Paris UN Climate Conference 2015: Funds Worth $1 Trillion Divest From Fossil Fuels

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

According to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), the global average surface temperature in 2015 is likely to be the warmest on record and to reach the symbolic and significant milestone of 1°C above the pre-industrial era.

More than 100 institutions controlling $US800 billion ($1.09 trillion) in funds worldwide have opted to make new divestments of at least some of their fossil fuel assets in the 10 weeks running up to the Paris climate summit, according to campaign groups 350.org and Divest-Invest.
The tally brings to $US3.4 trillion the amount of funds under management by firms that support at least a partial sell-off of their holdings of coal, oil or other fossil fuels. The latest to sign up range from the City of Melbourne to the parliament of the summit hosts, France.
"People are voting with their wallets," Amanda McKenzie, chief executive of the Climate Council, told Fairfax Media. "The divestment movement worldwide has grown at breakneck speed illustrating the appetite for action on climate change from citizens, cities, businesses and institutions."

More of the world's big owners of assets are shifting away from fossil fuels as global warming takes a higher priority.

The groups launched a "Divest for Paris" plan in September when the tally of institutions agreeing to cut exposure to the fossil fuel sector totalled about 400 firms with $US2.6 trillion in assets. The huge figures do not represent the size of the investments actually sold off, only the scale of funds that they manage.
"This the greatest challenge of our time," Stephen Heintz, President of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, said. "The momentum of this campaign is accelerating day by day."
"There is a moral imperative to save the planet, and to do so, we need to end the fossil fuel era now," Mr Heintz said.

Hard times for coal and other fossil fuel investments. Photo: Bloomberg

The economics were also stacking up against fossil fuel investments as nations prepare to curb carbon emissions, with 60-80 per cent of remaining reserves of such fuels had to remain in the ground if global warming is to remain with 2 degrees, he said.

Melbourne moves
According to the groups, Australian institutions involved in the divestment have funds under management of $5.5 billion, or less than 2 per cent of the total. Melbourne City Council is one of 14 councils that are reducing their fossil fuel investments.
Among the big movers in the run-up to Paris was Allianz, Europe's largest insurance company. It divested €630 million ($915 million) of their holdings in coal while announcing plans to channel €4 billion into wind energy projects over the next six months.
"Divestment represents a simple equation, moving money away from the problem to the solution," Ms McKenzie said.
Commodity prices have been hammered, particularly in the past year. The divestment campaign has helped to undermine investors' appetite for coal and other fossil fuels by turning a spotlight on the likely future constraints on industries producing greenhouse gases resulting from such global events as the Paris summit.
The dramatic plunge in commodity prices, though, is viewed by analysts as more a response to weaker-than-expected demand, particularly in China, which is by far the largest consumer of raw materials such as coal and iron ore.
Earlier this week, the Reserve Bank of Australia released its latest gauge of commodity prices, showing the plunge had accelerated in November.
Preliminary figures show export prices for Australia's three biggest commodities – iron ore, coking coal and thermal coal – dived 4.3 per cent last month alone to be down 23.4 per cent over the past year.
As the chart below shows, the gauge is now well below the lowest level during the global financial crisis of 2007-2008, and a fresh indication that state and federal budgets can expect further squeezes on their revenues from mining.

The divestment campaign, meanwhile, has cheered this week's announcement in Paris that 38 nations had signed a communique planning to phase out subsidies for fossil fuel.
Australia, though, opted not to sign up, with the Turnbull government saying the definition of a subsidy used by the organisers – led by New Zealand – was too broad and would have unfairly disadvantaged farmers and miners.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull later said the document contained a "rather gratuitous reference to an IMF report which goes much much further than inefficient fuel subsidies".

Links

• Australia rejects fossil fuel pledge
• Australia's coasts to mapped for sea-level rise
• 5 things we learnt today
• Paris climate conference: full coverage

Paris UN Climate Conference 2015: The Australian Politics Climate Change

Fairfax - Jennifer Hewett

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, left, with John Key: Australia will not follow New Zealand's fossil fuels lead. AP

Malcolm Turnbull describes Bill Shorten's promise to reduce Australia's carbon emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 as a political statement rather than an environmental one. Well, of course it is. No details necessary, thank you. That is all to come after further "consultation" with industry. That makes it similar to Labor's plan for a 50 per cent renewables target by 2030. How this is supposed to happen will, conveniently, all be worked out later.
Why it's necessary to talk about this right now is much more obvious. Labor wants to make as much noise as it can about its differences with the Turnbull government in one area where it might have a political edge, at least among some sections of the public. The catch is that, so far, Labor's promise is more likely to attract voters from potential Green supporters than Liberal supporters. As the polls consistently demonstrate, most Australians are still ready to give Turnbull a lot of room to manoeuvre.
Labor is desperately waiting for that sentiment to turn but it's clearly much harder to fight Turnbull on this than Tony "Denier" Abbott.
So every ALP frontbencher tries to emphasise Turnbull was really just taking Abbott's baggage on targets to Paris with him. Every government minister is just as determined to point out that, once again, Labor is willing to risk the economy with ill-considered, radical gestures that will achieve nothing for the climate except national self-harm.
That makes the argument over the economic cost a modest variation of the carbon tax fight – though with much more rounded edges under Turnbull than under the Abbott full-scale attack mode.
The difference is partly personal style and partly the altered nature of the argument. Climate change is now back to being a hot topic in mainstream politics despite the tough competition, especially in Europe, from terrorism to refugees to lack of economic growth.
Underneath all the figures and pledges and commitments, it is still clear the international tone is very different to the last attempt to forge a global agreement faltered in Copenhagen six years ago. China is not the only country to have reassessed what it needs to do – and what it is willing to sign up to – for its own domestic purposes. Pollution levels in Beijing alone ensure the Chinese authorities have little choice but to confirm the economy will become less dependent on fossil fuels over time and "peak" emissions by 2030.
But China is also now playing a leading role in building momentum among developing countries rather than leading the opposition. India remains more recalcitrant given the hundreds of millions of its population with no access to electricity. The pollution and health effects of relying on dung patties for fuel tend to make political leaders less concerned about the impact of coal.

Who should pay and how much?
So there will still be plenty of arguments about who should pay more – and how much. And despite the emotive rhetoric and campaigns against investment in the coal industry, coal is nowhere near the end of its life as a crucial and substantial source of global power. But the direction towards much greater carbon emissions reductions and energy efficiency overall – even given growing demand for power – is clearly an unstoppable trend.
Kevin Rudd, who naturally just happens to be in Paris this time around too, may always regret the implosion in Copenhagen and the subsequent impact on his prime ministership, Mark I.
Yet that same period has also given the formerly battered Turnbull far more time to finesse his own position after he lost the opposition leadership to Abbott over his support for an emissions trading scheme. There will be no more fights to the political death with the Nationals or his own Liberal colleagues over such issues despite the simmering conservative angst.
He has returned as a moderate prime minister in line with the times and as a true believer in the power of technology and innovation (what else?) to help find the solution. Turnbull's faith in research and technology is very much part of the international zeitgeist too, reflected in the new multi billion research fund with contribution by billionaires like Bill Gates.
Not that this avoids Australia spending billions more on subsidies for renewables and on a direct action scheme designed to curb emissions over the next several years at least. Even under Abbott, the Coalition and Labor did a deal on the renewable energy target which should mean renewables will account for around 23.5 per cent of energy sources by 2020.
What happens over the following decade will depend more on what happens internationally over that period, along with developments in technology such as battery storage or, perhaps, carbon capture and storage despite disappointing results thus far. No one can really predict this in 2015 – no matter what pledges are made now. That is also precisely what makes so much of the talk in Paris so political – and why Bill Shorten can happily afford to talk up Labor's promises, given the national bill can be put on hold way past the next election.
Like every other leader, Turnbull had only three minutes for his statement of good intent before leaving it to the officials to nut out the terms of a likely agreement over the next ten days.
This will not be legally binding given the impossibility of having major powers agree. It's more the climate change version of show and tell, with regular updates on how each country is going. The key will remain moral suasion and transparency on results, kept afloat by an unfathomable sea of subsidies for renewables, transitional assistance and, yes, technology. Paris is just one more stop along the way.

UN Climate Conference 2015: Australian Coast Mapped Under Plan Released In Paris

Fairfax - Tom Arup & Peter Hannam

The entire Australian coastline will be mapped to prepare for projected flooding from rising seas under a government project to be launched at the Paris climate summit that could lead to national standards for how close homes should be built to shorelines.
It is part of a new climate change adaptation plan to be unveiled by Environment Minister Greg Hunt on Wednesday, amid debates at the talks over how the world will deal in a global agreement with locked in climate change. Environment Minister Greg Hunt is in Paris for the talks.

Environment Minister Greg Hunt is in Paris for the talks. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

Mr Hunt told Fairfax Media he hoped that the coastal data - due to be completed and made public in late 2017 - would be picked up by state governments to guide planning laws about how close homes and other property should be allowed to be built to the coast given expected future flooding and erosion from rising seas and storm surges.
Coastal planning laws have been controversial in a number of states, sparking bitter disputes between local councils, states governments and business. Regulations currently differ between jurisdictions.
Mr Hunt conceded the Commonwealth would not be able to force the states to adopt national standards on the basis of the new mapping data.

Majuro atoll, the Marshall Islands - one of the countries most affected by rising sea levels. Photo: Rob Griffith

"They are not bound, but it should be the definitive guide for everybody to benchmark their long-term planning," he said.
The Australian delegation believes launching the strategy in Paris, at a side event to the talks, sends a signal to developing countries that put strong emphasis on adaptation that Australia takes the issue seriously.
It contains few new concrete measures and is largely an articulation of what is already being done to address the climate change risk to coasts, cities, water resources and other key areas.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop in Parliament. She will attend the second week of the talks. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

It follows Foreign Minister Julie Bishop on Tuesday mocking claims by her opposition counterpart, Tanya Plibersek, that an island in the Marshall Islands had disappeared into the sea. It turns out Ms Plibersek's transcript named the wrong island. She named Eneko, the island that disappeared is Anebok.
The debates on adaptation in Paris centres on whether all countries will be asked to deliver plans of how they will they adapt as well as emissions targets.
Many developing countries want a dedicated proportion of climate funding - say, half - to be dedicated to adaptation. Currently, it is just one-sixth.
Australia is unlikely to back the latter push. Mr Hunt said: "We are more relaxed, but I don't think it will get there because there is some countries that have strong views, for example the United States."
Tuesday in Paris was the first full day of negotiations on the text of a new agreement. Negotiators are being asked to have a final draft ready by Saturday, though many doubt this is possible.
Many of the groups that met in the morning were reporting slow progress. In some session more brackets - representing areas of dispute - were being inserted into the text than taken out. But afternoon sessions were said to be going better.
US President Barack Obama announced one potential compromise, saying his country would push for parts of the agreement to be legally binding - partly meeting a demand of European nations and some developing states. The legally binding elements would include regular reviews of targets, but not the targets themselves.
India is regarded as the country to watch - it is consistently holding a tough line in the negotiations. It is big enough, as the third-largest emitter, to bring down an agreement if it walks away.
Other countries named as roadblocks by several delegates were Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
Tony La Vina, a member of the Philippines negotiation team, said Australian officials had changed their stance at the negotiations since Malcolm Turnbull had replaced Tony Abbott as Prime Minister.
"It's the language used, and certainly they are more appreciative of the science and less dismissive of the process," Mr La Vina said. "There's more willingness to engage."
The Philippines lead the Climate Vulnerable Forum, a group of 30 nations – many in the Pacific – that are anxious for a pact to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees. Most countries, including Australia, agree to a 2-degree target.
This week the forum unveiled a demand for the world to have "net zero" emissions and 100 per cent renewable energy by 2050.
The debate over the long-term ambition in the text is one of the elements at play in the negotiations.
It is understood Australia would be comfortable using language such as zero net emissions by the second half of century, but many other nations, especially oil rich ones, want more ambiguous wording.
Mr La Vina predicted the climate funding issue for developing nations would be one of the last features to be resolved at Paris.
Chinese negotiators were not considered very active in the talks on Monday, but behind the scenes many countries are confident that the Chinese - accounting for almost one-quarter of global emissions - will be working to achieve an agreement.

Links

• How sea level rise could one day swamp cities
• 5 things we learnt today
• Australia rejects fossil fuel pledge
• Paris: 10 Things You Need to Know
• Paris climate conference: full coverage

Climate Change Protestors Stage Sit-In At Parliament House

Fairfax

Protesters stage a sit-in at Parliament House on Wednesday. Photo: Colin Bettles

Protesters swarmed Parliament House to demand action on climate change on Wednesday.
More than one hundred people participated in the lunchtime sit-in in the marble foyer, including Greens leader Richard Di Natale.
Protesters chanted "the whole world is watching" as the severely outnumbered security guards began to pull people out.
Among them was 93-year-old World War II veteran and environmental activist Bill Ryan, who was escorted out with his walker.
Aboriginal elder Aunty Mabel of the Bailai people was the last to be ejected as demonstrators reconvened outside parliament.
"The people who have had the task of caring for our earth have stuffed up. Those in power who sit in those chambers have the power and responsibility to make those decisions [to improve our environment] happen. Put the planet before profits," one protester read out to raucous cheers.
The so-termed People's Parliament comes as climate change talks continue in Paris.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull arrived back in Australia on Wednesday morning after rejecting a statement of support for reform of fossil fuel subsidies.

COP21: A Potluck Dinner in Paris

THE NEW YORKER - John Cassidy

The decision to forgo a formal treaty was made partly to assuage the concerns of the world’s two biggest polluters, the United States and China. Credit Photograph by Laurent Vu / Pool / SIPA USA via AP

Now that the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference is under way in Paris, two main issues arise: Will an agreement to reduce carbon levels in the atmosphere be reached? And, if so, will it do any good? The answer to the first question is: almost certainly. The answer to the second question is: some, but not enough.
The good news is that, after more than twenty years of trying, the nations of the world are finally closing in on a deal that has the backing of all the major polluters. This much was clear from Monday’s opening ceremony, which attracted a host of global leaders. If politicians like President Obama, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi didn’t think a positive outcome was likely, they wouldn’t have made the trip.
Of course, it is always possible that the negotiations, which are scheduled to last for nearly two weeks, will break down, as they did in 2009, when a similar meeting was held in Copenhagen. For at least two reasons, though, that seems unlikely. First, despite talk of the need to reach a legally binding agreement on climate change, the Paris conference isn’t aimed at producing an actual treaty. While some parts of the deal, such as the arrangements for monitoring the targeted emission levels, may well be codified, participation in the process will be voluntary, and enforcement will rely largely on peer pressure. The hundred and ninety-three participants in the talks have given up on seeking to forge a direct successor to the 1997 Kyoto treaty, which saw most advanced nations (but not the United States) agree to limit emissions. Instead, they have agreed to hold a huge potluck dinner, in which each country brings what it can.
The U.S. delegation is bearing a promise that, by 2025, the United States will reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by twenty-eight per cent compared to the 2005 level. The European Union says that, by 2030, it will cut emissions by forty per cent compared to the 1990 level. Russia is pledging a cut of twenty-five to thirty per cent relative to the 1990 baseline. Mexico says that, by 2030, it will reduce emissions by at least a quarter relative to a “business-as-usual scenario.” Malaysia says that, by 2030, it will have cut emissions by forty-five per cent relative to the 2005 level. And so on. (The Web site Carbon Brief has compiled a useful list of these pledges, and has analyzed a number of them in depth.)
The decision to forgo a formal treaty was made partly to assuage the concerns of the world’s two biggest polluters, the United States and China. With the Republicans controlling the Senate, there was virtually no chance of a treaty being ratified in this country. Not much has changed in this regard. In 1997, when many advanced countries signed the Kyoto treaty, the first concerted global effort to limit carbon emissions, a frustrated Clinton Administration didn’t even bother sending it to Capitol Hill.
China, for its part, has always insisted that countries should be allowed to tackle climate change in their own way and at their own pace, rather than being subjected to binding international agreements. (In Copenhagen six years ago, China’s recalcitrance was a major reason for the failure to reach a deal.) Speaking in Paris on Monday, Xi repeated this message. What has changed—and what, more than anything else, makes a deal in Paris possible—is that the Chinese government, for its own reasons, has decided to get (somewhat) more serious about tackling air pollution and global warming. The key moment came a year ago, when China agreed to cap its over-all carbon emissions by 2030. Since then, senior party officials have said that this date could be brought forward to 2025.
With the potluck-dinner model in place and China having confirmed its attendance at the table, finalizing the agreement will come down to securing the backing of India and other developing countries. In an op-ed in Monday’s Financial Times, Prime Minister Modi reminded everyone about the basic inequity at the heart of climate-change policy: advanced nations, such as the United States, industrialized by burning lots of fossil fuels, and now they are asking developing countries to forgo this path. “Justice demands that, with what little carbon we can still safely burn, developing countries are allowed to grow,” Modi wrote.
That is the grand principle at stake. The practical sticking point is money. At Copenhagen, rich countries said that they would provide a hundred billion dollars a year in aid and investment to help poor countries develop greener forms of power and adapt to climate change. Modi and other leaders from the developing world are understandably keen to nail down this commitment and see it expanded. Ultimately, however, it seems unlikely that they will block an agreement. “India will do its part for success in Paris,” Modi concluded in the Financial Times.
But what would success mean for the big picture? To the skeptics, not very much at all. They say the deal under consideration is too small, too vague, and too late to prevent a dangerous rise in temperatures. “The underlying condition continues to deteriorate,” Dieter Helm, an economist at Oxford University, writes in a new edition of “The Carbon Crunch,” his 2012 book. “In 2012 another two parts per million (PPM) of carbon dioxide (CO2) were added to the atmosphere, followed by another 2.8 ppm in 2013 and roughly the same again in 2014. Roll forward to 2030 and the total will be close to 450 ppm, up from the current 400 and close to twice pre-industrial levels—a Paris agreement notwithstanding.”
Originally, the Paris agreement was meant to hold the global rise in temperatures to two degrees centigrade (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), relative to pre-industrial times. Largely because of all the coal-fired power stations that China, India, and other countries have built in recent years, many climate-change experts now believe that, regardless of what happens in the next couple of weeks, this ceiling will be breached. Scientists associated with the United Nations recently acknowledged that, even if the Paris summit is a success, it will likely only be enough to contain warming to 2.7 degrees Celsius. And many others involved in tackling climate change think that this is an optimistic assessment. “It’s nice for people to talk about two degrees,” Bill Gates told The Economist’s Joel Budd recently. “But we don’t even have the commitments that are going to keep us below four degrees of warming.”
Defenders of the Paris approach say that it’s the best option that is politically feasible. Efforts to produce a more rigid, top-down multinational agreement have foundered, as have moves to promote a global tax on carbon, which many economists advocate. The potluck-dinner approach has gained widespread support, and it could arguably establish a common framework that can be strengthened going forward. Once each country has issued its carbon-emissions target, its progress will be monitored by U.N. experts. Further summits will be held, and new targets could be issued. Over time, the optimists say, the process of tackling carbon emissions will “ratchet up.”
Perhaps that will happen. For now, though, there is no agreement on how the ratchet will work. The United Kingdom and other European countries are said to be pressing for summits to be held held every five years, at which new targets would be set. India and other developing countries appear to be resisting a fixed timetable. And even if such an arrangement is reached, there remains the question of how much time the world has left in which to reduce carbon emissions.
Until recently, the academic consensus was that, given current emissions rates, we had about thirty years left before burning more carbon would cause a dangerous rise in temperatures. (In this context, “dangerous” is defined as an upward move of more than two degrees centigrade.) Now, though, some experts are suggesting that the trigger point could arrive in fifteen to twenty years. Whatever happens in Paris, it is generally agreed that over-all emissions will still be rising in the period leading up to 2030, which means that, if the pessimists are right about the trigger point, it could be too late to prevent a drastic shift in the earth’s climate.
Of course, climate-change science is imprecise, and the long-term forecasts that it generates can always be challenged. At best, they are educated estimates. But one thing seems clear: in tackling this mother of all economic externalities, humankind is leaving it late.

Australia Approved Coalmine Because It Isn't A 'Neo-Colonialist' Power, Greg Hunt Claims

The Guardian - Lenore Taylor

Environment minister defends approval of Indian company Adani’s $16bn Carmichael mine, saying ‘poorest should be able to make their own decisions’

Abbot Point, surrounded by wetlands and coral reefs, would become the world’s largest coal port should the Carmichael mine and the associated port expansion go ahead. Photograph: Tom Jefferson/Greenpeace

The Australian government approved Adani’s controversial $16bn Carmichael coalmine in Queensland because it was not a “neo-colonialist”power that tried to tell poor countries what to do, environment minister Greg Hunt has told a side event at the Paris climate summit.
Hunt was speaking about the coalition’s Direct Action policy at an OECD event on different climate policies when he was challenged by a questioner about why the government had approved the Adani mine given the huge quantity of emissions its coal would create.
“This is not an Australian government project, it is a private sector firm from India and ... I thought we were over neocolonial moment where the wealthy decide what happens to the poor,” Hunt countered.
“I hope you would agree the poorest countries should be able to decide their own energy future. I am not a neo-colonialist. I think the poorest should be able to make their own decisions,” he said.
And he said the federal environment law allowed him to judge projects according to strict criteria, but greenhouse emissions weren’t one of them.
“It is not our project, there is no federal money, the federal government of Australia acts as a judge not as an advocate and I think it is very important that individual countries set their targets and make their own decisions,” he said.
Conservation groups have asked the federal court to overturn the Hunt’s approval Carmichael because he did not take into account the impact on the Great Barrier Reef of the greenhouse gases emitted when the coal is burned.
A recent report designed to highlight the quantity of emissions that would be created by the coal from the mine found that it would create annual emissions similar to those from countries like Malaysia and Austria and more emissions than New York City.
Others on the panel, including the head of the renewable energy division of the International Energy Agency, Paolo Frankl, said “reverse auctions” like Australia’s Direct Action scheme were proving very efficient around the world, especially in financing renewable energy projects. (Australia’s scheme has not been used for this purpose, but has mainly financed land use, waste and energy efficiency projects.) But he said a carbon price was usually also needed to drive a long term price signal.
Asked if reverse auctions could be used on their own to give business the long term price signals, Frankl said “it can but it would not be very useful. If you look at Brazil and Australia that is exactly what they are doing now, but in addition to that there should be a carbon price which could give an additional signal ... we need some long term price signal but also some short term signals.”
Hunt is leading Australia’s delegation in the first week of the two-week Paris climate summit which aims to reach an agreement to progressively increase the ambition of global efforts to reduce greenhouse gases out to 2030.
The foreign minister, Julie Bishop, will take over the negotiating lead next weekend. The talks began in earnest on Tuesday after a day of speeches by 150 world leaders designed to give them purpose and momentum.
Over the two weeks delegates will seek to overcome deep divisions over issues including whether rich and poor countries must face the same rules for reporting and checking their emission reductions and the amount of financing developed countries will provide to help poor nations reduce their emissions and deal with the impact of climate change.

Links

• Coal from Carmichael mine 'will create more annual emissions than New York'
• Shorten: Coalition rightwingers forcing Australians to 'pledge loyalty' to coal
• Prominent Australians ask world leaders to consider ban on new coalmines

No Matter What He Says In Paris, Turnbull Is Still Handcuffed To The Climate Change Dinosaurs

The Guardian - Larissa Waters

Turnbull’s speech at the Paris climate change conference was a stunning example of fine but empty rhetoric, but we’re still left with the status quo

‘As Malcolm Turnbull demonstrated at the Paris climate change conference this week, the climate dinosaurs of the coalition parties still pull the strings’ Photograph: Francois Mori/AP

Saying one thing and doing the opposite is clearly not a smart political strategy but it seems to be becoming the prime minister’s modus operandi, especially on climate change policy.
As Malcolm Turnbull demonstrated in Paris this week, the climate dinosaurs of the coalition parties still pull the strings on what he can actually do to tackle global warming. On the other hand, what he says about climate change does appear to be crafted with the intensifying public momentum for climate action in mind.
The government’s many climate deniers are determined to stick with Tony Abbott’s weak climate policies. The Nationals handcuffed Malcolm Turnbull to those dangerous policies in their coalition agreement which locks him in for the life of his prime ministership.
You only need to look at the conservative revolt led by Ian Macfarlane, Barnaby Joyce and George Christensen on Monday that prevented Australia from signing a New-Zealand-led agreement of 40 countries to phase out fossil fuels subsidies. Australia was left looking isolated as an obvious wrecker, content to keep propping up coal at the expense of taxpayers and the clean energy industry.
The anti-science, coal-obsessed ranks of the backbench are completely out of touch with the vast majority of Australians. More than 170,000 people marched across the country on the weekend and about two-thirds of Australians want the government to commit to significant climate pollution cuts. Stuck between the two opposing forces, Malcolm Turnbull appears to have let the dinosaurs control his actions while trying to sound like he speaks for all Australians. Surely though, he realises this isn’t going to work – Australians aren’t stupid and don’t like to be treated as though they are.
The prime minister’s speech in Paris was a stunning example of fine but empty rhetoric. He made what sounded like three announcements but at the end we were left with the status quo.
Firstly, the prime minister announced Australia would ratify the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. This was basically confirmation that Australia will meet its measly 5% target in climate pollution reduction to 2020.
When the target is that pathetically low, meeting it is nothing to crow about. This is especially galling because this success is partly due to the carbon price that Tony Abbott abolished and the renewable energy target which he cut, supported by Malcolm Turnbull.
Secondly, Malcolm Turnbull announced Australia would double investment in clean energy innovation over the next five years, joining the Barack Obama and Bill Gates-led plan, Mission Innovation. While this sounds very exciting, it’s completely at odds with the Turnbull government’s plan, reiterated only this week, to abolish the two government bodies driving clean energy investment and innovation.
The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Arena) and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) are both incredible success stories in clean energy innovation. Together they will invest $23bn of public investment in renewable energy and leverage much more private investment over the next 10 years. The CEFC actually makes money for taxpayers through clean energy investment. If it wasn’t for the Senate blocking the government’s plan to scrap both the CEFC and Arena, their amazing work in powering a national clean energy revolution would be lost.
Thirdly, the prime minister announced Australia would contribute some more money from our existing aid budget to help developing countries deal with global warming. Our aid budget is already at a historic low because of the current government’s savage cuts. The slight increase in the proportion of aid funding to be directed to climate finance pales in comparison to the generous announcements of Canada, the UK and Germany.
What’s more, the Turnbull government’s measly contribution fails to live up to our responsibility as the wealthiest country in the Pacific, a region already suffering some of the worst impacts of global warming.
Australia has the potential to be a regional leader in clean energy and climate change adaptation. Not only is it the right thing to do by our regional neighbours and our environment but it will bring our economy into the 21st century. While new coal mines are increasingly set to become stranded assets, clean energy technology is powering ahead offering the jobs of the future. The prime minister needs to stop letting his climate-denying masters get in the way.

Link

• Analysis: Turnbull chalks up a symbolic victory in Paris, but may struggle to achieve more