Anthony Albanese signs Australia up for G7-backed ‘climate club’

Australia is joining the ‘climate club’ backed by the Group of Seven major economies to take more action against global warming, Anthony Albanese has announced.

‘We’re very pleased to join the climate club because we are ambitious and we also see that this isn’t just the right thing to do by the environment, but this is also the right thing to do by jobs and by our economy,’ Albanese said at a news conference in Berlin after meeting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who made the idea a key pillar of his G7 presidency last year. 

‘One thing we can do is to cooperate and learn off each other, because you can’t address climate change as just a national issue. It has to be by definition, a global response,’ Albanese said. 

The ‘climate club’ was formed last year – spearheaded by Nobel Prize winner William Nordhaus – as a way to get countries to voluntarily set strong targets to curb climate change.

Other countries that are part of the club include; Argentina, Chile, Denmark, Indonesia, Colombia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Singapore and Uruguay.

It is an initiative that has been opposed by emerging economies such as China – the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases.

In 2022, the Australian government committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 43 per cent by the end of the decade.

That was almost double the previous target set as the country continues to work towards net zero emissions by 2050.

In 2022, the Australian government committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 43 per cent by the end of the decade (pictured: Liddell power station in Hunter Valley)

In March, a law passed through parliament requiring the country’s biggest polluters to reduce their emissions or pay for carbon credits.

The law regulate the emissions of Australia’s 215 biggest polluters. 

‘I am delighted that Australia has announced it will join the Climate Club,’ Mr Scholz told a media conference in Berlin.

‘We also want to expand our existing energy partnership and develop it into a climate partnership in order to fight climate change even more effectively.’ 

Anthony Albanese will travel to Lithuania later today for the NATO summit on the back on announcing Australia will join the Climate Club.