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.
The Planet can not afford another Morrison /Joyce government . With the PM wandering around Scotland with his foot in his mouth and Barnaby at home with his hand in his pocket, and his brain in denial as acting PM what hope do we have of Australia being taken seriously with any developing crisis ?
Did you mean “…Barnaby at home with his hand in
hisOUR pocket“?I was attempting to convey the word WANxxR but happy to add rorter
Ah yeah, the ole ‘pocket billiards’.
Entirely appropriate.
Crisis what crisis? Morrison basically in his speech at Glasgow subconsciously alluded to thinking Djina is the problem at hand, not climate change. At church he is backing The Rapture and helping to fast track it. Scotty will be marketing Scotty’s home baked Coal Cookies and then he will be carbonizing snags at the booths next election with specially installed chimneys on Scotty’s barbie to blow smoke into the atmosphere,
That Supertramp album cover from 1975 becomes more and more apt as the decades roll along. Could be Smirko on holidays in 2050.
Very obviously Scotty from marketing(read Bull Shixing) sees the world’s problems through pentecostal colored glasses and believes in a magic pudding wands capacity to save the world . No problems here my mates are all making money and according to our morals and ethics that is all that matters.
One hand is tied to the tightrope walker, the other is in his pants.
He has a very desolate row to hoe.
It is foolish to suggest that we only need to reduce our emissions to a certain rate labelled “1.5°”. A little thinking tells us that settling on a target temperature requires there to be no fossil emissions whatsoever. Once emitted, that CO2 is up there for good, adding that much more blanket around the planet.
Too many authors omit the fine print in the Paris Agreement – “to give the world a chance of limiting warming to1.5°”. What’s more, that “chance” has to be a fighting chance, not a wait-and-see. The date and temperature aimed for has to be a milestone that we zoom past with momentum, not a mere accounting target. It takes only a little imagination to realise that Australia’s fossil fuel extractions might have to be extinguished by foreign military. It is a greater horror to contemplate how coal, oil and gas extractions will be extinguished in developing countries. But if the climate is to settle on any equilibrium temperature, all fossil extractions must be eradicated.
“Once emitted, that CO2 is up there for good, adding that much more blanket around the planet”
Ever heard of trees? Algae?
Hi Wayne. Ultimately, the excess CO2 will be taken out of the atmosphere/hydrosphere by the weathering of rock, but that takes millions of years, longer than the lifetime of our species. Trees do not take CO2 out of circulation for long enough to count. Currently the forests are losing carbon to the atmosphere, not responding to the excess. Most of the carbon in marine photosynthesis is returned to the atmosphere within a single season, but some “faecal detritus” hangs below the warm surface layer until upwellings return it to the atmosphere as a mixture of CO2 and methane. Felt on the timescale of our own species, every fossil emission stays up there, warming the planet that much further.
Well said Roger . What we have to do now is get rid of the likes of our failed advertising hack who believes a supreme being is blessing all his decisions as he wanders the world of climate change with his hand in our pockets and his brain in denial. When we are at the tipping point, his mythical manager will wave his wand, and in six days the world will be as new again. We must rid the parliament of Morrison and Joyce if we are to have any chance of limiting the effects of man’s poor management
Yes but too slow, too little, too late.
Actually, around 80% of all CO2 dissolves into the ocean in just 20 years.
Marcus, the rising curve (*) of atmospheric CO2 is shouting evidence that the oceans are not absorbing it. It is wishful thinking in the face of the facts. Too many of us are in denial, wanting to believe that we have been in a balance that Nature will somehow restore. True, there have been several thousand years of stable climate that has allowed our species to become ascendant and civilisations to emerge. However we are drifting the climate endlessly hotter. For our kiddies that means hell, and when they turn to blame it means damnation for us.
(*) seek “gml.noaa.gov co2_trend_gl.pdf”
If “Australia’s fossil fuel extractions might have to be extinguished by foreign military” ya reckon it might be a petroleum fueled one?
Sounds like the ‘black helicopters’, FEMA camps and other monsters bred by the sleep of reason on the Right.
I’d prefer Morrison and his scurvy crew were put in a real rack that was ratcheted every year, but yeah, this one will do until a real one comes along.
Bring back hanging , drawing and quartering?
Would that remove the smirk? Like to see that.
In the ansence of any action from us the world needs to kick us hard. We massuve tarifs on all exports and sanctions against the leaders of the government personally. In fact the LNP should be named a terrorist organisation.
One way or another there is no such thing as a free lunch.Without doubt the complying countries will screw us hard with import tariffs and we may still become the poor white trash of Asia. We need to see our leaders as climate change denying criminals who are more interested in money than leadership