Australia election 2022: What will the vote mean for climate policies?

BBC News
May 11 2022

Scott Morrison's government has drawn protests and criticism for its perceived inaction on climate change
When Australia - long considered a climate policy laggard - heads to the polls on 21 May, the outcome could be significant for the planet's future.

Still reliant on coal for most of its electricity, it is one of the dirtiest countries per capita - making up just over 1% of global emissions, but only 0.3% of the world's population.

It's a massive global supplier of fossil fuels, and once that is factored in, it accounts for 3.6% of the world's emissions.

But it's also one of the nations most at risk from climate change.

In recent years, Australia has suffered severe drought, historic bushfires, successive years of record-breaking floods, and six mass bleaching events on the Great Barrier Reef.   

And it's racing towards a future full of similar disasters, the latest UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report warns.


The current government has angered allies with its short-term emissions reductions target - which is half what the IPCC says is needed if the world has any chance of limiting warming to 1.5C.




Greenhouse gas emissions per person. .  .
But Australia is still wedded to fossil fuels and climate policy has famously played a role in toppling three prime ministers in a decade.

Though most voters want tougher climate action, some coal towns lie in swing constituencies that are key to winning elections.

What is the government promising?
Prime Minister Scott Morrison holds a lump of coal while giving a speech in parliament.

Scott Morrison famously praised coal's value to Australia in a parliamentary debate on renewable energy in 2017
After years of warring within the Liberal-National coalition, Scott Morrison's government committed to a 2050 net zero emissions target at the last gasp before last year's Glasgow COP26 summit.

Deputy PM and National Party leader Barnaby Joyce remains personally opposed to the policy, claiming people in regional areas would have to "grab a rifle [and] go out and start shooting [their] cattle" to meet the goals.


Australia's 2050 net zero pledge draws criticism
Why Australia refuses to give up coal
Australia's 2030 emissions reduction target of 26% on 2005 levels - half the US and UK benchmarks - has been called "a great disappointment".

Mr Morrison has boasted the country is on track to achieve 35%. Yet that's unlikely, vice chair of the IPCC and Australian National University Professor Mark Howden says, unless the government - which has been in power since 2013 - overhauls its "technology over taxes" approach.

Once emissions saved by a drastic reduction in land clearing are excluded, Australia's carbon footprint has actually increased "significantly" since 2005, he notes.

And Mr Morrison's plan to bring it down has been criticised for hanging on technologies that do not exist yet.

"That's what we call a moral hazard - we make the assumption that the solution will pop up so we don't take action now," Prof Howden told the BBC.

Critically, coal mines and power stations are safe on Mr Morrison's watch.

Labor will cut more, faster
The opposition Labor party's 2030 emissions reduction target of 43% is "far more ambitious", Prof Howden says.

"If you're looking at the difference between those goals, it's like taking every car off the road."

If global leaders set targets similar to the coalition's, the world would be heading towards "potentially terrifying" warming of more than 3C, he says.

Labor's target is more consistent with warming of about 1.6C or 1.7C.




Leader Anthony Albanese has defended the Australian Labor Party's policy as similar to countries like Canada, South Korea and Japan
Labor has stressed its policy will not leave "emissions intensive" industries - like mining - at a disadvantage to their global competitors.

It has also promised it will support new coal mines if they make commercial sense, and that it will not force coal-fired power stations to shut early.

Instead the party says it will make electric cars cheaper, improve renewable energy storage options, and gradually lower the threshold at which big emitters need to buy carbon offsets.

Like the coalition, Labor is hoping the market will phase out coal without intervention, which Prof Howden says is risky.

"The maths tells us we can't afford to put in new large fossil fuel infrastructure, and the infrastructure that we have currently we have to take out of the system fairly quickly."

"India has relaxed environmental compliance rules for coal mines seeking to ramp up production as power outages exacerbate a sweltering heatwave, a government notice showed.

Coal makes up more than two-thirds of India's energy needs, even as unseasonably hot weather illustrates the threat from climate change caused by burning fossil fuels.

Soaring temperatures have prompted higher energy demand in recent weeks and left India facing a 25-million-tonne shortfall at a time when coal spot prices have skyrocketed since the start of the year."

"The government hopes to woo private mining giants—like Vedanta and Adani—to revive more than 100 dormant coal mines previously deemed too expensive to operate, using new technology and fresh capital.

Coal needs set to double

India needs a billion tonnes of coal annually to meet its current domestic demand.

Most of its needs are met by domestic producers, with a record 777 million tonnes mined in the fiscal year to the end of March.

The shortfall is imported from countries like Indonesia, Australia and South Africa."

https://phys.org/news/2022-05-india-environment-coal-citing-heatwave.html

So I guess that India's per capita emissions will remain low. I mean only per capita emissions count don't they? 

Whatever we do here in Oz, it will have minimal impact on Global Warming.

We are small players compared to China; Russia; US and India.