Climate change is a hot topic (pun intended) at the moment, with Greta Thunberg being named Time Person of the Year for 2019. Here in Australia the topic raises controversy, with sceptics unconvinced that the problem is real, or the science is valid, or some other reason to avoid upsetting their big business polluting mates.
Australia's position has been slammed at the United Nations Climate Change Summit in Madrid. Costa Rica's Environment and Energy Minister blamed Australia, Brazil and the US for stalemates in talks. Our neighbours from Fiji have also been highly critical of Australia's stance. One main issue is that Australia have been trying to hold on and use some "emmisions vouchers" left over from the previous (and now defunct) Kyoto protocol. These bits of paper (I presume they are actual bits of paper, not really sure TBH) could mean Australia technically meat their target for emissions, while in reality missing by a long way. This is the national equivalent of someone rocking up to a domino's store with a Pizza Voucher that expired 5 years ago - dodgy as anything.
An article from The Australia Institute has this to say about Australia's current climate change policy:
... the latest edition of the annual Climate Change Performance Index has Australia dropping one place to 56th – ahead of only Iran, South Korea, Chinese Taipei, Saudi Arabia and the USA – and scoring zero out of 100 on climate policy.
There is a number to be proud of - 0 out of 100 for our climate change policy. Well done Scott Morrison. Of the countries ranked, Australia was the only country with a 0 score in this category. The report went on to note of Australia:
... Experts note that the new government is an increasingly regressive force in negotiations and has been criticised for its lack of ambition by several Pacific Island nations in the context of this year’s Pacific Island Forum. The dismissal of recent IPCC reports, the government not attending the UN Climate Action Summit in September, and the withdrawal from funding the Green Climate Fund (GCF) underpin the overall very low performance in the Climate Policy category.
The sad thing is that Australia should be a leader in this area. Our neighbouring nations are likely to be some of the worst affected by climate change, with many South Pacific nations vulnerable to rising sea levels, changes in storm patterns and so on. Our own continent is seeing rising temperatures, and droughts and extended bushfire seasons have gone from being occasional events to everyday reality.
The other sad talking point is that Australia's attempt at dodgy accounting to meet our unambitious climate change targets from the Paris agreement in 2015 are rubbing off on other nations. This article from the SMH shows that our dodgy, backwards attempt at creating a loophole for ourselves is now being used similarly by other countries:
In the closing backroom negotiations at the United Nations climate conference in Madrid this week, the full impact of Australia’s proposal to use accounting tricks to nullify its commitments to cut carbon emissions became abundantly clear. In response, India for the first time proposed using credits from old "clean development" projects under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol as a way to water down the targets it committed to under the Paris Agreement in 2015.
It is embarrassing for many of us Aussies that our nation is making itself part of the problem here, not part of the solution. There is much at stake, and as usual future generations will be left to clean up the mess left behind by short-sighted, narrow-minded politicians who don't give a damn about anything more than the next opinion poll.
Thanks for reading,
JK.