Keeping the speeches of national leaders to under 10 minutes may go down as one of the minor achievements of the global climate summit that formally began in Paris on Monday.
In the case of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's generally safe speech, fresh details were in short supply.
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| Malcolm Turnbull gave a safe speech to world leaders in Paris that was short on details about climate action. File photo. Photo: Bloomberg |
Australia "will contribute at least $1 billion over the next five years" - but how much of that will add to the $200 million over four years already committed to the Green Climate Fund remains unclear.
Given the federal government's worsening fiscal balance, he says the money will come from the "existing aid budget". That implies there is not a lot - if any - new money on the way.
Rich nations have promised to provide $US100 billion ($139 billion) in climate aid per year by 2020, and increasing after that. The Climate Institute estimates a fair contribution from Australia's public purse is in the order of $1.5 billion a year by 2020.
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| French President Francois Hollande greets Malcolm Turnbull as he arrives for the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris. Photo: AP |
On Monday's speech, Turnbull offered about one-seventh of that figure - with no call to Australia's private interests to match the effort, nor what Australia's contribution might be after 2020.
Developing nations looking for encouraging signs from Australia wouldn't have found any. Australia, too, was missing from a list of nations pledging $343 million for the most vulnerable countries – some of which are South Pacific neighbours.
Kyoto move
However, they are likely to be more heartened by the other major detail in Turnbull's speech - the promise to ratify the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol.
While the detail is somewhat arcane since the Paris treaty is aimed at outlining future action, the decision means the government won't just declare that Australia will beat its 2020 carbon reduction targets – as Environment Greg Hunt announced earlier this month – but will make it legal.
Only a handful of the developed nations that signed up for the second protocol have actually ratified it, and so Turnbull's commitment will likely go down well with developing nations looking for proof rich nations back their talk with action.
Businesses, too, will welcome the move if it gives them access to cheap international carbon credits - which may one day come in handy.
And while Turnbull avoided the soaring rhetoric of Barack Obama – future generations must look back at Paris 2015 grateful for "suffering that's averted and a planet that's preserved", the US President said – he sent a message to members of his coalition and segments of the population and media that continue to dismiss climate change as real.
"We do not doubt the implications of the science, or the scale of the challenge," Turnbull said, adding that the impacts of global warming will continue to be felt "even after we reach global net zero emissions".
The Prime Minister ended his Paris speech by returning to a favourite theme since deposing Tony Abbott in September by emphasising his confidence in the future: Australia is "not daunted by the challenge", and he had "great optimism and faith in humanity's genius for invention".
Australia had its share of successes, Turnbull noted, including the University of New South Wales holding the world record for solar cell efficiency for 30 of the past 32 years.
Scaling up
At some point, though, Turnbull will have to convince his party that Australia must lift its climate ambitions if it's to do its fair share to keep global warming to less than two degrees - a case that will be easier to make if Paris produces a credible pathway to such an outcome.
As the Climate Change Authority noted on Monday in its draft report on Australia's climate policy options, meeting even the 2030 target of cutting emissions by 26-28 per cent on 2005 levels "is likely to remain a substantial task". (See chart below)
Turnbull's political rivals will go to the next elections promising deeper cuts. Labor leader Bill Shorten has indicated his party will support a cut of 45 per cent of 2005-level carbon pollution by 2030 and net-zero emissions for Australia by 2050.
The Greens say Australia should aim for a 63-82 per cent cut by 2030 and a net-zero carbon economy by 2040.
The task is being made tougher without a broad-based carbon price, an approach Turnbull himself once championed - and may yet to do so again.
As the Climate Change Authority's report noted, the government's centrepiece $2.55 Direct Action policy to pay polluters not to emit could be scaled up by increasing government funding - but cost could become unsustainable.
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