As the old saying goes, what you accumulate in a single life, you cannot carry with you in to the next. Australia's government seems to see it differently.
Australia's current climate plan under the Paris Agreement is way too weak and Australia is much off track from meeting it. On top of this, the Australian government is planning to make use of an accounting trick to do less, even though it knows no other country is brazen enough to try.
Having secured excess carbon credit units under the old Kyoto Protocol, the emission reduction mechanism anterior to the Paris deal, Australia intends to use these credits to make up over half the abatement necessary to meet its 2030 climate target.
In a parliamentary hearing now the Australian government department of environment and energy confirmed it was not conscious of every other country which was attempting to use surplus Kyoto units to satisfy Paris Agreement commitments.
As an old Australian government negotiator, I possibly could only cringe as I watched a former colleague defend the insurance policy. I do not envy the task of Australian negotiators in the next UN climate talks, Cop25, who must convince almost every other country they alone are “entitled” for their surplus Kyoto units.
The rules over whether governments are allowed to use old credits to cut their emissions under the Paris accord continue to be in contention. But Australia knows it's isolated on Kyoto carryover. This might become painfully obvious in the negotiations.
It jogs my memory of my Maltese grandma attempting to use a two-for-one coffee voucher that expired the prior year. She knew it was unlikely to operate, as did the waiter and everyone else within the café. I guess she thought it well worth the gamble.
Australia's gamble is 367 megatonnes of carbon units accrued under the Kyoto Protocol. If Australia reaches begin using these credits to satisfy its 2030 climate target, it'll cut the country’s emissions reduction efforts in two, ultimately leaving Australia's emissions at approximately just like today's levels.
If countries close this loophole at Cop25, Australia will need to make good with new policy or purchased units. The Australia Institute's research finds even with modest assumptions it might cost the Australian government over AU$18 billion ($12.4bn) to pay for the space. If Australian emissions continue to rise, as they have been for the last five years, the gap will be increased.
Australia's claim that they can “over achievement” is shameless. Australia's per capita emissions are highest within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), several rich and civilized world. Australia has higher emissions than forty other countries with larger populations. Australia can also be the third largest exporter of fossil fuel emissions on the planet, after Russia and Saudi Arabia.
And let’s recall how Australia came to possess these credits. In the final hours of the Kyoto talks in 1997, Australia stood within the plenary, alone in defiance against consensus, until it got what it really wanted. Australia was handed an ample baseline, like starting a race halfway, along with a generous target that allowed it to improve its emissions to 108% on 1990 levels by 2012.
At time, the ecu Union's environmental policy spokesman Peter Jorgensen described Australia's behaviour as “wrong and immoral”.
When time found negotiate another commitment period underneath the Kyoto Protocol, Australia's target would be a reduction of half a point.
With such weak targets, no wonder Australia “overachieved”. Now, the government wants to use the credits to, again, weaken its efforts under the new Paris Agreement. It’s like receiving extra credits for your finger-painting operate in kindergarten and then trying to use the credits in high school to find a way with doing half as much course work.
Australia's extra credits are equal to eight times the annual fossil fuel emissions of every Pacific island country come up with, including Nz. Understandably, many Pacific island countries called on all countries to refrain from using Kyoto credits to meet their Paris commitments. At Cop24, New Zealand eliminated having its own Kyoto surplus with climate change minister James Shaw stating it wouldn't be in the “spirit from the Paris Agreement”.
Australia, as with other countries at Cop21 in Paris, agreed to “promote the voluntary cancellation” of “units issues underneath the Kyoto Protocol”.
And many countries responded. The united kingdom, Germany, Sweden, Denmark and also the Netherlands declared they would cancel their first commitment period Kyoto units and seek to stay away from second period units.
Countries worried about the integrity of the Paris Agreement is going to be rightly focused on how upcoming negotiations on carbon markets deal with the problem of double counting. However, they shouldn't place their eyes off Australia's side-hustle.
Australia makes clear it's prepared to opt for it alone, much like at Kyoto. Does it work, again?
