The Australian government has turned down the United Nations' (UN) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report’s call to phase out coal power by 2050, saying that Australia will continue to tap into its coal reserves and that renewable energies could not replace coal-fired power. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report predicts a global catastrophe if global temperatures rise above 1.5 degrees Celsius by the middle of the next decade.
In order to ward this off, it recommends to phase out coal-fired power generation by 2050. The Australian government replied that is is fulfilling its targets under the 2015 Paris Agreement, i.e. cutting emissions by 26% to 28% on 2005 levels by 2030, and even though it would consider the report, it rejects the possibility of coal being phased out in the near future. Coal will continue to play a significant part of the Australian energy mix along with renewable-based power generation.