Australia could be whacked with a slew of carbon taxes if it abandons emissions reductions targets for nuclear power, mining magnate Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest warns.

The opposition has spruiked a plan to ditch the government’s 2030 target to reduce emissions by 43 per cent, and instead pin sustainability hopes on nuclear power.

But Forrest, the non-executive chairman of Fortescue Metals Group and a green energy advocate, said transition to nuclear power would take decades and transform Australia into an energy laggard.

“We would have been left behind by the rest of the world,” he told ABC radio on Tuesday.

“By then, we’d have been hit with carbon taxes from Europe, from America, everywhere where they’re saying … ‘we’re investing to go green, you didn’t, so we’re going to tax your products on the way into Europe or on the way into North America’.

“That decimates the economic model Australia’s [relied] on since federation as an export country.”

A CSIRO report released in May showed a nuclear power plant would cost at least $8.5 billion and might not be completed until beyond 2040 because of infrastructure, security and safety hurdles.

Cabinet minister Amanda Rishworth said the Albanese government’s renewable energy plan had already begun to deliver, while the Coalition’s plan was “just lazy policy”.

“We are starting to get cheaper more reliable energy entering the grid being backed up with gas,” she told ABC Today.

However, Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie has claimed Labor’s plan would send energy prices “through the roof” and defended her the Coalition vow to avoid large-scale renewables.

“We do have a credible plan for zero-emissions nuclear to complement renewables so we can get prices down, keep jobs on shore and not trash the environment on the way,” she said.

On Monday, Nationals leader David Littleproud pledged a “cap” on investment in renewable energy if the Coalition returned to government. On a visit to Wollongong, days after the federal government approved a 1000-square-kilometre dedicated wind farm zone 20 kilometres off the NSW coast, he said Australia didn’t need “large-scale industrial windfarms”.

“We want to send the investment signals that there is a cap on where [the Coalition] will go with renewables and where we will put them,” he said.

“The Coalition isn’t against renewables, but renewables should be in an environment they can’t destroy. Why don’t we give priority to where they can make a difference and give energy independence to businesses and households, which is on rooftops where the concentration of power and population is?”

Littleproud offered no details of the Coalition energy plan, but did concede it “will take a little longer to get there”.

The Coalition has also claimed it would roll back green energy tax incentives included in the federal budget.

But Forrest said this would hurt businesses.

“Australian businesses are out there every day trying to rely on some degree of certainty to make employment decisions, investment decisions, to grow our country,” he said.

“We need to know what’s going to happen, what government policy is, and that they’re going to stick to it so we can invest with confidence, employ people with confidence, thrive, up our standard of living, drive up everything we love about Australia, and stop this political scaremongering.”

-with AAP