Guest essay by Eric Worrall
What a shock – Australia is in no rush to comply with John Kerry’s request to give up one of our major export industries within the timeframe chosen by Kerry.
Joe Biden’s climate officer admits the US and Australia are not on the same side.
John Kerry’s comments, including calling for a faster phase-out of coal, are putting pressure on the coalition to do more
Daniel Hurst and Adam Morton
Wed 24 Feb 2021 03.30 AEDT
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At an event last weekend marking his country’s return to the Paris Agreement, Kerry said the U.S. needs to regain its credibility by adopting a strong new target for 2030 due to be announced in April. He said he would “work in a collegial manner with other countries around the world” before explicitly mentioning Australia and its role at a stalled 2019 climate conference.
“For example, I spoke to Australia – we had a very good conversation,” said Kerry in a detailed conversation with former US Vice President Al Gore, which was put online over the weekend.
“Australia had some differences with us, we couldn’t completely get on the same page. As you recall, that was one of the problems in Madrid, along with Brazil. “
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The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken talked about climate policy with his Australian, Japanese and Indian colleagues in last week’s ATV talks.
Biden said late last week that countries “can no longer delay or do what is necessary to address climate change” because it is “a global existential crisis and we will all suffer the consequences if we fail”.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/feb/24/joe-bidens-climate-envoy-admits-us-and-australia-not-on-same-page
Far from reducing coal use, I strongly suspect that the Biden government will lead the biggest surge in coal demand the world has ever seen.
China and Japan, for all their mistakes, are doing what the West has refused – they are building thousands of new coal-fired power plants, helping Africa, Asia and South America to industrialize quickly, and helping them raise their living standards to western levels. In a decade the smoke from Australian, South African and South American coal will rise over new industrial hubs in today’s poorest parts of the world.
Even people who are not connected to the growing power grid and new manufacturing and trading centers will benefit as rising CO2 fertilizes their crops and protects their crops from droughts.
Nobody has the diplomatic stature to bar the way for poor people who have lost a little hope, not even the President of the United States – and certainly not John Kerry. But if the US does everything it can to put obstacles on the path to progress, people will remember them.
Let’s all hope and celebrate the possibility of 450ppm CO2 by 2030. For any rise in the rate of increase in atmospheric CO2 is clear evidence that a poverty stricken country has finally started its long march to join the ranks of the rich nations journey to bring hope for a better future to his children.
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