By Clare BruceThursday 3 Sep 2020NewsReading Time: 2 minutes
Above: NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian gives a press conference on July 12 about COVID-19 hotspots in NSW. (Image: Facebook / Gladys Berejiklian)
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has aired her wish for a carbon-neutral Australia, according to media reports – implying a dissatisfaction with the Morrison government’s resistance to net-zero emissions.
The Liberal premier was speaking in conversation with former UK Prime Minister Theresa May, on a webinar hosted by the conservative environment group, Coalition for Conservation (C4C).
Berejiklian described a net zero greenhouse gas emissions target as a “dream” according to Guardian Australia: “The assessment we’ve done is the targets for net zero by 2050, it doesn’t take much to get there… To have a conservative Tory government legislate 2050 emissions is the stuff of dreams in Australia, and we can only hope to emulate it.”
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian being briefed by the then-Rural Fire Service commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons as fires raged across NSW on January 1, 2020. (Picture: Facebook / Gladys Berejiklian)
Britain’s carbon-neutral target of 2050 is one they’ve been encouraging other countries to adopt, in the lead up to the UN’s Climate Change Conference in Glasgow in 2021. But the Morrison government, with its slow and conservative stance on climate, has said it won’t adopt such a target without a proper plan for achieving it.
Australia’s state governments though, along with major businesses and energy companies, are backing the target.
The Guardian said Berejiklian spoke highly of her energy and environment minister, Matt Kean, for his work on renewable energy zones, discussed the creation of clean-energy jobs, and flagged her wish for a more climate-conscious Australia: “I think as we emerge from COVID that the public will feel connected and more in tune with protecting the environment.”
Berejiklian praised May for her years as prime minister, and praised Britain for its progressive emissions policy that both protected the environment and promoted economic growth.