04/02/2021

Surge In Global Action Highlights Australia’s Stance On Climate Change

Sydney Morning HeraldNick O'Malley

International action on climate change has surged with General Motors announcing it will cease making petrol and diesel cars by 2035 and the United Nations secretary-general calling for wealthy nations to abandon coal and set net-zero emissions targets.

US President Joe Biden is putting climate change action front and centre of his administration. Credit: AP

It followed the Biden administration announcing a slew of climate initiatives in the US, including executive orders to create a White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy and a National Climate Task Force, end fossil fuel subsidies, suspend oil and gas exploration on federal land, and place climate change at the “centre of our national security and foreign policy”.

The measures suggest the administration is determined to follow through on the ambitious climate agenda it laid out during the campaign.

Tennant Reed, the principal national adviser at the Australian Industry Group, the peak industry association, said “it is remarkable how much genuine investments of political capital, organisational effort and of personnel the Biden administration – and the Biden campaign before it – has made on climate”.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says rich nations must play their part. Credit: AP

“They’ve assembled a very strong team, and not just of people who have ‘climate’ in their job title. They are prioritising climate in staffing a range of key policy and economic roles. It is a very big deal,” Mr Reed said.

He said GM’s announcement not only to abandon the manufacture of light internal combustion vehicles but to pursue net-zero emissions by 2040 in its own right suggested that American industry is taking notice of the Biden administration’s ambitions.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on wealthy nations to reach key milestones by the time the COP25 climate talks begin in Glasgow in November during an address early on Friday morning, Australian time.

He said nations that were responsible for 65 per cent of global emissions had announced plans to reach net-zero by 2050 and by November he hoped that figure would be 90 per cent.

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He said no new coal-fired power plants should be built and wealthy nations should abandon coal by 2030, and all nations aim to end its use by 2040. A carbon price should be embraced and an end date for financing all fossil fuels, starting with coal, should be introduced.

Mr Reed said Australia risked reputational damage if it was seen to be not acting, but he said the government’s funding of new technologies announced last year should not be discounted.

“Ultimately the motivator here should not be about how we are seen; we need to ask … is Australia going to prosper in a world that is successfully acting on climate?

“With such a huge number of customers for thermal coal, metallurgical coal and natural gas, committing to net-zero emissions by 2050 and 2060, we have a lot of adjusting to do.”

A spokesman for Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor said Australia is playing its part in the global response to climate change by meeting and beating our international commitments.

“As the PM has said: ‘Australia’s policies, when it comes to reducing emissions, are set here in Australia, in Australia’s national interests’. And our responsibility is to set that in a way that is consistent with the demands and needs and views of the Australian people and the science that supports that. And we have got a great track record.”

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