(AU SMH) Australia Left Behind As Global Climate Action Gathers Pace

Sydney Morning Herald - Nick O'Malley

Scott Morrison’s climate address to world leaders began as most online exchanges do, with a technical glitch, an awkward pause and blank stares.

“Mr Prime Minister I’m not sure we are hearing you here,” said the United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken after half a minute or so of the PM’s animated silence.

On the Pacific island of Abaiang, people must use a boat to cross from one side of a village to another at high tide as the sea creeps further in. Credit: Justin McManus

To Professor Malte Meinshausen, director of the Climate & Energy College at the University of Melbourne, a researcher with years of climate policy experience in Australia and Germany under his belt, the moment was illustrative of the entire address.

In his view the speech was out of step with those of other leaders in tone and content.

As expected the announcements made before and during the summit left Australia further isolated on climate from its closest friends, with the Prime Minister declining to raise the nation’s emission reduction target of 26-28 per cent by 2030 based on 2005 levels.

National baselines vary, but Australia’s ambition is now around half that of the US and a third that of the UK. This is particularly significant as when Australia set that target it was in lockstep with the US. And crucially, Morrison emphasised that Australia disagreed with its peers on the significance of timing.

″For Australia, it is not a question of if or even by when for net zero, but importantly how,” he said.

For the rest of the world the “when” is vital. The urgency of the crisis means emission reductions must begin at once and increase rapidly.

A key purpose of the summit was to accelerate the pace of action and shift global attention from 2050 to 2030.


PM avoids putting timeframe on zero emissions target at virtual summit.

“This is the decade we must make decisions that will avoid the worst consequences of the climate crisis,“Biden  said in his address.

In Meinshausen’s view, this element of the Prime Minister’s speech amounted to a dismissal of global efforts and was a “diplomatic affront”.

Nonetheless, he views the summit as a resounding success.

The United States, he notes, demonstrated that after four years of diplomatic isolation on climate change it still has a staggering power to convene.

That the US was able to secure not only the presence of Chinese leader Xi Jinping – despite increasing tensions between the nations – and to have him reiterate China’s commitment to reaching net zero by 2060 was an achievement in its own right, Meinshausen says.

Policy director for the Investor Group on Climate Change Erwin Jackson agrees.

“I’ve never seen anything like it and I have been in this game for 30 years,” he said.

In his view the summit marked a turning point from how leaders and negotiators typically emphasised what actions they could not take rather than those they could.

Due to a combination of the overwhelming tide of evidence about the rapid pace of climate change, the emergence of new clean and cheap energy technologies and the new commitment of investors and businesses, as well as governments and civil society groups, he sees a “race to the top” emerging.

This is not to say actions undertaken or even committed to by the world are sufficient to meet the challenge, but that momentum is rapidly shifting, Meinshausen says.

Biden’s own climate envoy, John Kerry was blunt about this point too.

“Is it doable? Will we probably exceed it? I expect yes,” John Kerry said of the new US goal. “Is it enough? No. But it’s the best we can do today.”

Former Kiribati president Anote Tong, a veteran climate campaigner on behalf of his low-lying Pacific nation, welcomed the gathering momentum but he was disappointed by Australia’s apparent lack of conviction.

There are some people in the world, he told the Herald and the Age, who believe climate change will not have a direct impact on them, and are therefore unwilling to take significant action to ameliorate it.

He said he was glad Morrison had referred again to Australia’s “Pacific family”.

“I think the thing with family is that you take care of each other, you don’t do something you know is detrimental to the welfare of members of your family.”

Links

• As Australia tiptoes to 2050 climate targets, the world moves on 2030
• Morrison’s long walk to net zero
• World’s oceans changing as currents show new patterns
• The feds have ditched us on climate change, it’s time we ditch them too
• ‘There are no jobs on a dead planet’, Sharan Burrow tells Biden’s summit
• Australia left behind as global climate action gathers pace
• Scott Morrison is out of sync with the world on climate policy
• Shenhua coal deal points to mining policy on the run