The Greens would press for coal to be phased out this decade if they held the balance of power after the next federal election, leader Adam Bandt has said, as the global push to end the fossil fuel gathers momentum.
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Mr Bandt is confident neither the Coalition or Labor will win enough seats to form the next government in their own right, predicting a bigger contingent of Greens and independents in the next Federal Parliament.
The Greens have drawn up a list of 10 target seats, which includes Labor and Alicia Payne's electorate in Canberra and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg's seat of Kooyong in Melbourne.
If successful in enough of those contests, Mr Bandt has reaffirmed the Greens would end the Liberals' more than eight years in office and start negotiations with Labor on some form of power-sharing deal.
As global climate talks continue in Glasgow, Mr Bandt told The Canberra Times the Greens would leverage that position to push for a staged, but rapid, phasing out of coal and gas.
The Greens last month introduced proposed legislation to phase out the export of thermal coal by the end of the decade, and ban the mining or burning of the fossil fuel after January 1, 2030.
Mr Bandt said Labor wouldn't act unless pushed by the Greens, pointing to the Opposition's ongoing support for the coal and gas industries- including fracking in the Northern Territory's Beetaloo Basin.
"Both of them [Liberals and Labor] when they have majority power, they throw petrol on the fire," he said.
"In the middle of a climate crisis, Labor and Liberal want more coal and gas.
"The message that we will be taking to the next election is that we need to kick the climate-denying Liberals out.
"But the Greens need to get in a balance of power because Labor won't act on coal and gas unless the Greens are there to push them."
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Labor leader Anthony Albanese has previously ruled out any power-sharing deal with the Greens after the next election.
The Greens are also targeting the seats of Griffith, Ryan and Brisbane in Queensland, Richmond in NSW and Macnamara, Higgins, Cooper and Wills in Victoria.
Mr Bandt's comments come exactly a decade after the Senate passed a bill to introduce a carbon price on emissions, part of a package of climate policies negotiated between Julia Gillard's minority Labor government and the Greens.
The so-called carbon tax was abolished within three years after Tony Abbott and the Coalition swept to power at the 2013 election.
Labor's climate and energy spokesman Chris Bowen was on Sunday pressed on his party's position on cutting methane emissions and ending coal, after the Morrison government refused to sign up to global pledges to act on both at the Glasgow climate summit.
More than 40 countries signed the UK-led pact to end their use of coal-fired power over the next two decades. Fossil fuel-dependent countries including China, the US and India joined Australia in snubbing the commitment.
Mr Bowen told ABC's Insiders program that what mattered to Labor was not pledges, but rather policies which brought down greenhouse gas emissions. He restated his belief there would be no new coal-fired power stations built in Australia.
He pointed to Labor's $20 billion proposal to rework the nation's electricity grid, reduce the price of electric vehicles and build community batteries as examples of policy commitments which would help cut emissions.
He ruled out the introduction of a carbon price or emissions trading scheme, but left open the possibility an Albanese Labor government would expand the regulation used to limit pollution from major operations.
Energy Minister Angus Taylor likened an expansion of the so-called safeguards mechanism to a carbon tax after the idea was floated by the Business Council of Australia.
Mr Bowen indicated Labor would unveil its short-term emissions reduction target once it had seen the modelling behind the government's plan to achieve net zero by 2050.
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