Australia committed to Paris climate change agreement

Australia has no plans to alter its 2020 renewable energy targets (RET) despite criticism of the Paris climate change agreement from U.S. President Donald Trump, the nation's Environment Minister said on Tuesday.

Josh Frydenberg said the Australian government would maintain its aims of producing 33,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity from renewable sources by 2020 and reducing emissions to 26-28 percent on 2005 levels by 2030.

"We have no plans to change that renewable energy target for 2020," Frydenberg told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

Following the U.S. president's decision to scrap America's involvement in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), there are concerns that Trump may also pull out of the Paris agreement as well, but Frydenberg said that would have no bearing on Australia's long-term goals.

"I'm not going to hypothesize about what Donald Trump does, but in terms of our international commitments, we have committed to a 26-28 percent target," Frydenberg said.

"Dare I say it - we are doing very well in terms of trying to meet our 2030 target as well as our 2020 target which we are on track to beat by more than 224 million tons."

The minister said while the targets would place a slightly larger burden on consumers, Australia was committed to doing its part to help stop climate change.

"It does have an impact on electricity prices, but it is a much more moderate target than what we are seeing being proposed in Parliament by our political opponents," Frydenberg said.

"It's a real challenge for us to meet that target and I want people to be under no misapprehension about that - it is going to be challenging to meet that target."

source: Xinhua