With yet another national energy policy axed, the Australian Greens want to extend the renewable energy target in a bid to avoid a dramatic fall-off in investment.
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They want to extend the target until 2022 - the end of the next term of government - after the National Energy Guarantee was dumped.
Without industry certainty, the Greens are worried there will be no new investment in generation, sending power prices higher.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison says he wants to see more "fair dinkum power", by which he means not wind or solar generation.
Energy Minister Angus Taylor wrote in the Australian Financial Review that policies relating to emissions reductions were "corporate greed dressed up as saving the planet".
"Bipartisanship is preferable but Labor needs to decide if it accepts our unambiguous focus on lower prices while keeping the lights on," the energy minister's column published on Tuesday said.
"Emissions reductions are the least of our problems".
Mr Morrison said he would be working closely with Mr Taylor to put together energy options, with a focus on prices.
"Angus is bringing back a package of things right now to see how we can get greater investment in what I call fair dinkum power, that's the stuff that works when the sun doesn't shine and wind doesn't blow," Mr Morrison told 2GB radio on Tuesday.
"The only thing I've ever seen make those big energy companies move is when you've got a big stick."
But Mr Morrison has emphatically rejected calls to walk away from an international climate change agreement, citing risks to national security.
The prime minister is holding firm against conservatives who are lobbying him to pull out of the Paris target to reduce carbon emissions.
Mr Morrison said abandoning the Paris commitment to cut emissions to 26 per cent from 28 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030 wouldn't do a "jot" to cut prices.
Former prime minister Tony Abbott and a raft of conservative commentators want Australia to withdraw from the Paris agreement and end subsidies for renewable energy.
Australian Associated Press