Australian prime minister will take net zero target to COP26

By ROD McGUIRK
Associated Press

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia’s prime minister says his country will commit to a target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050 but will not increase its goal for 2030 at an upcoming U.N. climate summit in Scotland. Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s conservative Liberal Party-led government was narrowly re-elected in 2019 with a climate policy that opposed the 2050 net zero target adopted by the now opposition center-left Labor Party. Morrison wrote in an opinion piece published Tuesday in Australian News Corp newspapers that his government will indeed commit to the 2050 net zero goal, but will not up its election pledge to reduce emissions between 26% and 28% below 2005 levels by 2030.