Environmental protesters in Paris during COP26 (Image: Avenir Pictures/ Karim Ait Adjedjou)

Having helped to sabotage a global phase-out of coal and taken no change in Australia’s emissions abatement targets to COP26 in Glasgow, the Morrison government faces a new threat that promises to keep the spotlight on its climate denialism.

With the help of the press gallery and Nationals MPs, Scott Morrison was able to travel to COP26 with the lie that Australia had strengthened its emissions abatement targets.

But there was no increase in the 2030 target, which remains a pitiful 26-28%, or about half what’s needed to enable the world to meet the Paris Agreement target of 1.5 degrees, and no increase in the government’s 2050 target, which until recently was “preferably net zero” and is now no longer “preferably”, but without any legislation or policy change.

However, one of the key topics to be debated in the final week of the Glasgow conference is a proposal to increase the frequency with which countries must upgrade their emissions abatement targets. The “ratchet” mechanism agreed at Paris in 2015 requires countries to revise their “nationally determined contributions” (NDC) every five years. There is now a push, backed by the United States, for that frequency to be increased — possibly to annually, as suggested by UN Secretary-General António Guterres.

An annual NDC would significantly increase the pressure on denialist governments like the prime minister’s. It has had to put on an elaborate, and politically costly, charade to give the impression it has lifted its emissions target ahead of COP26.

That process would need to be repeated every year under an annual NDC requirement — which each NDC expected under the Paris Agreement to be higher than the last.

It would mean that every year, the political agenda would be dominated for a period by Morrison’s attempt to balance public and international expectations of climate action with his compliance with the demands of the powerful fossil-fuel interests that fund the Coalition and staff many of its offices.

Fudges like “preferably” and claiming we will exceed the 2030 target without upgrading it only have a limited shelf life. Morrison and his brains trust will have to find more and more creative and fraudulent means of feigning climate action.

The experience of recent weeks — in which Morrison’s effort to maintain a pro-fossil-fuel line have been exposed (despite the best efforts of many press gallery journalists) and the demands placed on him by fossil-fuel interests have been spotlighted — points to the potential power of a frequent ratchet mechanism over one in which denialist governments can coast through five years without any pressure in relation to emissions abatement.

The emissions abatement targets announced so far by participating countries have been estimated by the International Energy Agency — the fossil-fuel club — to mean temperature rises will be kept to about 1.8 degrees — still well short of the Paris Agreement target but significantly better than previously.

Others suggest that actual policy settings mean the world continues to be on a trajectory of more than 2.5 degrees, which is existentially threatening for much of its population and massively dislocating for the rest of us.

Every little ratchet will help.