British High Commissioner to Australia, Victoria Treadell has told Sky News Australia the UK welcomes Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s $540 million clean energy funding in the wake of Boris Johnson’s ambitious new climate target.
Ms Treadell said Prime Minister Morrison’s announcement of more than half-a-billion dollars of investment in hydrogen and carbon technologies is to be “welcomed and encouraged”.
It comes as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson set a new target to reduce emissions by 78 per cent by 2035, marking a major move in the international landscape ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow this year.
The high commissioner said the UK pushed for global ambition and therefore must “deliver it ourselves”.
“When we talk about climate ambition it is within this new reality – time is short and we need to move faster than we have done,” she said.
“We feel absolutely honour-bound to think about what we are going to do. There’s no point preaching positive progressive behaviour if you’re not manifesting it yourself.”
Ms Treadell said there is a need for governments across the globe, including Australia, to think now about how to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, including the adoption of mid-term targets.
