As Australia prepares to set its new Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement, this analysis is designed to inform the national discussion on Australia’s next NDC, ensuring ambition is matched with a clear, practical plan to deliver. 

This report examines the investment, enabling reforms and policy interventions required across a range of emissions reduction scenarios, from around a 50% cut to around a 70+% cut below 2005 levels by 2035. It finds that on the current policy course, Australia can achieve around a 50% reduction by 2035 with progress on project approvals and the building of energy infrastructure.   

Scenarios

• Scenario one passes through a 43% reduction in 2030, to achieve around a 50% reduction in 2035.
• Scenario two accelerates action to achieve around a 60% reduction in 2035.
• Scenario three accelerates beyond scenario two to achieve around a 70+% reduction in 2035.

The report takes an investment approach based on current costs and technologies. It is focused on what business needs to do, with the right policies, to shift to a decarbonised economy. It analyses the different emissions reduction scenarios and examines the policy levers needed across seven key sectors: electricity and energy, resources, transport, industry, buildings, agriculture and land (land use, land use change and forestry). 

Core policy enablers are critical across all scenarios and are essential to facilitating the change that is needed, including: 

• permitting and social licence – streamlining regulatory approvals, including the EPBC, and securing community support
• closing the funding gap – unlocking the flow of private capital by providing durable and credible policy settings
• scaling a skilled workforce – rapidly expanding the trained workforce needed to build and maintain the infrastructure of the transition
• securing the supply of technology – accessing the latest emissions reduction technology
• coordination and collaboration – stabilising policy settings and improving coordination and transparency across value chains
• improving capital excellence – lifting productivity in the delivery of projects.