. So it’s a very interesting thing here that obviously you have the ALP and their fellow travellers who never actually talk about whether other countries have A – have met their targets and B – what’s actually happening in emissions with other countries. So we didn’t just meet our target, we beat our target significantly by 130 million tonnes which is, you know, a really big gift to the world.
And the US and you know, I love the United States, I was fortunate enough to study and spend time there, blew out its target by 18%, despite promising something very, very different. China didn’t make promises, but for the world to know that they increased their emissions by 6.4 billion tonnes and then that’s just going to continue dramatically.
MARK PARTON:
Yeah.
GREG HUNT:
And fortunately at some stage between now and 2030 it’s likely to plateau. But in the meanwhile, you see this huge growth. Just to put it in context, any changes in Australia’s emissions was overshadowed 640 times or 64,000% by the growth in China’s emissions.
But you would imagine, listening to the ALP and some of the, sort of, academics that attach themselves to the ALP, that China’s emissions had been plummeting. Sadly, that’s not the case.
MARK PARTON:
Yeah right, no. Greg, thanks for coming on this morning, appreciate your time.
GREG HUNT:
Ok, take care.
MARK PARTON:
Greg Hunt is the Federal Environment Minister.
(ENDS)