Boris Johnson Calls Australia's Climate Proposal "Heroic", Which Is All You Need To Know

[hatrack]

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Now Australia has added to the throngs of climate pledges. One of the world’s biggest coal exporters grandly announced an aim to reach net zero by 2050 and said it was doing more than others to address the climate crisis. Unfortunately, rather than land on its feet, it has ended up in a messy scrum of Trump-style boasting and empty promises. Sheltered within the comforting and technocratic term of “net zero” is the horrifying potential of the status quo.

Miraculously, Australia says it will achieve its climate targets without ending any of its fossil fuel production or exports. It will rely instead on 40% of emissions cuts from a technology investment roadmap, “global technology trends” for 15%, domestic and international offsets for 10-20%, and “unknown future technology” for a further 15%. It’s a zany prospectus.

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Unfortunately for those countries and companies that do hope to mop up business-as-usual emissions with offsets such as tree planting, there is simply not enough land in the world. Carbon offsetting is known to be deeply unreliable and tantamount to greenwashing. Take oil corporations such as Royal Dutch Shell: its plan for “net zero by 2050” includes offsetting emissions over the next decade that would require land three times the size of the Netherlands. Nature restoration is certainly critical to avoid ecological collapse and improve human wellbeing, but it should not be used as shorthand for “pollute now, abate later”.

This is particularly crucial as offsets often refer to tree plantations or similar projects in the global south, which could lead to land grabs, displacement and food insecurity. It is unjust for those least responsible for global heating, whose own emissions are often negligible, to be used to offset the emissions of global north countries that refuse to take seriously the transition away from fossil fuels. The global reception of net zero strategies like Australia’s should also be cause for concern, particularly ahead of Cop26. Boris Johnson called Australia’s commitment a “heroic thing”. Heroic indeed, but only in an Odyssean sort of way, with a net zero Trojan horse containing fossil fuel expansion inside. Other nations should call out, rather than celebrate, empty net zero promises, if Cop26 is to be more than a pageant of fine speech.

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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/28/australia-climate-crisis-net-zero-cop26

[hunter]

1. They're banning fossil fuels and they've picked a cutoff date less than twenty years from now?

Nope, didn't think so.

Nothing heroic here.