Australia’s Scott Morrison pledges $2 billion to do ‘whatever it takes’ to combat bushfires — but the damage was done in Madrid.
News coverage in recent weeks has been dominated by the wildfires ravaging Australia. The once cute and cuddly Koala Bear — looked at with admiration and adoration — now sits in 4x4m glass tank, cast on arm, protected from the forces destroying its home. On Kangaroo island, those that have survived, hop aimlessly in hope of finding part of the 41% of its feeding habitat that has not (yet) been burnt to a crisp. In total, a staggering 1 billion animals are reported to have died in Australia’s fires — and that’s just the start.
All six Australian states are now engulfed in flames. 17 million hectares of land have burned, 3,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed, and 28 helpless people have tragically lost their lives. Cities such as Sydney, blanketed by thick plumes of smoke, present a picture mirroring that of the subcontinent in recent years, whilst those residing south-east of Australia have witnessed the skies of New Zealand turn an eerie, hazy-orange.
So how did we get here? Well let’s look back to 2007, where the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — the leading UN body dedicated to providing policymakers with scientific assessments of the risks, implications and adaptation and mitigation solutions to climate change — stated that “in south-east Australia, the frequency of very high and extreme fire danger days is likely to rise 4–25% by 2020 and 15–70% by 2050”. Yet, despite continued warnings that action must be taken, and this prediction slowly coming to fruition, Australian governments past and present have refused to accept the reality that we are facing a climate crisis of epic proportions. In 2014, they repealed their carbon tax — once deemed a major instrument that could catalyse a shift in the private sector from fossil fuel to renewable energy usage. Whilst in 2019, they elected a man — Scott Morrison — who in 2017, once stood in Parliament holding up a piece of coal, declaring “This is coal. Don’t be afraid! Don’t be scared! It won’t hurt you”— as their Prime Minister. A man who most recently, deemed climate activists as a “breed of radical activism on the march”, in response to their demand to scale down Australian coal exports, representing one-third of global coal exports.
Well, fast-forward to 2020, and this fear is still alive, the consequences more potent than ever (even when trying to flee to Hawaii for a short getaway…), and Morrison still refuses to budge his pro-coal position, despite increased clarity of the impact the climate crisis has on bushfires.
What has this denial led to? Well, Australia now accounts for 1.3% of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, and the governments current policies indicate a rise in greenhouse emissions by 6% in 2020, and 8% in 2030, compared to 2005 levels. In addition to this 1.3%, Australia is also the fourth-largest coal producer in the world, making it one of the biggest profiteers from fossil fuels in the world, with exports adding $33.6 billion to the country’s economy in 2019, and raising the countries emissions to 3.3%. This making it one of the highest per-capita carbon emitters amongst major economies globally, producing more emissions than forty other countries with larger populations, and a key source and catalyst for increased emissions in coal-importing countries.
Despite rising emissions and increased scientific certainty of the fossil fuel impact on the climate, it was not until these bushfires tore through Australia, that Morrison has claimed to have very slightly pivoted his position on climate action. Suddenly, he has spoken of “improving our resilience and our adaptation to respond to the reality of the environment in which we live” as an immediate policy response to a changing climate and bushfires. Whilst Ministers in his cabinet have suddenly shifted their attitudes, claiming that climate denial is now a waste of time.
Dont let this shift fool you however. Morrison is still pro-coal. He remains sceptical of the threat civilisation — and our planet — faces in the Anthropocene. This was not a “I was wrong about underestimating climate change” moment, but rather a “if i dont pay attention this could cost me the next election” moment. A wake-up call hitting Morrison hard in New South Wales, where he cut short his visit after angry residents chanted “idiot idiot” as Morrison walk, with one man yelling ”you won’t be getting any votes down here, buddy. No Liberal [party] votes — you’re out, son”.
Do we believe Morrison then? Of course we don’t. He is still Scott “King Coal” Morrison. He has accepted the discourse of climate change, but has refused to accept that it has catalysed and significantly worsened the bushfires. He has refused to consider downscaling the nations coal industry and the vast amount of coal its exports globally, and refused to accept the link between fossil fuels and climate change. This is despite data from the Australian government Bureau of Meteorology showing December’s mean temperature as 3.2 Degrees Celsius warmer than the average for the month, with a clear indication that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions was central to this increase.
More significantly, Morrison’s Australia was part of a cohort alongside Saudi Arabia, Brazil and the US, who sort to nakedly weaken efforts to tackle climate change to benefit their economic interests, at the most recent Conference of the Parties in Madrid (COP25). COP25 — the 25th annual UN climate change conference that unites worlds governments in an attempt to forge a global response to the climate emergency — was deemed a failure by those who wanted tougher action on the climate to be determined, and Australia was at the heart of this failure. They refused to accept a carbon market mechanism (see here for explanation) that would prevent double-counting of carbon credits, prevent surplus credits from the Kyoto protocol being traded in for credits to be used in the Paris Accord, and prevent human rights safeguards in emission reduction projects. In simple terms, Australia advocated for a system whereby emissions reduction committed by one state in another's, could be falsely recorded as reducing emissions two-fold, and where previous assistance in reducing emissions in third- party states (producing carbon credits), could be used by states to reach their emissions reduction goal, as opposed to actually reducing emissions within their jurisdiction. As a result, undermining the environmental integrity and effectiveness of international climate change law and its obligations, by preventing genuine emissions reduction and an ability to combat the climate crisis.
Why? So Australia could continue to embrace the fossil fuel industry, whilst shamelessly and falsely claiming it is actively reducing its emissions in line with its international obligations. The devastation the bushfires have subsequently wreaked, is a consequence of this failure to embrace environmental action.
Feeling the heat, Morrison has now pledged at least $2 billon for bushfire recovery over the next two years to help farmers, families and businesses affected by the fire. Yet this will not be enough, and further funds to meet demands are not guaranteed, with Deloitte Access Economics concluding that natural disasters have cost Australia $9 billion on average per year, with expectations that this cost could reach $27 billion per year by 2050. More worryingly for the climate, ad hoc measures including throwing money at recovery needs, although imperative to assist the injured, will not prevent further incidents and is not a sufficient long-term strategy if it is not accompanied with pro-climate policies.
With Morrison recently confirming that the fires may continue to burn for many more months, the opportunity presented itself for the government to, along with 25 other governments, declare at federal level, that we are in a “Climate Emergency”. Instead, Morrison has sought to further defend Australia’s coal industry and throw money at the problem, in hope that the issue never arises again. Yet the damage has been done, typified by events in Madrid, and unless genuine climate action is taken, the issue will not wither away as Morrison wishes.
