Katharine Murphy (right) makes some observations after Angus Taylor (left) ended his Power Point presentation of “The Plan to Deliver Net Zero, The Australian Way”.
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But, where are the studies behind the “The Plan to Deliver Net Zero, The Australian Way”? Who conducted those studies?
This is what the Plan says:
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| (source) |
Treasury Secretary Steven Kennedy attended last Wednesday Senate estimates and was asked about the mysterious Plan:
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| (source) |
Kennedy, as quoted by The Guardian-Oz: “We haven’t done it at least for the last few years.”
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This in an old Tweet from the Australian Secretary-General of the OECD, Mathias Cormann:
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| (source) |
At the time, Belgian-born Senator Cormann was a member of the Liberal Party of Australia and Minister for Finance in the Malcolm Turnbull Cabinet. A few years earlier Cormann was instrumental in repealing the carbon pricing scheme the Australian Labor Party had passed.
That Tweet wasn’t a one off thing. By 2016 his opposition to carbon pricing was well-known, and he never made a secret of it:
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| (source) |
And yet, in a stunning backflip, last Wednesday 27th (GMT+2) the same Cormann, now OECD Secretary-General, is quoted in a OECD press release as saying: “Carbon prices and equivalent measures need to become significantly more stringent, and globally better coordinated, to properly reflect the cost of emissions to the planet and put us on the path to genuinely meet the Paris Agreement climate goals.”
Carbon pricing is precisely what Minister for Trade Dan Tehan calls “carbon tariff” and “protectionism in disguise”. Last month Tehan embarked on a crusade to gather opposition to carbon pricing.
The report itself explains that G20 economies are increasingly pricing CO2 emissions from energy use: from 37% in 2018 to 49% this year. Even China has an emissions trading scheme.
Australia is an outlier.
Local journos and pollies were quick to seize on Cormann’s change of heart. They all apparently missed the extraordinary timing of the release: Australian Eastern Daylight Time is Greenwich Mean Time + 11.
You see, last Thursday (October 28th AEDT), around the same time the release was made public, Scotty from Marketing (Prime Minister) and Angus Taylor (Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction) were about to depart for Europe. One of Scotty’s mantras has been “technology, not taxes”; by “taxes”, he means “carbon pricing”, whether carbon taxes or carbon emissions trading.
(Incidentally, among other things, Taylor aims “to promote Australia as a safe and reliable destination for investment in gas”.).
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“I said g’day, I said g’day,” Scotty told reporters in Rome.
“He was having a chat to someone, I went up and just put my arm on his shoulder and just said ‘g’day, Emmanuel,’ and ‘look forward to catching up over the next couple of days’.”
“That's the way these events tend to work and he was happy to exchange those greetings.”
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| When Scotty met Manu (source) |
Manu sure looks thrilled, almost ecstatic, uh?
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“I was under the impression that France had been informed long before [about Australia’s decision to dump the French subs],” Joe Biden, US President, explained to Emmanuel Macron, during their personal meeting at Rome.
I suppose one should feel sorry for the POTUS. It was a big, big mistake to trust Morrison’s Australia.
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| (source) |
True, in the great scheme of things, having to apologise once again for Scotty’s dishonesty and duplicity and ineptitude is – realistically – small potatoes compared with how badly other things are going for Biden back home.
And, realistically, even unqualified success of his agenda at G20 and COP26 may not be enough to revert his own approval ratings collapsing. But success wouldn’t hurt. The fact the Biden Administration is sending a huge delegation, including the President himself, Secretary of State Tony Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and other 11 high officials is a good indication of the importance COP26 has for the POTUS.
Yet, even a modest success is looking increasingly doubtful, in part thanks to Scotty.
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| (source) |
So, there are reasons to feel regret for Biden’s misfortune. Still – and call me selfish if you wish – I feel more sorry for the rest of us.
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