BREAKING: Nationals Agree to … Something!!

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With 8 days left to COP28 and after a week of intense discussions over the National Party support for Scotty from Marketing’s plan to establish a net zero GHG emissions target for 2050, this Sunday the party leader and Deputy Prime Minister announced to the expectant press gallery awaiting:

“We are in support of a process going forward that would go towards a 2050 emissions target.”

I understand if my learned readers differ, but as a humble worker I found it hard to understand that.

To my uneducated worker’s ears that sounded like the gobbledygook that one may expect from an ignoramus who ignores his own ignorance. But that was “Chinless Wonder” Joyce, so I must be mistaken.

Aussie journos, better educated than yours truly and more used to Barnaby, translated that as:

1. Stephanie Borys (ABC): “Nationals provide in-principle support for a net zero 2050 target”.
2. Sarah Martin (The Guardian-Oz): “The Nationals party room has agreed to a net zero by 2050 target conditional on a cabinet process that reflects negotiations with the junior coalition partner.” (Their bold).
3. SBS – AAP: See above.

Scotty from Marketing, who works with the man, seems to agree with those translations.

So, I humbly submit to them: the hostage situation is over.

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That seems to leave Scotty’s official position at Glasgow like this:

• Morrison’s Australia sets a net zero GHG emissions target for 2050;
• Although the Paris Agreement demanded increasing reductions and parties to the Agreements were expected to announce those increased commitments at COP26, Australia will announce no increased (let alone make them mandatory) targets for 2030, because “Chinless Wonder” already ruled that out.
• Beyond the dubious and insufficient and probably unattainable 26-28% reduction which Australia signed up to in 2015, Scotty relies in his ability to bullshit the public.

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How will that play out domestically?

I can imagine this scenario. With characteristic impudence, Scotty will claim that as an achievement against Nationals’ intransigence – duly supported by the Liberal moderates and the Murdoch media, newly rebranded as climate change warriors. Wink wink; nudge nudge. The National deniers will say they fought the good fight against impossible odds and, although ultimately defeated, got plenty goodies for their electorates. Nudge nudge; wink wink.

Remember the scenario I painted in The Phoney War, a couple weeks ago?

The icing on the cake is that, because there’s no targets, nobody will do anything until the next COP27. Wash, rinse and repeat.

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Let me guess. You are thinking now that that’s only my interpretation of the situation – an interpretation wildly uncharitable, you may add. I’m being unduly cynical, surely?

Maybe. But the ABC’s Melissa Clarke has followed national politics for a while. And, unlike yours truly, she does that for a living. Well, she comes pretty much to the same conclusion:

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Mark my words: the mountain shook and trembled and moaned to give birth to a mouse.

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I might be mistaken, but Scotty may make a stop at Rome, for the 2021 G20 Summit, before Glasgow: it’s all paid by the Commonwealth, people!

Xi Jinping and Emmanuel Macron are also expected to attend to the G20 meeting.

I don’t approve violence and I certainly recommend people to avoid it, but I must confess, it would be poetic justice if Macron or Xi remembered Scotty’s “meet and beat” when he’s at arm’s reach. And they don’t have to seek a humble worker’s approval.