Low Blow
The ‘national experts’ who gave Australia a woeful ranking in the latest list of climate pariah states are not exactly impartial analysts, says James Mathias.
Australia ranks a lowly 52nd of 57 countries on this year’s Climate Change Performance Index, 26 places behind China.
You don’t need to look too closely to see how this supposedly shameful result was achieved. “National experts” are appointed to measure each country’s performance according to a set range of indices. In Australia’s case, a retired anaesthetist from Doctors for the Environment, two people from the Australian Conservation Foundation and one each from Oxfam and The Australia Institute (all reliably alarmist organisations) were appointed the onerous task of measuring, and discrediting, Australia’s commitment to the environment.
The Guardian Australia was first to condemn the Australian Government when the report was released, calling it “an increasingly regressive force.” Coincidentally, six of the 38 footnotes in the CCPI report were for articles from The Guardian. Almost all the others were from equally alarmist sources.
The list is subjective. China is ranked 10th, receiving a high performance domestically and medium internationally, “as the country is on track to fulfil its targets and promises made in Paris”.
Under the 2015 Paris Climate Accord, China agreed not to reduce emissions over the period to 2030; rather, its emissions would simply peak at 2030 and that 20 per cent of its energy would come from renewable energy sources. Despite emissions continuing to increase, China ranks above Australia which has made a commitment and implemented policies to reduce its emissions by 26 to 28 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030.
The CCPI report says Australia “continues to receive very low ratings in the Energy Use category” despite the most recent official National Energy Market figures showing that emissions from energy use it is on track to be 26 per cent below 2005 levels by 2022, eight years earlier than committed under Paris.
The report also claims that, “while the Government is not proposing any further targets for renewable energy beyond 2020, it continues to promote the expansion of fossil fuels.” This is incorrect.
A recent report from the ANU highlighted that Australia is a global leader in clean energy investment. On a per-capita basis our investment is double that of countries like France, Germany and the United Kingdom, all of which rank well above Australia in the CCPI on investment in renewables. Further, in 2018, 19 percent of Australia’s energy came from renewables.
Even our Pacific neighbours join in the Australia bashing. The report says Australia is “criticised for its lack of ambition by several Pacific Island nations in the context of this year’s Pacific Island Forum”. Yet at that forum Australia pledged to spend $500 million over five years to strengthen climate and disaster resilience in the Pacific, which builds on the previous commitment of $300 million over four years.
Our national experts say the Government is “failing to clarify how it will meet the country’s insufficient 2030 emission reduction target”. This is despite the Government’s $3.5 billion Climate Solutions Package that details exactly how Australia will deliver 328 million tonnes of abatement needed to meet our Paris commitment.
The CCPI is an exercise in national self-flagellation for climate alarmist seeking a platform from which to signal their relative virtues.