After spending the past five federal elections arguing over climate policy Australia has reached an important consensus: all major parties have now signed off on zero carbon emissions by 2050.

For that reason, the long-term emissions reduction plan for Australia unveiled by Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Tuesday is a political landmark.

After such a long and often fruitless political struggle over greenhouse gas abatement the Herald welcomes the apparent net zero agreement. It has broad support among Australian voters.

Unfortunately, Mr Morrison’s plan lacks significant new detail about how the target will be actually achieved and the government modelling which underpins the strategy has not yet been released.

The plan’s most important principle is the reassuring slogan “technology not taxes” but a significant portion of the emissions reductions it promises relies on technologies not yet developed.

Despite that slogan, more than $20 billion of taxpayer funds will be spent on the development of low emissions technologies by 2030. One of the new technologies referred to in the plan is carbon capture and storage which, so far, has proved hugely costly and ineffective.

Mr Morrison argues rapid advances in technology are now “a given in the modern world”.

But the lack of specific new policy detail in the plan makes many of the promises about technology sound too good to be true.

In the foreword to the 125-page document, the Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction, Angus Taylor, says the government’s plan “won’t impose new costs on households, businesses or regions” and that it won’t raise the price of energy. He also claims “not one job will be lost” as a result of the government’s actions or policies.

The plan forecasts national income per person to be almost $2000 higher in 2050 than would have been the case without a change of climate policies. It also predicts more than 60,000 new regional jobs in mining and heavy industry will be created.