Former prime minister Tony Abbott has urged Australia to follow the lead of US president Donald Trump and withdraw from the Paris agreement, saying he would never have signed up if he knew the United States would eventually pull out.
Mr Abbott signed the deal when he was still prime minister in 2015, promising Australia would cut carbon emissions by 26 percent by the year 2030, off 2005 levels.
But now Mr Abbott says the agreement, which has been signed by almost every country in the world, will damage the Coalition’s chances at the next election.
“Our 2015 target, after all, was set on the basis that the agreement would be 'applicable to all ... parties'. Absent America, my government would not have signed up to the Paris treaty, certainly not with the current target,” he said.
Mr Abbott ramped up his ongoing attacks on the Turnbull government’s energy policy, the , which has in the Coalition.
"Withdrawing from the Paris agreement that is driving the National Energy Guarantee would be the best way to keep prices down and employment up, and to save our party from a political legacy that could haunt us for the next decade at least,” he told the Australian Environment Foundation.
“It’s the emissions obsession that’s at the heart of our power crisis and it’s this that has to end for our problems to ease.”
Mr Abbott was ousted as Liberal leader by prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, who justified the move by pointing out the Coalition had lost 30 consecutive Newspolls to the Labor party under Mr Abbott’s leadership.
But Mr Turnbull has now lost 35 in a row. Mr Abbott has been using consistent radio interviews, usually with Sydney’s Radio 2GB, to offer his own government advice on how to win the next election – often
Mr Abbott said Paris targets that were “aspirational” in his hands had become “binding commitments”.
A number of Coalition backbenchers, including George Christensen and Craig Kelly, have said their support for the National Energy Guarantee would be conditional on policy changes that encourage new investment in coal-fired power.
