9 December 2020 Renew Economy At this weekend’s climate summit, no one will be perfect but Australia will be awful. Timing never really seems to work out for Australia’s government. This Saturday, there will be a relatively big “Climate Ambition Summit”, held on the fifth anniversary of the Paris climate agreement. It’s hosted by UK Prime minister Boris Johnson and UN Secretary-General António Guterres, and governments will be “invited to present more ambitious and high-quality climate plans, as well as COVID recovery plans, new finance commitments and measures to limit global warming to 1.5C”. On Monday, Germanwatch’s ‘Climate Change Performance Index’ (CCPI) released a new report, placing Australia a cool 54th out of 61 (with the first three spots left blank due to no country fitting the bill, and the US coming dead last). Australia came 52nd for greenhouse gas emissions and renewable energy (though Australia has a high install rate for renewables, it’s insufficient for 2030 1.5C targets), 51st in energy use and 60th (second last, behind the US) in the climate policy rankings (The Australian Conservation Foundation, Doctors for the Environment Australia and the Australia Institute were the contributors to the report, for Australia). Read more here
Tag Archives: Fed Govt
3 December 2020, The Conversation, ‘Severely threatened and deteriorating’: global authority on nature lists the Great Barrier Reef as critical. The Great Barrier Reef is now in “critical” condition and the health of four other Australian World Heritage properties has worsened, according to a sobering report just released by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The IUCN is the global authority on nature. Its third outlook report marks the first time the IUCN has declared an Australian property as critical, which means its values are severely threatened and deteriorating. The health of the Blue Mountains, Gondwana Rainforests, Shark Bay and the Ningaloo Coast has also been downgraded. The assessment, while chastening, is not surprising. The Great Barrier Reef has endured three mass coral bleaching events in five years, and last summer’s bushfires caused untold damage in the Blue Mountains and Gondwana Rainforests (not to mention the current fires at the reef’s Fraser Island). Climate change remains the key issue for World Heritage places, not just in Australia but globally. In fact, the IUCN assessment found climate change threatens 11 of Australia’s 16 properties. This raises further questions over our national climate response. Read more here
1 July 2020, The Conversation, Today, Australia’s Kyoto climate targets end and our Paris cop-out begins. That’s nothing to be proud of, Mr Taylor. Today marks the end of Australia’s commitments under the Kyoto climate deal as we move to its successor, … Continue reading →
24 September 2020, The Conversation, The good, the bad and the ugly’: here’s the lowdown on Australia’s low-emissions roadmap. “Picking winners” has been anathema to Australian policy-making for decades. The federal government’s technology investment roadmap bucks the trend, targeting public investments in … Continue reading →