"John Kerry, Joe Biden's climate envoy, admits US and Australia not on 'same page' "

 Source:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/feb/24/joe-bidens-climate-envoy-admits-us-and-australia-not-on-same-page

"John Kerry has publicly acknowledged “differences” between the United States and Australia in tackling the climate crisis while calling for a faster exit from coal-fired power.

Kerry’s comments highlighted the increased pressure on Australia to commit to do more before this year’s Glasgow climate conference even though the Morrison government maintains it is “playing its part”.

... wrestling with internal divisions on whether to formally commit to net zero by 2050, a spokesperson for the minister for emissions reduction, Angus Taylor, said the US agreed with Australia on the need for “practical solutions”.

Taylor’s spokesperson declined to specifically address Kerry’s view that “coal has got to phase down faster”.

Kerry ... has echoed other global leaders in describing the 2020s as a “make or break” decade in which all countries needed to cut emissions more quickly.

In an event last weekend marking his country’s return to the Paris agreement, Kerry said the US needed to regain credibility by adopting a strong new target for 2030, due to be announced in April ... before specifically mentioning Australia and the part it played at a deadlocked 2019 climate conference.

“For instance, I’ve talked to Australia – we had a very good conversation” ...

“Australia has had some differences with us, we’ve not been able to get on the same page completely.

That was one of the problems in Madrid as you recall, together with Brazil.”

That was a reference to COP25 in Madrid in December 2019, when parties to the Paris agreement were aiming to agree on the rule book for implementing it.

Australia was accused by some countries of blocking progress when it refused to drop a plan to use controversial carbon credits from the unrelated Kyoto Protocol to meet its 2030 Paris target.

Brazil was also accused of preventing agreement through its insistence that it be allowed a different type of Kyoto-era credits that led to accusations it was “double-counting” emissions cuts.

Laurence Tubiana, a former French environment minister and architect of the Paris accord, at the time described using carryover credits as “cheating” and said Australia seemed to be “willing in a way to destroy the whole system”.

Over recent months, Australia has attempted to pivot on climate policy, saying it no longer expects to need to use the credits to reach its 2030 emissions pledge.

Scott Morrison has also argued he hopes to achieve net zero as soon as possible, preferably by 2050, but has not explicitly committed to it.

... Australia has been criticised for setting targets that ignored what scientists say is necessary.

Its first target under the Kyoto Protocol allowed an 8% increase in emissions, and its second target was a 5% cut.

Before joining the Paris agreement, the then Abbott government was advised by the Climate Change Authority that it should set a 2030 target equivalent to at least a 45% and up to a 65% cut compared with 2005 emissions levels.

It instead opted for between 26% and 28%.

Official projections released in December suggested the Morrison government was not on track to meet this goal under existing measurable policies.

... (Kerry) noted the US, China, the European Union and India together accounted for more than 60% of emissions, and none of those nations was doing enough, but that also applied to “many others at lower levels of emission”.

The Glasgow climate conference in November will be preceded by Biden hosting a leaders’ climate meeting on 22 April.

... Kerry said the US summit would focus on getting the 17 nations that produce the vast majority of emissions, including Australia, to commit to reaching net zero by 2050 and setting a road map this decade that would explain how they would accelerate action to keep alive the possibility of limiting global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

... Biden said late last week countries could “no longer delay or do the bare minimum to address climate change” because it was “a global, existential crisis, and we’ll all suffer the consequences if we fail”."