Scott Morrison resists pressure for new emissions target at Joe Biden climate summit

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has refused to bow to pressure from the US to use a global climate summit convened by President Joe Biden to announce an increased target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“We are well on the way to meet our Paris commitments,” Mr Morrison told the summit, which laid bare the gulf between Australia and many of its key allies in how best to tackle the climate crisis.

“We’ll update our long-term emissions reduction strategy for Glasgow”, he said, referring to the COP26 climate action conference to be held in Scotland in November.

That leaves Australia aiming for a reduction of between 26 to 28 per cent on 2005 levels of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, an ambition about half the size of the revised US goal.