“The future is unclear”: Businesses call for stronger pollution reduction

Australian companies have come up with innovative ways to tackle pollution reduction, from a company that produces low emissions paint to a concrete company that has developed a way to capture fossil fuel emissions in concrete.

“Business owners are ultimately people, and they're aware of the broader environmental costs, the economic harm, the social harm of failing to take action on climate change,” Christina Hobbs, General Manager of Advocacy at Future Group, told the Gippsland Monitor.

“These businesses sit in the supply chain of reduced emissions that, at the moment, are struggling to sell their products or build their businesses. The future is just unclear. They're obviously being held back from investing more because policies and incentives aren't there to drive the uptake of these businesses.”

The federal Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen is set to announce Australia’s emission reduction target for 2035 this month, and it will impact government policy and investment for at least the current government's term.

In Australia, emissions reduction goals are measured from 2005 levels. According to the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW), Australia has reduced its emissions by 23.7 percent since 2005 and has a target of 43 percent by 2030.

Business for 75, a group of more than 500 companies led by Future Super and Andrew Forrest’s green energy and mining company Fortescue, has been advocating for a target of 75 percent emissions reduction by 2035.

The group said “achieving a 75 percent target by 2035 could unlock about $20 billion per year in investment to 2035”.

Hobbs said “having stronger targets and policy that's up with it would increase demand for emissions reduction products”.

The Climate Change Authority (CCA) is expected to provide advice on the 2035 target, and has suggested a goal of 75 percent is necessary to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees celsius.

Energy and Climate Change Senior Fellow at the Grattan Institute, Tony Wood, told the Gippsland Monitor: “There's so much uncertainty about what's going to happen over the next 10 years around technologies, the political environment, and climate change could get worse.

“A whole lot of things could cause us to say, ‘Well, should we better modify that?’ So rather than having a single number, we recommended that the government introduce a range target.”

In their State of the Climate 2024 report, the Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO concluded the increase of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere was driving a decrease in cool season rainfall across many regions of southern and eastern Australia, which would likely lead to more time in drought.

The report also said there would be “continued increase in the number of dangerous fire weather days and a longer fire season for much of southern and eastern Australia”.