Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Innovation) Share this | Hansard source

Well, Senator, I haven't quite reached the point in this place where I'm asking and answering my own questions.

I'm not sure that that's a really helpful way of characterising what is important to Australia's national interest here. It is true that our onshore scope 1 and 2 emissions are—I think it's a larger number than the one that you quote—somewhere between one and two per cent. Australia is a very high per capita emitter. So, per person, even though that is a small amount in global terms, in individual terms we do have a responsibility here. But it's also true that it is in Australia's national interest for the world to move on these questions. That is why we are engaged in the international framework agreements—to use our contribution to make sure that we're an effective participant as the world moves. So that is one rationale.

Secondly, Australia, more than any other country on Earth, other than perhaps our friends in our near region, in the Pacific, has more to lose and more to gain from failure on climate and energy policy—our farmers, our coastal communities, our outer suburbs, where lifts in temperature create terrible conditions for working people to live in. But it is absolutely in our interest—