FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

News

Tony Abbott Called His Climate Change Action Plan 'Very Similar' to Obama's

If you were hoping the US president would save Australia from the PM's climate change ambivalence you will be disappointed.

Image via

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott is winding up his globetrotting tour of Indonesia, France, Canada and the USA. The basic theme of the mission has been to spruik Australia as “open for business” and to lay some groundwork for the G20 summit happening in Brisbane this November.

That’s the government’s line. For the media and Twitter, having delighted in his consistent unpopularity at home, this trip has always been about mocking Abbott’s missteps and political errors on the world stage. And, either because of jet lag or simply because he’s a top bloke, Tony’s done his best to oblige them. He pronounced Canada, “Canadia”; appeared insensitive before a D-Day commemoration in France and sleepy during it; and has also been accused by the Herald Sun of cancelling meetings with “three of the most important economic policy figures in Washington”. This is exactly the talent and flair for handling international audiences Australia was hoping to get from its most visible Rhodes scholar.

Advertisement

The first destination, Indonesia, was used to put out fires regarding our immigration policy. The second stop in France was mostly about the honouring the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy and the ANZACS involved, though it did include a “wide-ranging chat” with French President Francois Hollande (alternate phrasing of this last sentence: “Outside of World War Two, France and Australia don’t have a whole lot to talk about”). The Canadian leg was about building an axis of climate change dawdling (more on this later), trade and business talk in general – and more specifically it was about convincing huge retirement funds to invest in Australia. But the real meat and potatoes of the trip was always going to be US meat and potatoes.

You see while Australia has a very close alliance with the US, and the super power remains the cornerstone of the smaller country’s foreign policy, that doesn’t mean the two nations are in lockstep. Leading up to the meeting much was made of the contrasting directions each administration is taking in regards to climate change. Obama had announced policies that will make a dent in his nation’s carbon footprint, the plan is to use powers that don’t require ratification by congress to reduce carbon emissions so that, by 2020, they’re 17 percent lower than they were in 2005. Tony Abbott, on the other hand, has been focused on scrapping the carbon tax and implementing his “direct action plan”. The reduction target he’s aiming for is that by 2020 Australia’s emissions will be 5 percent lower than they were in 2000. So a 12 percent difference (not accounting for the five year discrepancy between the years that will act as benchmarks) and the country with a lower percentage of people that believe in man-made climate change is the one doing more about it.

Advertisement

If you were hoping the US president would save Australia from the climate change ambivalence of Tony Abbott you will be disappointed. Firstly, as a rule, governments don’t interfere in each other’s domestic politics. When they do it tends to go get the kind of press reserved for celebrities using racial epithets, like the time John Howard said terrorists would hope for the election of Barack Obama. Secondly, Abbott has been trying to marshal an alliance of commonwealth countries with centre-right administrations (including Canada, India and Britain) to thwart attempts by the US to put climate change on the agenda for this year’s Brisbane G-20 summit. You ever try to change the mind of someone marshalling an alliance you’re the freaking target of? Not gonna happen.

But just because Australia is stuck with Abbott’s climate change apathy doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy his bold abuse of the truth whenever the topic comes up. For instance, did you know Abbott said that the US president’s push to reduce climate change, “is actually very similar to what the Coalition is proposing to do”? The keystone of Obama’s plan sets a new regulation standard (through the Environmental Protection Agency) that will lower the emissions of all power plants throughout the US by 30 percent by 2030. The main component of Abbott’s plan offers money for companies to engage in projects that either lower emissions or offset them – such as capturing landfill gas or reforesting marginal lands. They win the money through an auction process.

And that’s enough of a difference to make Abbott’s “very similar” assessment ridiculous. The USA’s plan is compulsory and across the board while Australia has a voluntary auction. Despite benchmarks and pre-qualification requirements the auction is still vulnerable to that weakness of all auctions. Crappy bids. Abbott’s direct action plan doesn’t regulate emissions so that they are lower, nor does it create an effective emissions reduction market – it hopes for one.

Tony Abbott has told ABC radio, “I regard myself as a conservationist.” Judging from his previous use of the word that’s not necessarily a lie, he may just have a definition of “conservationist” that’s different from everybody else’s. Remember when he told loggers they were the ultimate conservationists?

Lots of people, from scientists to world leaders, are saying that in many ways it’s already too late to mitigate some of the more harmful aspects of climate change. Global action is required to put a halt to a global problem. Obama is trying to put the US onto a plan that will convince the world’s largest growing economies (such as China and India), who are watching closely, that more developed nations are doing their part before the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference in Paris. Abbott is trying to keep climate talk to a minimum, it wasn’t even mentioned the joint op-ed the two leaders published in the LA times. A spokesman of Abbot’s made the point that it was a more appropriate discussion for a UN summit happening in September, a discussion Abbott won’t be attending. Because Abbott’s a conservationist and conservationists cut down trees for money.

@GirardDorney