A major new report has detailed the “extraordinary economic opportunity” for Australia to replace its coal and gas exports with decarbonised commodities, and reap six to eight times more than the typical revenues it earns from fossil fuels, and help other major economies to meet their own climate goals.

But renewed calls for Australia to act as a global green superpower are clashing hard against accusations of “political cowardice,” as the Albanese government continues to dodge all questions about the 2035 emissions reduction target it is supposed to set within a few months.

Australia, like other countries signed up to the Paris climate accord, has committed to submit an updated National Determined Contribution by the end of February 2025, including a new, and preferably very ambitious, interim emissions reduction target.

The adoption of 2035 NDCs was agreed to at last year’s COP28 in Dubai, in line with advice from the IPCC that limiting warming to 1.5°C means pushing global greenhouse gas emissions 60% below 2019 levels by 2035 – rather than just aiming for net zero by 2050 and hoping for the best.

This year’s COP29 climate talks, currently underway in Baku, Azderbaijan, notably kicked off with a commitment from British prime minister Keir Starmer to an interim UK emissions reduction target of at least 81 per cent on 1990 levels by 2035.

Asked point blank over the weekend whether he might follow suit, Albanese told a press conference at the APEC Summit in Peru that his government would commit to delivering its 2030 target, only – a 43% reduction on 2005 levels that was legislated back in 2022 in the wake of federal Labor’s election win.

“The 2035 target has to be handed down next year,” one journalist pushed. “Will you commit to giving Australians an idea of what you want that target to be like?”

“Well,........

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