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Climate solutions

Opinion

Emitters should pay the price of energy transition; not consumers

Rod Sims Professor, former chair of the ACCC September 22, 2025 — 1.30pm

What should we make of last Thursday’s announcement by Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen of Australia’s target for emissions reduction and the pathways to achieve this? The proposals largely have merit but also some flaws. We can be broadly comfortable with the upper level of the target, but without significant policy change we will not see our emissions in the target range by 2035.

The government is correct that to be worth setting, targets must be both ambitious and credible.

The upper end of the government’s 62-70 per cent target range – with some generous assumptions – can be seen as Australia doin

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