It's hard to put your finger on the most startling thing about Donald Trump's decision to give the one-finger salute to the Paris climate agreement, but one of its more incredible effects is that it finally knocks Australia off its perch as global climate pariah sans pareil. Which is quite extraordinary really, when you consider that the septuagenarian plutocrat currently passing for Leader of the Free World has only been officially meddling in global climate deals for 200-odd days, while we've been assiduously shirking our responsibilities and thwarting international negotiations for nigh on two decades.
If you can tear your gaze away, for a moment, from our woebegone chief scientist Alan Finkel – the singularly unfortunate fellow tasked with advising the Coalition on how to curb emissions without actually resorting to effective policies to do so – then think back to the heady days of Australia's first foray into disingenuous climate change negotiations: the Kyoto climate conference of 1997, where the Aussie delegation was 'stacked' with representatives of the fossil fuel industry and our negotiating tactics comprehensivelycheesed off the European Union. Was it because we wanted a free ride? Or was it that, after almost derailing the consensus in order to secure a special deal, we decided to stick it to the rest of the industrialised world by not ratifying the Kyoto Protocol after all? Hard to say.
Illustration: Trump flips the bird to the world
Though Australia's climate policies are woeful, we're still in the Paris Climate Accord, unlike the USA. Artist: Matt Davidson.
Trump, meanwhile, was still dithering about trashing Miss Universe Alicia Machado and honing his don't-bother-me-with-the-details management style. And if you want to talk about deal-making – the celebrated topic of Trump's The Art of the Deal, his favourite tome after the Bible with gems like "If you're going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big" – then consider this: Australia rocked up at a climate change conference aimed squarely at securing the agreement of developed countries to reduce emissions and walked away with a leave pass to crank them up by 8 per cent.
And that's not all, either. Because at the 11th hour, we also held out for a special clause to allow emissions from land clearing to be included in the agreement, which inflated our 1990 baseline by 30 per cent and guaranteed we'd hit our 2012 target even if emissions from other sectors went gangbusters – which they pretty much did. So when it comes to doing deals and putting one's short-term economic interests ahead of the greater good, The Donald could learn a thing or two from us right there.
That, of course, was just the beginning of our stunning metamorphosis
to international climate change persona non grata, and it's been a
downhill run ever since. Just tally, for instance, the number of times
our former environment minister crowed
about how Australia didn't just meet, but indeed beat the aforesaid
emissions reduction goal – a goal that didn't actually require us to
reduce emissions as such, and in any case was set in a manner that gave
us a dastardly handicap compared to everyone else in the running.
You can just imagine the smug satisfaction in cabinet, and in industry
boardrooms around the nation, the chest thumping – our second favourite
national sport in the arena of international diplomacy after shirtfronting.
Greg Hunt's snazzy three word slogan – "meet and beat" – was more recently appropriated by the current minister, Josh Frydenberg, to drive home the fact that we'll also probably exceed our 2020 target of 5 per cent below 2000 levels; which is equivalent to a fantastically paltry half a per cent reduction on 1990 levels and in itself demonstrates conclusively that Australia has lost none of its chutzpah when it comes to short-changing the international community.
What Frydenberg fails to mention – a bit like Trump not mentioning the Jews in his Holocaust remembrance statement – is that Australia's absolute emissions in 2020 will actually be higher than they were in 2000. As a feat of creative accounting, not to mention a PR coup, it's the kind of nifty anecdote that would be right at home in Trump's scintillating 2007 offering Think Big and Kick Ass – in Business and Life.
Moving on. Australia doesn't limit itself to downgrading its own climate ideals; we also have a proud tradition of stomping on the ambitions of our Pacific Island neighbours – that group of states who are perennially, some would say obsessively, concerned with sea level rise. Not just stomping on them, come to think of it, but making fun of them into the bargain.
Three months after Peter Dutton's crack about "water lapping at your door",
our take-no-hostages style of diplomacy didn't go unnoticed at the
Paris conference, where Australia had the singular honour of being excluded from the "high ambition coalition" because, as one astute observer noted, it's "difficult to be in a high ambition coalition if you're a low ambition country".
Do we care, though? Not greatly. Or only inasmuch as it limits our opportunities for white-anting – another of our unsung talents, and one we've deployed with gay abandon against the Pacific Island Forum to mute their calls for stronger global targets, the logical consequence of which is a moratorium on coal.
Which brings us, at last, to Adani. We were bound to end up here
eventually, weren't we? Because, the Carmichael coal mine, and its 4.7 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions that our former environment minister has essentially characterised
as someone else's problem, must surely constitute one of our more
spectacular attempts to turn our backs on global climate change. And as
deals go, the Adani project – built on a narrative of jobs (wilfully overstated), addressing third world energy poverty (conclusively refuted), and a royalties revenue stream so spectacular that the Queensland Premier has elected to keep it under wraps – puts most of them in the shade.
So we'd better watch out. Because, two decades on from Kyoto, our lust for coal – underscored by Finkel's modeling which shows coal supplying one quarter of our electricity just when we ought to behitting net zero emissions - could firmly re-establish our reputation as the world's most contemptible climate laggard.
*Sarah Gill is a Fairfax Media columnist.
Links
Trump, meanwhile, was still dithering about trashing Miss Universe Alicia Machado and honing his don't-bother-me-with-the-details management style. And if you want to talk about deal-making – the celebrated topic of Trump's The Art of the Deal, his favourite tome after the Bible with gems like "If you're going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big" – then consider this: Australia rocked up at a climate change conference aimed squarely at securing the agreement of developed countries to reduce emissions and walked away with a leave pass to crank them up by 8 per cent.
And that's not all, either. Because at the 11th hour, we also held out for a special clause to allow emissions from land clearing to be included in the agreement, which inflated our 1990 baseline by 30 per cent and guaranteed we'd hit our 2012 target even if emissions from other sectors went gangbusters – which they pretty much did. So when it comes to doing deals and putting one's short-term economic interests ahead of the greater good, The Donald could learn a thing or two from us right there.
 |
| Illustration: Matt Davidson |
Greg Hunt's snazzy three word slogan – "meet and beat" – was more recently appropriated by the current minister, Josh Frydenberg, to drive home the fact that we'll also probably exceed our 2020 target of 5 per cent below 2000 levels; which is equivalent to a fantastically paltry half a per cent reduction on 1990 levels and in itself demonstrates conclusively that Australia has lost none of its chutzpah when it comes to short-changing the international community.
What Frydenberg fails to mention – a bit like Trump not mentioning the Jews in his Holocaust remembrance statement – is that Australia's absolute emissions in 2020 will actually be higher than they were in 2000. As a feat of creative accounting, not to mention a PR coup, it's the kind of nifty anecdote that would be right at home in Trump's scintillating 2007 offering Think Big and Kick Ass – in Business and Life.
Moving on. Australia doesn't limit itself to downgrading its own climate ideals; we also have a proud tradition of stomping on the ambitions of our Pacific Island neighbours – that group of states who are perennially, some would say obsessively, concerned with sea level rise. Not just stomping on them, come to think of it, but making fun of them into the bargain.
 |
| President Donald Trump announcing he is pulling the US out of the Paris climate accord. Photo: AP |
Do we care, though? Not greatly. Or only inasmuch as it limits our opportunities for white-anting – another of our unsung talents, and one we've deployed with gay abandon against the Pacific Island Forum to mute their calls for stronger global targets, the logical consequence of which is a moratorium on coal.
 |
| We have had a reputation as the world's most despised climate laggard. Photo: AP |
So we'd better watch out. Because, two decades on from Kyoto, our lust for coal – underscored by Finkel's modeling which shows coal supplying one quarter of our electricity just when we ought to behitting net zero emissions - could firmly re-establish our reputation as the world's most contemptible climate laggard.
*Sarah Gill is a Fairfax Media columnist.
Links
- 'The perfect person to have in this place at this time'
- Why solar power will kill coal faster than you think
- Emissions on wrong trajectory to hit Paris goal: report
- How Finkel would keep the lights on, and why Abbott's not so keen
- 'Catastrophic': Alan Finkel auditions for the role of Australia's chief political scientist
- 'Somewhat surprising' survey on Australian attitudes to renewables
- Adani's 'green light' on Carmichael mine another mirage
- The burning question: Does Donald Trump believe in climate change?
- Why Trump's Paris exit is regrettable for Americans and for the rest of us
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