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Australia has already met 2020 target on lower greenhouse emissions: official

Xinhua, November 25, 2015 Adjust font size:

Australian Environment Minister Greg Hunt has claimed the nation has already achieved its target of lowering greenhouse emissions by at least 5 percent by 2020.

"Critics have claimed time and time again that we would not achieve our 2020 target," Hunt told the National Press Club (NPC) in Canberra on Wednesday.

"I can advise formally that the critics are wrong."

Wednesday's announcement came days out from the beginning of the 2015 United Nations (UN) Climate Conference in Paris, which Hunt will personally attend alongside Australian Prime Minister (PM) Malcolm Turnbull.

Political leaders from 190 countries will descend on the French capital from Monday next week for the conference, hoping to emerge with a universal, legally binding agreement on climate change. Any global deal brokered would aim to keep global warming below two degrees Celsius.

"My deepest hope and belief is that the world will achieve an agreement on climate change in Paris," Hunt said during his speech.

Two years ago, the Australia government vowed, as part of the second phase of the Kyoto Protocol, to decrease its emissions in the region of five to 25 percent by 2020, based on the country's greenhouse levels in 2000.

"Australia's projected cumulative abatement task from 2013 to 2020 has fallen every year. The latest update shows that we will meet and exceed our 2020 emissions reduction target," the environment Minister said in a statement on Wednesday.

The "tracking" report stated Australia is 28 million tonnes of greenhouse abatement (reduction) ahead of the amount required to reach its 2020 target.

However, the independent Climate Change Authority (CCA), an Australian advisory organization to the government, reported in October that the 5 percent figure was "not a credible option".

The CCA suggested the Federal government would need to hit 15 to 25 percent in order for Australia to play its part in reaching COP-21's two-degree maximum for global warming.

A new deal to map out Australia's post-2020 emissions target is expected to be finalized before the end of the year, Hunt said. Endit