While it has been widely rumoured that the cost of securing National Party support for Scott Morrison’s commitment to net zero could be up to $20 billion in in budget spending for projects in National Party seats, the real cost of the deal is, according to an analysis of various recent climate change modelling done by Deloitte Access Economics (DAE), likely to be more than ten times that figure at around $210 billion.

Comparing the various modelling conducted by DAE, including the recent Business Council of Australia (BCA) commissioned work, it is clear there are significant economic benefits associated with setting a 46 per cent emission reduction target for 2030. These benefits from early action flow primarily from bringing forward emission reductions in sectors like electricity and transport which gives other industries more time to develop the technologies they need to decarbonise.

This report explains the size and cause of the significant economic benefits associated with increasing the ambition of Australia’s 2030 target that are calculated by the DAE modelling and relied upon by the BCA.