US and UK keep climate pressure on Australia but Taylor says look at the scoreboard
Britainâs Prime Minister Boris Johnson has urged Scott Morrison to commit to an emissions reduction target of net zero, echoing recent calls from the United Stated for Australia to make more ambitious climate commitments.
Mr Johnson and Mr Morrison spoke on Thursday night Australian time, with the British Prime Minister stressing to his counterpart the importance of âglobal action on climate changeâ ahead of his country hosting the COP26 United Nations climate summit in Glasgow in November.
Scott Morrison and Boris Johnson spoke on Thursday night.Credit:Sydney Morning Herald
âThis includes setting ambitious targets for reaching net zero and increasing climate financing,â Downing Streetâs readout of the call stated.
Mr Morrisonâs current stance is the government would âpreferablyâ achieve net zero by 2050 but he has avoided a hard deadline.
The Australian readout of the call said the two leaders discussed the âambitious COP26 agenda and Prime Minister Johnson noted Australiaâs world-leading efforts to develop technology to help reduce global emissionsâ. Mr Morrison also used the call to thank his British counterpart for a British military flight that evacuated 76 Australians and Afghan nationals from Kabul on Wednesday night.
Mr Johnsonâs climate comments come after Jonathan Pershing, deputy to President Joe Bidenâs climate envoy John Kerry, said the Australian target of a 26 to 28 per cent reduction of emissions on 2005 levels by 2030 had âbeen overtaken by eventsâ and that it should âstep forward with a more ambitious effortâ.
But Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor hit back at that pressure, arguing that officials working for President Joe Biden are in no position to criticise Australian policy.
Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction Angus Taylor says the US isnât in a position to criticise Australia on climate change.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Mr Taylor declared that other countries including the US had failed to cut emissions as deeply as Australia in the past, citing government figures showing a 20 per cent cut since 2005.
âThe critics should look at the scoreboard because since 2005 weâve reduced our emissions by 20 per cent,â Mr Taylor said told Sky News.
âThatâs more than the United States. Itâs more than Japan, itâs more than Canada, itâs more than New Zealand. Both Canada and New Zealand have barely reduced their emissions.
âAnd itâs certainly more than China. China has increased its emissions in the last two decades by 200 per cent â" itâs now almost a third of global emissions.â
President Biden has pledged to reduce US greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 per cent by 2030, while Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has a target of 40 to 45 per cent by the same year compared to 2005 levels.
With Australian government MPs divided over whether to sign up to bigger emission cuts, Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Mr Taylor have fended off calls to upgrade their stated goal of reducing emissions by 26 to 28 per cent by 2030 compared to the levels of 2005.
Mr Pershing, a key adviser to the Obama administration at the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009, said Australia was a world leader on rooftop solar but was ânot doing so wellâ on other counts.
âWhat is the dynamic for increased and continued export of coal? We see that driving an emissions trajectory,â he said.
But the government has not accepted arguments from climate activists that Australia must take responsibility for emissions in other countries from coal exported from Australia, while Labor leader Anthony Albanese has said coal shipments will continue for decades.
Mr Taylorâs response to the US pressure was based on the governmentâs analysis of figures from the UN, the World Resources Institute and the quarterly updates on Australiaâs greenhouse gas inventory.
The analysis from Mr Taylorâs office finds that Canadian emissions fell only 1 per cent from 2005 to 2019, while New Zealand emissions fell 4 per cent and Japanese emissions fell 10 per cent.
The latest figures from the US Environmental Protection Agency found emissions had fallen by 13 per cent by 2019 on 2005 levels, a figure the same as the analysis from Mr Taylorâs office.
The Japanese government estimates that countryâs emissions fell 12.3 per cent by 2019.
The Canadian Department of Environment and Climate Change released figures earlier this year showing emissions had fallen from 730 million tonnes in 2005 to 715 million tonnes in 2019, or about 2.1 per cent. This includes land use change, which Australia also counts in its target.
Figures from New Zealandâs statistics agency released last October showed net emissions, including land use change, had fallen from 55.9 million tonnes in 2005 to 55.5 million tonnes in 2018, a decline of 0.7 per cent.
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Anthony Galloway is foreign affairs and national security correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
David Crowe is chief political correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
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