Tonight at the latest round of UN climate talks in Bonn, Germany, the Australian government will be on the global stage answering some hard questions from other countries about the credibility of our climate policy.
The questioning tonight will be masked in diplomatic language and the technicalities of the global agreements we have signed up to. But, behind the nuance and UN parlance, the formal questions, which have already been asked in writing by China, Brazil, the US, the EU and others, raise doubts whether Australia’s 2020 emissions reductions targets and domestic policies are internationally credible.
To date, the lack of transparency around Australia’s response to these questions has been deeply disappointing. The government appears to be inflating the impact of its actions to 2020 without providing any estimate of the pollution reductions it will deliver. If we are not prepared to be upfront with the international community, how can we expect China, Brazil and other emerging economies to do the same?
The importance of the process Australia and other developed countries are going through in Bonn extends beyond diplomatic posturing and a few headlines.
All countries, developed and developing, need to be tested on the veracity of their targets and policies to meet them. The current process is a step in that direction.
This Bonn meeting is the next step towards the Paris climate meeting in December, which aims to deliver the world’s next agreement for reducing pollution. It will be the first universal agreement that requires targets from all countries to act on global warming. In Bonn, countries are focused on what really matters at the heart of the Paris agreement. The transparency and accountability of countries’ commitments are part of this.
But this is not all about the numbers and targets.
This current stage in climate negotiations is about things that are much harder to measure, but just as meaningful to the ultimate goal of limiting global warming to less than 2 degrees, and avoiding or minimising its catastrophic impacts.
Paris will be successful if countries agree to establish a durable and flexible framework that sends a strong signal to business, communities and investors that a zero-emissions economy is inevitable. This is what is needed to limit warming to less than 2 degrees, which is what the more than 190 countries in the process have agreed to.
Paris will be an evolution of the global framework that puts pressure on countries to do more at home. Greater transparency and accountability frameworks are key to building trust that nations are doing what they say, and sharing best practice in pollution-reduction policy.
Paris is not going to save the world. Domestic policies and investment reduce pollution, not international agreements. However, Paris can establish a framework that is bankable, credible and fair. This it can use to hold fire to the feet of the politicians and investors who can make a difference.
“send a strong signal to business, communities and investors that a zero-emissions economy is inevitable”
It is also a strong signal to up-and-coming leaders in the political movements to muster support for whatever technology will let us halve our emissions every 15 years.
Scrutinise 100% RE if you must. I’m for mass-produced nuclear.
I suppose it is Mr Jacksons job description to be optimistic, but really we all know the answer to the question in lead para: no. Australian voters chose denial, and probably will again at the next federal election too. Wake me after the next millenium drought, record heat wave & mega-fire, maybe then the majority will connect their self interest with 10 billions tonnes of pollution a year.
The life changing events of global warming will not be major for most readers of Crikey (unless we have some young fogeys, ie under 30).
They are certain to occur, both suddenly & severely, because of something that is not amenable to human action – the tip-over point caused when the CO2 already in the atmosphere finally causes the permafrost of Siberia & Canada to release the methane stored, AND created, therein since the last Ice Age.
Unfortunately the neocon shill Lomborg has a point in saying that we cannot stop catastrophic change so we should adapt to the inevitable.
I hope you’re right AR that we have that long, but the permafrost methane is already flooding into the atmosphere, the Arctic Methane Emergency Group has been trying to get that story into media for several years now. Nothing to do with winter temps of 20C above normal in Alaska or massive spring wildfires in Siberia, and neither are our record coal exports – 300 million tonnes of coal exported a year (2012), no, nothing we can do, we’ve got football to watch!
AR, you’re dead wrong. We can, and must stop worsening the rate of climatic disasters.
By promoting equivocators like Lomborg, this govt is spreading doubt and confusion, just as in your comment. You will almost certainly find that Lomborg only pointed to disasters we cannot avert, while allowing us to infer that allowing emissions to continue won’t cause any disasters. That is criminal, or should be.