Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to contribute to the matter of public importance before the Senate chamber today about Prime Minister Abbott’s climate change denial and his behaviour at the G20. I intend to talk to the matter of public importance and not to the free trade agreement that seemed to occupy most of Senator Ruston's speech.

On the weekend just past, Australians were yet again embarrassed by their Prime Minister, this time in front of an international audience at the G20 forum. World leaders had gathered in Brisbane, Australia to talk about a number of issues of world importance—things like international security, epidemics, economic growth and climate change—but our Prime Minister, Mr Abbott, could only bring himself to prattle on about his own domestic troubles. While China and the United States joined together to strike a significant deal to combat climate change into the future, Mr Abbott used the weekend as an opportunity to do nothing but bizarrely push his own parochial politics onto some of the world's most powerful leaders. You have to ask: is the Prime Minister really the person we want representing Australia on the global stage?

As if it were not humiliating enough that Australia is now led by a man who has already repealed domestic climate legislation, on the world stage the Prime Minister tried his best to ignore the topic of climate change completely. While President Obama from the United States and China's President Xi jointly outlined ambitious and dramatic goals for carbon reduction last week, our Prime Minister refused to even acknowledge that climate change was worthy of being an agenda item for the G20. In fact, it seemed the Prime Minister of Australia was the only person at the G20 who did not want to talk about action on climate change.

We have President Obama from America to thank for the fact that climate change was even up for discussion at all, after he all but forced it onto the agenda with his announcement on Saturday, prior to the G20, that the United States would be contributing US$3 billion to help developing countries cope with the effects of climate change. President Obama's announcement was followed closely by Mr Shinzo Abe, the Prime Minister of Japan, who pledged a further US$1.5 billion to the Green Climate Fund. In making these pledges, the United States and Japan have recognised the importance of the Green Climate Fund.

The fund will help developing countries in their bids to tackle climate change. It is a major part of a plan agreed to in 2009 to raise income streams to help developing nations address climate change and reduce carbon emissions. Income for the fund comes from both public and private sources. It is intended to raise US$100 billion by the year 2020. The fund will promote the shift towards low-emissions and climate-resilient development by providing support to developing countries to limit or reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to the impacts of climate change. It will also take into account the particular needs of the developing countries, especially those that have a high propensity to be adversely affected by climate change.

While the fund has now received pledges from 13 nations totalling US$7.5 billion and looks closer to achieving its target, our Prime Minister wants nothing to do with it. He downplayed the importance of the fund, and he has pledged nothing. He tried to cover up his lack of climate credentials by saying that Australia was contributing to its own Clean Energy Finance Corporation and was contributing to overseas development aid. The trouble with that is that the Clean Energy Finance Corporation is slotted for demolition by this government. Currently, the third iteration of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (Abolition) Bill is in this parliament. Thankfully, the first and second iterations of the bill were defeated. We know that the current government has already cut the overseas development aid budget by $7.6 billion, from this year's budget. So you have to ask: did Prime Minister Abbott mislead world leaders when he said that Australia was already contributing to climate change funds when in fact we know he has reduced funding to the overseas development aid budget and is hell-bent on destroying the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which is doing such a great amount of work.

Australians expect more from their Prime Minister and they deserve more from him. In this case, developing countries deserve more from Mr Abbott as well. But, at the end of the day, would we really expect anything except dissembling from a man who once described climate change as 'absolute crap'?

Some of the most powerful leaders in the world are shocked at Mr Abbott's actions. President Obama said over the weekend:

No nation is immune and every nation has a responsibility to do its part.

Even Mr Abbott's ally and apparent friend UK Prime Minister David Cameron encouraged our Prime Minister to do more, saying:

Countries that have so far done the least have to think about what more they can do. I've had good and friendly discussions with Prime Minister Abbott about that.

Mr Cameron added:

Even if you don't believe in the nature of this [climate change] threat, isn't it better to insure against it?

That is from another conservative Prime Minister.

Begrudgingly for Tony Abbott, climate change did appear on the agenda for the G20. Of course it became one of the most talked about items from the weekend because it is one of the most significant issues, if not the most significant issue, facing the world today. Australia, as one of the world's largest emitters per capita, should be doing more to tackle the effects of climate change at home as well as helping developing nations.

Senators on the other side of this chamber seem content with patting themselves on their backs for their direct action policy—that is, when they can bring themselves to talk about climate change. They are content to settle for a second-rate policy that is not about behavioural change; it is just a one-off deal which rewards polluters with no incentives for long-term change. Everyone knows direct action is a dud, with major loopholes and the pitiful aim of a measly five per cent reduction of emissions on 2000 levels by 2020. We are yet to see how on earth direct action is even going to achieve that modest target.

Comparatively, the United States-China agreement has seen China pledge to cap its rapidly growing carbon emissions by 2030 or earlier if possible, and increasing its share of non-fossil fuels to 20 per cent of the country's energy mix by 2030. The United States has lifted its target to cut US emissions to between 26 per cent and 28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2025. Clearly, the coalition's direct action nonsense cannot and will not compete globally against those significant targets. The Prime Minister has again overlooked the importance and significance of climate change and has made Australia look weak and insignificant on the global stage. The Prime Minister's stubborn isolationism is not only costing Australia our economic competitiveness but also our international reputation.

A brief scan of the international media from the G20 came up a cracker from the Los Angeles Times, where Australia was referred to as 'the adolescent country, the bit player, the shrimp of the schoolyard'. How embarrassing! LA Times reporter Robyn Dixon went on to detail Abbott's embarrassing moments from the G20, including this:

And then he throws in a boast that his government repealed the country's carbon tax, standing out among Western nations as the one willing to reverse progress on global warming—just days after the United States and China reached a landmark climate change deal.

That is embarrassing? To be recognised in international media as a nation led by a Prime Minister who is proud to be repealing progressive policies is humiliating. Even Western Australian Liberal Premier Colin Barnett seemed to distance himself from Prime Minister Abbott, publically announcing over the weekend that Australia 'can be bolder' in our action against climate change. We can indeed be bolder. It is ironic that yesterday, the final day of the G20 summit, also proved to be the second hottest ever November day in Brisbane. World leaders were sweltering, but for Mr Tony Abbott, the international heat on Australia's lack of progressive climate change action is just starting to rise.