COP26 ended like so many before it.

There were largely unexpected and powerful achievements, like a common emissions reporting framework, a coherent framework for crediting and trading offsets and a vastly increased emphasis on technology.

At the same time, the parties couldn’t fit the unique circumstances of 196 countries – developed and developing – within a single template for ambition.

By now, this should be a familiar insight. When the challenge of unique national circumstances is acknowledged we see breakthroughs, like the 2015 Paris Agreement innovation in Nationally Determined Contributions.

In the days after COP26, the European Commission lauded a reference to ‘phase down’ coal, even as mothballed coal power stations in Portugal, Spain and the UK fired up for the first time in years amid a gas supply crunch, and China finished building a 100 million tonne stockpile ahead of the northern winter.

Activists tied themselves up in knots debating whether the planet had been saved by lip service to ‘phase down’ a fuel that meets more than a quarter of the world’s energy needs, or alternatively whether the failure to reference a ‘phase out’ spelled catastrophe.

And those divisions will remain for as long as activists, bureaucrats and politicians remain largely divorced from economic and technological reality that different countries face very different circumstances.

In Australia, the text reignited a futile bidding war on 2030 targets. This is despite our 20.8% reduction in emissions since 2005 outpacing all but a handful of developed nations and the US, UK and New Zealand ruling out any changes to their 2030 targets within hours of the summit’s conclusion.

COP also triggered a familiar chorus calling for a carbon tax. With that chorus came contortions by carbon tax advocates trying to falsely read one into government modeling for Australia's Long-Term Emissions Reduction Plan.

While taxes may work in some other countries, for Australia, that approach would mean sacrificing industries, jobs and regions – and shifting our carbon emissions to developing countries.

That approach isn't acceptable to us as a government and it isn’t acceptable to the communities we have been elected to represent.

Nor is it palatable to many of the large developing economies in our region. Instead of higher taxes, India is calling for the equivalent of Australia’s entire annual GDP to be provided in foreign aid to help it achieve net zero.

The thing is, there is no way to reduce global emissions without those economies fully onboard. Unless the world can decarbonise our steel and aluminium supply chains, heavy industry and agriculture, we’ll fail to achieve the Paris goals, let alone limit warming to 1.5 degrees.

That’s why our Plan is focused on getting the cost of clean energy and low emissions technologies down, not driving up the cost of meat, coal, gas, oil, steel, aluminium and other energy and emissions intensive goods.

Our Plan also recognises a role for a targeted, modest, voluntary incentive like the Emissions Reduction Fund, which has now delivered more than 100 million tonnes of abatement, and will deliver much more.

Set up by the Coalition in 2015, the ERF supports emissions reductions that are additional to business as usual.

Unlike the economy-distorting, job-destroying carbon tax Labor imposed the last time it was in government, this voluntary scheme doesn’t impose costs and force industry offshore, simply shifting carbon emissions to other countries.

Increasingly the government will be able to rely on voluntary private markets as they continue to grow rapidly.

99 per cent of the 13.6 million tonnes of abatement contracted at the last two ERF auctions will be delivered at no cost to the taxpayer, if the private sector valuation remains above the auction price (less than $17).

Our Plan recognises that reducing the cost of new technologies and empowering choice has universal application – in the cities, suburbs or regions of developed countries and the developing world.

And it relies on can-do businesses investing in R&D alongside government to reduce the cost of deployment, and then deploying those technologies because it makes economic sense.

It’s a real Plan to meet and beat commitments, without asking those who can least afford it to continue to make ever greater sacrifices through job losses and increases in the cost of living.

Most importantly, it is a Plan to drive clean technologies to cost competitiveness, so the developing world can choose those technologies for their economic benefit and deliver a net zero outcome for the globe, not just in Australia.

Angus Taylor is the Member for Hume and Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction