The WA Premier has softened his stance on legislating climate targets for the state, saying the government is going back to the drawing board. Roger Cook says he doesn't want WA to be "shackled" if its emissions help the world decarbonise.
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00:00The Premier was in Kwinana to talk up a new technology being rolled out by West Farmers to reduce the emission of one greenhouse gas from its Kwinana plant.
00:11It's one of many technologies being funded by government grants.
00:14Which is all part of our ongoing journey towards a net zero future.
00:19But the path to that future could be shifting. In 2023 the government was focused on legislating emissions reduction targets.
00:25The power of legislation inking into law where we want to be sends a powerful message.
00:32That legislation stalled in Parliament and two and a half years on, it's a different story.
00:37There's national legislation which will have us at net zero by 2050, which we are captured by.
00:42So we won't necessarily gain anything by having state legislation.
00:47Every other state and territory has passed climate targets, but the Premier says WA's emissions could increase as part of its efforts to help the rest of the world.
00:57I'm not going to shackle Western Australia to legislation which damages our efforts to help the globe to decarbonise and reduce emissions.
01:06Look, I think they're getting the wrong advice.
01:09They're getting it from fossil fuel industries who put everything up there to show that they're part of the transition, but they're not.
01:17Sustainability professor Peter Newman says pivoting to a fully green future is the only way forward.
01:23There is no point in increasing the emissions anywhere because they are no longer cheaper than the other options.
01:31The Greens tried to reintroduce the government's own legislation to Parliament last week as part of their push for climate action.
01:38What the Premier is doing by not having local targets is actually driving investment and clean energy to the east coast.
01:44Because, yeah, those targets will be captured there.
01:47But WA will pay for that for losing jobs and losing investment here.
01:51The Premier says no matter the path, he's still committed to reaching net zero by 2050.