IPCC report: Scott Morrison's climate tech reliance panned by experts

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has this week reaffirmed his belief that low-emissions technologies, including carbon capture and storage and "clean" hydrogen, is the key to combatting global warming.

His government's position remains unmoved despite the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report [IPCC] warning that the Paris temperature targets could be "beyond reach" without rapid and large-scale cuts to the planet's greenhouse gas emissions.

"World history teaches one thing, technology changes everything. That is the game changer," Mr Morrison said.

The Coalition's approach has drawn sharp criticism from leading climate and energy experts, who say the best tools for decarbonising the economy are already at Australia's disposal.

The director of the Australian National University's Centre for Climate and Energy Policy, Frank Jotzo, said new low-emissions technologies had a part to play in the global climate response.

But Professor Jotzo said the IPCC report had made clear that the planet couldn't afford to wait for them to be rolled out.

The report found the critical 1.5 degree temperature threshold could be breached early next decade if emissions continued at the current rate.

"It would be the lazy way, hanging back and waiting until that transitions happens all by itself. We haven't got the time," he told The Canberra Times.

"If this was 1990, then an argument along those lines could be made. But it's 2021."

Professor Jotzo said most of the technology needed to fuel the transition already existed, including renewables, battery storage and pumped hydro.

What was required, he said, were policies to accelerate their deployment to hasten the shift away from fossil fuels. That could include disincentives for investment in fossil fuel projects, such as carbon taxes, and the "orderly and anticipated" closures of coal-fire power stations.

Professor Jotzo said the electrification of the transport sector, a major source of emissions, was also critical.

The director of Monash University's Energy Institute, Ariel Liebman, echoed Professor Jotzo's comments, saying the technology needed to "economically decarbonise" the electricity sector and most of the transport sector already existed.

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Professor Liebman said new technologies would be needed to tackle emissions in other sectors, such as land use and agriculture.

He was adamant that carbon capture and storage wasn't the answer, saying it was "unlikely to be economic" in the near future.

Richie Merzian, the director of the climate and energy program at progressive think tank The Australia Institute, was even more critical of the contentious technology.

Mr Merzian pointed out that despite massive taxpayer investment, there were no large-scale carbon capture and storage projects operational in Australia.

He also accused the Morrison government of blaming others for problems Australia had helped create, after the Prime Minister singled out China, India and developing nations for their large contribution to greenhouse gas emissions.

Australia was as of 2019 the world's third largest exporter of fossil fuels, according to an Australia Institute report.

"It's like complaining about junkies on your street when you are a drug dealer," Mr Merzian said.

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce warned again on Wednesday that the Nationals would oppose more ambitious climate action targets until the cost to regional communities was laid out.

Mr Morrison appears weeded to the goal of reaching net zero emissions "as quickly as possible and preferably by 2050", but has left the door ajar to adjusting Australia's 2030 targets ahead of the November's global climate summit in Glasgow.

The Prime Minister has this week attempted to reassure regional Australians that they won't be forced to "carry the national burden" on cutting emissions under his technology-first approach.

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