This could easily have gone on Politicians Suck.

Australia turns into ‘anti-climate’ force at Warsaw

By Giles Parkinson on 19 November 2013

It has taken just 7 days, but already the reputation of Australia as a constructive force in international climate policy has been completely trashed – both in terms of its domestic actions and in the wrecking ball tactics it has sent to Warsaw.

Australia is now seen as an “anti-climate” nation that is actively working against any consensus at these talks, as its domestic policies are translated onto the international stage.

Australia has – many times over the 20-plus years of UN-led climate talks – been seen as an outlier, courtesy of its huge reliance on coal power and exports. But its actions in Warsaw have come as a shock to negotiators who are dealing with familiar faces who had been constructive, if not progressive, at previous conferences.

As mentioned in our report yesterday, the most common refrain being heard by Australian representatives is: What is going on down there? Even a Bush-era US negotiator found Australia’s negotiating position to be extreme. Its opposition to a climate finance position paper prepared by other “climate fiscal conservatives” such as US, New Zealand, Japan, and Canada, has dumbfounded participants.

Actually, what is going on is that Australia is simply taking its domestic sloganeering to the international stage, regardless of diplomatic sensitivities. As Tony Abbott told The Australian today: “We are determined to say what we mean and do what we say, so we will never say one thing at an international conference and another thing at home.” He may be consistent, but he’s failing Diplomacy 101.

His comments came as Australia made the unprecedented step of dissenting on the final communique at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Sri Lanka, joining with Canada in refusing support for the UN-sponsored green climate fund, which he dubbed the “green capital fund”. He also dubbed the Clean Energy Finance Corp, which he also wants to dismantle, the “Bob Brown Bank.” (Brown is the former leader of the Australian Greens).

Back in Warsaw, observers are simply aghast. The refusal to back the green climate fund (which has a similar function to the CEFC or even Abbott’s proposed emission reduction fund, apart from the spooky words “green”, “climate”  and “clean energy”) is seen as a threat to these talks, because they are a crucial piece of common ground between developed and developing countries.

“There is no intention for Australia to be in any way constructive or really participate in these talks,” said Wendel Trio, European director of the Climate Action Network.

Indeed, he said, Australia seemed to be working deliberately against any agreement. “I think it is evident at these talks,” he said. “I wonder if Australia would be really interested in joining a legal treaty in 2015.” A big test in coming days will be how Australia and other nations respond to a draft text to move the negotiations towards a Paris agreement.

The draft text includes commitments for the green climate fund, and urges countries to “significantly lift” ambition before 2020 and to move to the top of their target ranges. The Climate Change Authority came to the same conclusion, dismissed by the Abbott government, and it is not yet clear that Australia will indicate its support for that range when it makes its speech to the conference on Thursday.

Trio was speaking after an analysts group, known as GermanWatch, released its annual climate change performance index, which shows that Australia has fallen so far down the rankings that it now sits, along with Canada, as the worst performing industrial country in the world. Both countries get a resounding fail, and are only saved from last spot by Iran, Kazakhstan, and Saudi Arabia.

Australia’s position was already poor because of its high emissions levels and limp-wristed renewables policies, but the decision by the Abbott government to repeal the carbon tax and dismantle all climate and clean energy institutions and initiatives sent it down six places to No 57 out of 61 nations.

What is extraordinary, though, is that this is taking place as the researchers declared a “glimmer of hope” that global emissions could actually peak before 2020 – thanks mainly to the slowing down of emissions in developed countries, and decisive action taken by China to limit coal consumption.

The first three places in the index are actually declared vacant, because no country is acting strongly enough to keep global warming below 2°C. Denmark is the top-ranked country, followed by the UK (for its efforts in reducing emissions), Portugal and Sweden. Germany, because of its failure to support more decisive action on emissions trading and energy efficiency fell to 19th spot. China rose to 46th, just behind the US in 43rd.

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Abbott’s climate mantra sends delegates loopy in Warsaw

By Giles Parkinson on 20 November 2013

Australia has come under renewed attack at the Warsaw climate change negotiations, accused of bringing a “hard-line ideological agenda” to the talks and of “killing” investment in low-carbon technologies.

The public criticism came from delegates from developing countries and Europe, and from economists and environmental groups, and the level of despair about Australia’s unrelenting mantra – “no more money, no more ambition” – reached new heights as the talks moved into the high level, ministerial segment.

Delegates and negotiators remain stunned by Australia’s intransigence, and the contrast with its recent constructive involvement in climate change negotiations – up until the election of the Tony Abbott government in early September.

Australia is seen playing a blocking role in numerous points of negotiations – including but not exclusively climate finance, loss and damage, and ambition – all of which are important to enable the talks to move forward and set the path to  agreement in Paris in 2015.

They accuse Australia of taking the same text and same script – as though it were on a loop – into various negotiating bodies. Some commented that the team on the ground was struggling to say anything else because there was a lack of guidance from Canberra on how to move forward with negotiations. And, of course, there is no minister attending. The goal of the Australian delegation was described as being consistent and vague, or consistently vague.

The high level ministerial section began in the afternoon on Tuesday. Usually such speeches are couched in diplomatic terms and direct attacks on individual countries are extremely rare in this forum, but the influential  G77 (developing countries) and China bloc singled out Australia and Canada for their refusal to show increased ambition on emissions reduction targets.

Fiji’s Jiko Fatafehi Luveni, speaking on behalf of the G77 and China, said Australia and Canada’s were not willing to allow the talks to move forward. “This is highly disappointing and regrettably inadequate,” she said.

RenewEconomy had earlier asked EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard about Australia’s role at the Warsaw negotiations. “Which role?” she joked.

Hedegaard said it was not yet clear whether Australia’s domestic policy stance would seep through to the ministerial section of the talks, which will be managed by diplomat Justin Lee in the absence of a bonafide Australian minister. But the signs were not good.

“I was there at the COP (in Bali, 1997) where Australia was applauded for joining the Kyoto Protocol, so in that sense it is regrettable that – that at a time when we need so many countries to move forward – that we see steps backwards.”

Lord Nicholas Stern, eminent economist and head of the Grantham Research Institute, also targeted Australia, along with other countries, for making changes in climate and clean energy policies that he said were killing investment.

“Wherever you look, government-induced policy risk is the biggest deterrent to investment,” Stern said at a side event, to a mostly Australian audience, including the Business Council of Australia, the Australian Industry Greenhouse Network, and forestry representatives.

“What we have seen in Europe and in Australia has been government-induced policy risk. It kills investment.”

But the strongest criticism – at least on the public record – came from environmental groups. WWF accused Australia of taking a confrontational approach to the talks.

“Australia has taken an extremely hard line on climate finance, and adopted a confrontational and ideological tone in their comments,” WWF energy expert Mark Lutes said, adding that the issue over climate finance is threatening to cause the negotiations to lose momentum and even stall. He said the “backtracking” of Australia and Japan on emission reduction targets “is casting a pall on negotiations.”

The Green Climate Fund itself also rejected Australian criticisms, particularly Abbott’s recent comments that such a fund was equivalent to “socialism masking as environmentalism” and welfare (a position it has adopted to Australia’s own Clean Energy Finance Corporation).

Manfred Konukiewitz, a German who is co-chair of the of GCF, said he was surprised by Abbott’s comments.

“It is a surprising comment, when you know that you have governments on our board like the UK,  Germany and the US, and many others who would not come near anything that looks like socialism.”

He said all these countries had similar institutions in their own countries (all have equivalents to the CEFC and GCF) which they used to mobilise private finance. “This is an element of smart investment that has nothing to do with welfare,” he said.

Elsewhere, speakers criticised countries that were not just refusing finance, but were not coming forward with increased ambition, or were stalling by claiming that natural disasters were not caused by climate change. Australia ticks all three boxes.

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Embarrassing.

Australia reputation hits new low over t-shirt climate diplomacy

By Giles Parkinson on 21 November 2013

Australia’s reputation at the international climate change talks hit a new low on Wednesday after the G77 and China took offence at what they described as the hard-line tactics and “bad behaviour” of the Australian negotiators and walked out of a crucial meeting.

The Australian delegation was accused of blocking all avenues of agreement, placing brackets around any text that was approaching consensus and, worst of all – of wearing t-shirts, “giggling”, and of being “cavalier and insensitive.”

Saleemul Huq, a scientific advisor on the issue of loss and damage to the 132 nations who make up the G77 and China negotiating bloc, said G77 negotiators had walked out of talks at 4am on Wednesday.

“There was continuous blockage of anything they wanted from Australia who were putting brackets around everything,” he said. “The behaviour of Australia’s negotiators was poor, they were being extremely insensitive, wearing t-shirts  …

“This is a serious issue. We are talking about life and death, people are dying from Typhoon Haiyan, we’ve got people on hunger strike here. You don’t trivialise these issues, by giggling, and marking brackets around anything. It is just not done.”

It should be noted that in the institutionalised chaos of international climate talks, particularly in the final days of negotiations, grandstanding is commonplace. But in this fishbowl world of  the UN-sponsored talks in the National Stadium in Warsaw, Australia has now become the whipping boy of climate politics.

The fact that Australian negotiators were casually dressed at the time is not in dispute (although there seems to be some speculation over whether they were wearing t-shirts or pyjamas! As it turns out, RenewEconomy has seen photos of the meeting, and it is t-shirts). But the fact that it is now used as a lightning rod in negotiations shows how far Australia’s stocks have fallen in the past few weeks.
photo


The Fossil Olympics: Australia has unbeatable lead with four gold and a silver.

One EU negotiator questioned whether there was a walk-out, suggesting the meeting was breaking up anyway.  But the negotiator said casual wear was not deemed appropriate “out of respect” for the other. Stinky is tolerated, t-shirts not.

Some observers say Australia’s poor reputation is not entirely deserved, because some developing countries are taking an equally hard line attitude on some crucial issues – for instance in their refusal to be drawn into committing to their own emission reduction targets. Developed countries see this as an equally provocative move that could short-circuit a Paris agreement.

But these and other observers note that Australia had set itself up as the fall-guy of these talks because it has dumped its previously constructive approach to negotiations and adopted a new hardline stance under the new conservative government of Tony Abbott … and because Abbott’s three-word sloganeering, on the domestic stage and even at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Sri Lanka, and his dismantling of climate policies and institutions has been well noted.

Alf Wills, the lead negotiator of South Africa – which is chairing the negotiations on loss and damage and is one of four countries that make up the powerful BASIC group (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) – said there was disappointment at Australia going no further than its “absolutely least ambitious” emissions reduction target of 5 per cent.

“We are mindful that the Australian government has recently changed, and has a different policy,” he told RenewEconomy. “What is disappointing for us is the comment made by the new prime minister that Australia will only do minus 5%.

“For us it just reinforces the concept that these numbers need to be internationally legally binding, because if governments change, can they just unilaterally change their international commitments … on the basis that they say that wasn’t us, that was someone else?”

Australia, along with Canada and Japan, is accused of adopting an unusually hard-line approach to the talks, not just in loss and damage, but also on the issue of climate finance and the level of ambition. International delegates are surprised and shocked at the turnaround in policies since the new government.

Negotiators say the Australian delegation had come to Poland with seemingly  little room for maneouvre. Some suggested that this was because of a lack of guidance from Canberra, which is not sending any ministerial representative, despite Australia’s influential role as chair of the Umbrella Group, the bloc that represents the non-EU developed countries, and its role in the Cartagena Dialogue, a moderate grouping that aims to seek middle ground on negotiating extremes.

Bangladesh, which insisted that what occurred in the early hours of Wednesday was a walk-out,  said the political change in Australia has completely reversed its position. “How do we try to negotiate with them,” said its head of delegation.

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...Australia ranked 57 out of 61 nations is even more disgraceful when viewed in the context of our VAST solar, wind, tidal, geothermal energy resources

While the international agenda has been hijacked by Third World countries with their hands out for anything they can get, it doesn't excuse this kind of blatant ignorance and stupidity. If it was your own original stupidity it wouldn't be so bad, but it's secondhand cut and pasted stupidity:

Rider wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2013 at 7:05am:


Chimp. I hope you're proud of the achievements of the anti-nuclear lobby in Germany. This is the best they could hope to achieve. Carbon Neutral Nuclear Power Stations which have worked reliably for years now replaced by coal-fired power stations. I sometimes wonder if deep green environmentalists do more harm than everybody else combined.

There is no need for any new coal-fired power stations.  That was the point I was making.

I realise that they are streets ahead of Australia in renewables.

It will be interesting to see how things develop in the Australian power industry. There were rumours of an imminent power shortage a couple of years ago, but it hasn't eventuated. A few  major coal-fired power stations have  actually deregistered quite a few MW in capacity, and I know that one 6 unit Power Station last year was operating with only one Unit, and even that was operating at low output.

Traders were playing games.

lee wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2013 at 12:18pm:


Well it only has to knock over a house of cards, so a teeny little wrecking ball might just do the job, the way the enviro whack jobs on here are frothing at the mouth like rabid dogs I think that they know it too