Biden’s victory makes Australia a climate change ‘outlier’

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Sydney: As the leader of one of the few developed nations that has yet to commit to net zero emissions, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has just become even more isolated.

Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election means the U.S. will join an ever-growing list of countries making the pledge, including some of Australia’s biggest fossil fuel export customers such as Japan, China and Korea. from the south.

Morrison, who once brandished a lump of coal in parliament in support of the fuel, is also increasingly exposed at home as entrepreneurial capital piles up on renewables and many Australians call for more action to address climate change afterward. from a summer of deadly wildfires.

But emboldened by a backward election victory in 2019 that was aided by his support for mining jobs, and with his Conservative government boosted in opinion polls for his handling of the pandemic, Morrison shows no signs of changing, even as Australia it remains one of the world’s largest per capita carbon polluters.

“Australia will always set its policies based on Australia’s interests,” Morrison told reporters on Monday when asked if President-elect Biden’s commitment to lead the United States towards zero emissions by 2050 would influence its energy policies.

Coal and gas exports together account for a quarter of Australia’s export earnings, totaling approximately A $ 120 billion ($ 88 billion) a year. According to a University of New South Wales report released in July, that revenue comes at a high price: Australia is now the world’s largest exporter of coal and gas, making it one of the largest contributors to climate change through the emissions exported.

“Biden’s victory means Australia is even more isolated on the world stage,” said Emma Herd, executive director of the Climate Change Investors Group, which represents investors with total funds under management of more than A $ 2 trillion. With a Biden White House, about 70% of Australia’s two-way trade will be with countries that have made zero net commitments, he said.

According to the group, Australia risks losing at least AU $ 43 billion in renewable energy investments over the next five years if it does not meet the commitment.

Australia seeks to prioritize what it calls low-emission technologies, including hydrogen, to reduce greenhouse gas pollution. Stuck in the country’s first recession in nearly 30 years, Morrison has also proposed a “gas-driven” economic recovery and is promoting cheap and reliable electricity generated from fossil fuels as a means to boost manufacturing.

That has not garnered broad approval from business and environmental groups, which favor investment in renewables such as wind and solar and a market-based mechanism to charge large emitters for their carbon pollution.

Biden is committed to signing executive orders “from day one” to “ensure that the US achieves a 100% clean energy economy and reaches net zero emissions by 2050.”

That makes Australia even more “atypical” among rich and developed economies and Morrison runs the risk of “backing the wrong technology” through his continued support for fossil fuels, said Adair Turner, co-chair of the Transitions Commission of London-based energy, which is promoting net zero emissions by mid-century.

“Australia has been viewed as disappointingly unambitious,” he said.

Morrison’s support for fuel may ultimately hurt him electorally, with polls showing that most Australians believe that global warming is a serious problem that governments must address. The main opposition Labor party is committed to the goal of net zero, and leader Anthony Albanese stressed on Monday that Biden’s victory left Australia “isolated among our main trading partners when it comes to these issues.”

But even if he wanted to, changing his Liberal-National coalition’s stance on emissions would be fraught with risks for Morrison. His predecessor Malcolm Turnbull was ousted by his own party colleagues in August 2018 and replaced by Morrison after proposing stronger action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“We have the same kind of right-wing populist politics as the United States, where the problems of global warming and climate change, instead of being a matter of physics, have become values ​​or identity problems,” Turnbull said in an interview. .

Australia’s position will become increasingly untenable, Turnbull said, because “all of our major trading partners are moving away from” fossil fuels and realizing that “the world cannot keep burning coal.” – Bloomberg

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