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Climate Showdown Looms as Australian Disasters Mount

Climate Showdown Looms as Australian Disasters Mount

Australia, the driest inhabited continent, is repeatedly ravaged by bushfires and floods -- costly, life-claiming disasters that scientists warn have been exacerbated by a warming planet. It’s also one of the world’s biggest fossil fuel exporters and emitters per capita of greenhouse gases. Yet while most Australians insist they want more action to combat climate change, the country’s conservative government -- in power since 2013 -- has resisted moves that might undermine key industries. As this year’s global climate summit known as COP26 approaches, it’s finding itself increasingly isolated.

1. What impact is climate change having on Australia?

Its temperature now is 1.4 degrees Celsius (2.5 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the 30-year average up to 1980. That’s in line with the average for members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Australia’s scientific research body CSIRO says the country is experiencing more frequent hot weather, fewer cold days, shifting rainfall patterns and rising sea levels. It’s predicting climate change will cause longer droughts and more intense cyclones. In the past five years, marine heatwaves have triggered three mass bleaching events -- when coral lose their vibrant colors and turn white -- on the world’s largest living structure, the Great Barrier Reef, jeopardizing the health of an attraction that brings in billions of dollars annually in tourist revenue. And global warming likely exacerbated the so-called Black Summer bushfires in 2019-20, which were unprecedented in duration and scale, torching an area about the size of the U.K. 

2. What has Australia’s government been doing?

Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s center-right government had been an outlier among most developed nations in failing to adopt a target for reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by a certain date. Then on Oct. 26, the prime minister announced what he called a “plan” to get there by 2050. He says the target can be reached by following what he calls a technology roadmap to promote investment in carbon capture and storage, green hydrogen, and other emissions-reduction initiatives, which have yet to be proven to be commercially viable on a large scale. Morrison has said Australia will meet its Paris Agreement target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by between 26% and 28% by 2030 from 2005 levels. As of March, it had achieved a decline of nearly 21% from that 2005 baseline, according to government data. But there’s increasing skepticism that his roadmap will do the job to reach net-zero, especially when his government is refusing to impose taxes on polluters. In the OECD the average of climate-related tax revenue as a percentage of the total collected is about 4.6%, in Australia it’s zero. 

Climate Showdown Looms as Australian Disasters Mount

3. What’s behind the government’s stance?

The ruling conservative coalition has long taken pride in backing big business, including mining giants such as BHP Group and Glencore Plc. Morrison, who famously brandished a lump of coal in parliament to show his support, frequently talks up the fossil fuel industry’s importance to the economy. Last year, exports of coal, natural gas and crude petroleum reaped A$85.8 billion ($64.4 billion), accounting for about a fifth of trade revenue. While it only accounts for 2.1% of the workforce, a lot of those jobs are in areas crucial to the government’s electoral fortunes. And their future is uncertain: The biggest buyers of the country’s fossil fuel exports -- China, Japan and South Korea -- have already committed to reaching net-zero, pointing to a long-term structural decline in demand.

4. Has Australia always been like this?

No. Australia was one of the first countries to see a Greens political movement, which formed in the 1970s to protest a hydroelectric project in the pristine wilderness of the island state of Tasmania. (It was blocked in 1983.) The Greens still capture about 10% of the national vote and often can block legislation in the Senate. Back in 2006, a survey showed 68% of Australians believed climate change was a significant problem that needed immediate action; by this year that had fallen to 60%. The progressive Labor Party implemented a charge for carbon emissions in 2012, while it was in power. The conservatives denounced it as a tax and removed it after they returned to office the following year. Since then, climate politics have been particularly poisonous in Australia. In fact, Morrison’s immediate predecessor, fellow conservative Malcolm Turnbull, was removed by his own party in 2018 after promoting stronger climate action. In a Bloomberg Television interview days ahead of the start of COP26, the former prime minister said: “Everyone has been encouraging Australia to have greater ambition for its 2030 target -- and we’ve squibbed that, we haven’t increased it at all.”

5. Are other nations asking for more?

The U.S. and U.K., as well as the United Nations, have been increasing the pressure on Australia to strengthen its climate commitments ahead of the Glasgow summit, which runs Oct. 31-Nov. 12. COP26 President Alok Sharma tweeted after Morrison’s announcement that he hoped to see a more ambitious 2030 target at the summit. Australia’s Pacific Islands neighbors, many of whom fear their very existence is threatened as sea levels rise, have expressed their dismay.

6. What about the business community?

They’re also weighing in. A 2020 report by Deloitte Access Economics said the country’s economy could contract by 6% over the next five decades if climate change goes unchecked, meaning a A$3.4 trillion loss in gross domestic product and 880,000 fewer jobs. On the other hand, the country’s business lobby said A$890 billion in economic gains could be unlocked over the same period through stronger climate targets, urging stronger 2030 commitments. In an interview ahead of COP26, Fortescue Metals Group’s Chief Executive Officer Elizabeth Gaines said: “The clean energy transition does need to happen far more rapidly than 2050 if we want to achieve the targets that were set by the Paris Agreement.”

7. So will Australia announce more climate commitments soon?

It’s looking extremely unlikely. Morrison has said the policy he’s taking to Glasgow is the same one he will take to the next election, which needs to be held by May. And while opinion polls show his government trails the Labor opposition and could lose power, the opposition hasn’t yet produced its own ambitious short-term target. Still, it’s promising to legislate targets to bolster investor certainty their climate-reduction promises would be fulfilled.

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