The Opposition Australian Labor Party (ALP) has rejected modelling that found its ambitious climate policies could cost the nation hundreds of billions of Australian dollars.
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According to the modelling, published by Brian Fisher on Thursday, the ALP's plan would subtract between 264 billion Australian dollars (185.4 billion U.S. dollars) and 542 billion Australian dollars (380.7 billion U.S. dollars) from gross national product (GNP).
The ALP has pledged to reduce carbon emissions by 45 percent and have 50 percent of the nation's electricity come from renewable sources by 2030 if it defeats the governing Liberal-National party coalition (LNP) in the general election on May 18.
Fisher, a former director of the the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES), said that pursuing those targets would result in the loss of 167,000 jobs.
"Negative consequences for real wages and employment are projected under all scenarios, with a minimum 3 percent reduction in real wages and 167,000 fewer jobs in 2030 compared to what otherwise would have occurred," he wrote, according to The Sydney Morning Herald.
"Labor's plan results in a cumulative GNP loss over the period from 2021 to 2030 that is over three times larger than that occurring under the LNP policy," he said.
Fisher's findings have been rejected by the ALP, with the party's climate change spokesman Mark Butler accusing Fisher of producing "dodgy numbers."
"This is the latest in a parade of dodgy numbers cooked up to try and excuse six years of delay, division and denial from the Liberals on climate change and energy policy," he told News Corp Australia.
"Australians won't be fooled, or frightened, into ignoring climate change," Butler said.
The Climate Council of Australia in March accused Fisher of being "the fossil fuel industry's go-to consultant", saying that an earlier version of his projections failed "to consider the economic benefits for Australia from investing in renewable energy."
The ALP has maintained that costing its climate policies is impossible - a position that party leader Bill Shorten again defended on Wednesday night.
"The cost of not acting on climate change is far worse than acting on climate change," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
"And, again, when you talk about cost, what's the cost to the environment, the cost in not acting?" he said.
Fisher's projections have been cast into doubt by the academic community with Australian National University professors Warwick McKibbin and Frank Jotzo telling Fairfax Media cautioning against his claims.
Responding to the March version of Fisher's analysis, they said that the work had used "absurd cost assumptions", producing a carbon price forecast that was "way too high" and a "factor of 10" more than his own work.
Thursday's projections have been seized upon by the LNP, who have accused the ALP of trying to "wreck the economy."
"Mark Butler and Bill Shorten have refused to come clean on the details and the impacts of their policies, they have refused to do it time and time again," the Energy Minister Angus Taylor told Macquarie Media radio.
"What we know is on very reasonable assumptions about what Labor's policies are - they will slash wages, they will slash critical industries, those really critical industries like resources and transport that are the backbone of this country and we will all pay for it with lower wages, less economic activity and higher electricity prices," Taylor said. ■