Australia so embarrassed at climate summit 23 April 2021

At the International Climate Summit on 23 April 2021, Scott Morrison threw out a haze of lies and misdirections.

These lies are obvious to Australia’s international peers. The climate policies of European countries, Britain, many Asian countries, and thankfully US again, are informed by deep knowledge of the situation and understanding of the range of policy levers available to bring change. They will have heard this speech through informed eyes.

Of course, most Australians won’t have this depth of knowledge. I would guess that most politicians don’t know the facts either.

So, here are some facts. We wouldn't want our politicians to be ignorant of the facts, would we?

1.   Mr Morrison claimed Australia is “playing our part to keep the 1.5 degrees within reach.” It’s good to see that he acknowledges the agreed goal is to keep global warming below 1.5C increase. Even recently, LNP governments have failed to acknowledge the basic facts of climate change.

The Climate Targets Panel estimates Australia's fair share to keep warming to 1.5 degrees requires a 74 per cent drop in emissions by 2030 on 2005 levels. Australia's target remains a 26-28 per cent reduction.

The global research body Climate Analytics looked at the question last year and found Australia should be making a 66% cut below 2005 levels by 2030 on the path to net zero by 2050.

So, I call Mr Morrison’s “fair share” claim a lie. He’s got a lot of work to do before Glasgow.

 

2.    He claims that Australia is “well on the way to meet and beat our Paris commitments”.

·     As evidence, he quotes emissions per capita. But the Paris Agreement is not written as emissions per capita, so this is irrelevant, and his very knowledgeable international audience knows this.

·    He quotes our emissions per unit of GDP, which again is irrelevant, and his audience knows this. One paragraph in, and they see what he is trying to do.

·    He claims, “Already we have reduced our emissions by 19 per cent on 2005 levels”. This is a lie, the correct figure from the Department’s own data set shows 16.6% down in December 2020 (helped by reduced transport during 2020 due to COVID19).

 

3.   He claims Australia has reduced emissions, “more than most other similar economies” and at the recent Business Council of Australia meeting, he specified Canada, New Zealand, Germany, Japan and the US. The following graph shows that Australia has been WORST at reducing CO2 emissions from fossil fuel.

This is a lie.

 

4.     Then Mr Morrison invents measures that no one uses by claiming Australia has reduced emissions “by 36% when you exclude exports”. Who in the international community excludes GHG generated in exporting fossil fuels from their GHG statistics? No one. It’s a Morrison invention that doesn’t count emissions from mining trucks/trains (all that iron ore and coal just moves magically emissions free). It also allows the government to ignore fugitive emissions from oil and gas which CSIRO estimates equals 6% of total Australia emissions.

      Technically, if you want to use this accounting method, you should add in the emissions generated making the stuff you import. If Morrison had done this, the figure would be 23%, but that wasn’t big enough for these scammers, so they left out the import figures and got the entirely fictional 36%.

      Here’s a graph. Green line shows actual GHG reduction, purple shows what the ‘consumption accounting’ method would be, and red line is ‘Morrison’s fiction’.

No one else tries to pull this trick. I’m calling this a lie, because it is a BIG distortion of facts, it is stupid, it doesn’t make sense, and it is embarrassing.

 

5.   He makes claims about Australia’s deployment of renewable energy, and yes, we’re doing well there.

 

6.   Then he says, “it is not a question of if or even by when for net zero, but importantly how.” So the government acknowledges the goal of net zero, but refuses to do any work on when that goal might be achieved. Do you know how this sounds to anyone in business, or to any of the international governments in the meeting?

     It is pure incompetence. Does his children’s school say, “we’ll teach your kids to read, but it doesn’t matter if we do it, or even by when we do it.”?

      He said this aloud to an international meeting of world leaders who understand the scientific advice that says emissions reduction is urgent.

 

7.   Now to the how. Mr Morrison says, “we are investing in priority new technology solutions, through our Technology Investment Roadmap initiative.” So, the government will pick winners. The government that has extolled market mechanisms for generations, isn’t going to use market mechanisms. This is a backflip of herculean proportions.

 

8.   Next he waxes lyrical about investing $20 billion into ‘clean’ hydrogen. This is a good idea. It would be great if the projects could be allocated on a transparent basis. The Morrison government is badly tarnished by ‘sportsrorts’ and contracts awarded without tender to obscure political donors. The disbursement of government money to hydrogen projects would need to be at arm’s length.

 

9.   Then he does a little ad for Australian mining companies. Really? It’s like a call out to sponsors. I call this amateurish and irrelevant at a summit about government action. Does Mr Morrison not realise the difference between government and private sector?

 

10. He mentions projects to ‘safeguard’ the Great Barrier Reef, protect oceans and ‘blue carbon’ which is about responding to climate change, not about trying to reduce it. So, I call that irrelevant.

 

11. He refers to $1.5 billion in climate finance focusing on Pacific neighbours. This sounds like it is new money, but it’s not. It is taken from our diminishing foreign aid budget. How much of this money will be used to reduce emissions? Nothing but reduced emissions will hold warming to less than 1.5C. He doesn’t say. Probably because he doesn’t know. I call this a questionable contribution to emissions reduction.

     Meanwhile Australia has ended its funding to the UN's Green Climate Fund, the body designed to allow rich nations help low-income countries deal with climate change and cut their emissions. This means Australia is not cooperating with international efforts, instead it is fudging its foreign aid budget. This is definitely poor policy, so the best we can say is it is incompetence, with potential for corruption.

 

12. I note that Mr Morrison made no comment about Australia’s Paris commitment which is to reduce GHG by 26-28% by 2030. Other countries are lifting their commitment to reduce emissions but Australia is sitting on its hands.

·     UK has committed to a legally binding reduction of 78% by 3035 on base year 1990.

·     US has committed to reduce by 50-52% by 2030 on base year 2005.

·     EU has committed to reduce by 55% by 2030 on base year 1990.

·     Japan has committed to reduce by 46% by 2030 on base year 2013.

Right at this point in time, Australia (and Canada –  30% reduction by 2030) are clearly lagging other advanced wealthy countries. This is nothing to be proud of, and shows mediocre and timid leadership.

 

Thanks to Ketan Joshi for graphs, analysis and insights.