High-profile members of the federal government's Climate Change Authority have launched a stinging critique of their colleagues, accusing them of giving "untrue and dangerous" advice that ignores what science demands.
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Board members David Karoly, an internationally recognised scientist, and Clive Hamilton, an academic and author, have published a dissenting report criticising the authority's advice to the government released last week.
The split is over whether the authority's role is to give unflinching science-based advice or, after years of policy failure in Canberra, recommend what is politically achievable.
It follows then environment minister Greg Hunt's appointment of five new board members last year, including former Coalition politicians.
The dissenting pair accuse the authority of failing to give independent guidance, and instead basing its report on "a reading from a political crystal ball".
Released last Wednesday, the authority's special review recommends a "toolkit" of policies – some building on the taxpayer-financed Direct Action emissions reduction fund, and some new measures –that it says could meet existing Coalition targets and be scaled up later to make deeper cuts.
It makes no new recommendation about how fast Australia should cut emissions in light of the deal reached at climate talks in Paris last year.
Professor Karoly said the authority's report failed to meet its terms of reference and was a recipe for further delay.
"It makes recommendations that are not soundly based on climate science," he said.
Professor Hamilton, a former Greens candidate, said it gave the impression Australia had plenty of time to introduce measures that could bring down emissions sharply.
"This is untrue and dangerous. Given this, we felt we had no choice but to write our own report," he said.
The authority's majority advice includes toughening the so-called "safeguard mechanism" that is supposed to prevent polluters increasing emissions but has been criticised as too weak.
It wants an emissions intensity scheme for power companies, requiring them to cut to zero "well before 2050" how much the industry emits for every unit of electricity it generates. And it backs standards to cut emissions from households, vehicles and buildings.
But Professor Karoly and Professor Hamilton said the authority advice lacked credibility because it accepted the government's target: cutting emissions by 26 per cent to 28 per cent by 2030 (compared with 2005 levels).
The pair said the authority should have based its advice on a carbon budget – a calculation of how much Australia can still emit if it is to play its part in reaching the Paris goal of keeping warming to less than 2 degrees.
Under former chairman Bernie Fraser, the authority estimated it would mean a cut of between 45 and 63 per cent by 2030.
The dissenting report says more than 90 per cent of Australia's carbon budget would be blown by 2030 under existing targets.
Professor Karoly said: "Put simply, the actions recommended in the [authority] report will not put Australia on a path to playing its role in limiting global temperature rise to less than 2 degrees."
The dissenting report wants the emissions reduction fund scrapped, and consideration given to generators paying competitors to shut polluting brown coal plants – a step rejected by the majority report.
It calls for a carbon trading scheme and a target of 65 per cent for renewable electricity by 2030.
The government has said it will ratify the Paris deal by the end of the year, and promises a review of climate policies in 2017. Some Coalition MPs who support action on the climate believe internal divisions, including a conservative wing that does not accept the need to act, could make it difficult to get new policies through the party room – particularly anything that looks like a carbon price.
An authority spokeswoman said the board would not comment about "individual responses" to its report.
Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg on Monday said the government had not influenced the authority report.
"We have not sought to direct it, and now the two people on that board have had a different view. But the vast majority of those board members have signed onto the report which was submitted to the government as announced last week," he said.
The authority was established in 2011 as part of a deal between Labor, the Greens and independent MPs. The Coalition promised to abolish it, but relented in a deal with then MP Clive Palmer in return for his support to scrap Labor's carbon scheme.
Then environment minister Greg Hunt appointed five new board members last year – Howard government minister John Sharp, former Liberal ACT chief minister Kate Carnell, economist Danny Price, energy industry expert Stuart Allinson and chairwoman Wendy Craik, a former head of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and the Murray-Darling Basin Commission.
It followed the resignation of Mr Fraser, who had several run-ins with the Abbott government, which saw the authority as political.
Other current board members are the dissenting pair, economist John Quiggin, Chief Scientist Alan Finkel and, for this report only, academic Andrew Macintosh.
