Oz's Greenwashing Campaign In Full Swing As Fossil Fossils Take Over "Vestigal" Climate Agencies
The heat is on for Australia’s government to create a fabricated impression of climate success and sell that fabrication to the world to stave off criticism. Last month, there was a full-effort trial run of this process during the election campaign of Australia’s former finance minister and now new Secretary-General of the Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Mathias Cormann. That mostly involved painful contortions of Australia’s emissions data and climate targets, and it seems that it worked pretty well for Cormann.
US President Joe Biden, as I wrote this week, is very likely to announce a significant increase in their 2030 climate ambition – possibly, a doubling. Australia’s PM Scott Morrison is giving millimetres of movement on a 2050 target, but is absolutely certain to give no room whatsoever to a shift in Australia’s 2030 climate target. In what seems like a pre-emptive move, the network of ambassadors and spokespeople of Australia’s government around the world seem to be posting more frequently about what they present as evidence of Australia’s ambition. It tends to centre on “technology”, more recently renewable energy and specifically solar.
Link to tweet
Link to tweet
The tone, which you can browse in this custom search query I’ve created here, is very significantly different to the domestic conversation. No one is saluting coal trains, here. The technologies are shiny, the tone is optimistic and the citations are not needed.
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But the carefully crafted rosy numbers hide the true story. As analytics firm Ember shows, for the electricity sector, Australia’s high rate of renewable growth is rising off a very low base, and Australia has among the highest energy usage in the world. That means while ‘rate of growth’ and ‘per capita’ numbers look impressive, actual reductions in fossil fuels remain pretty measly, compared to global averages:
Things look even more dire for Australia when you compare it to other countries – and the world – based on total fossil share rather than just coal:
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The situation continues to worsen, particularly in terms of reprogramming the vestigial climate and energy agencies of the Labor government into greenwashing exercises designed to protect the country’s fossil fuel industries. The Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), for instance, is facing a legislative push to adjust its mandate to allow it to provide loans to fossil fuel projects. And on Friday, it was announced that the well-regarded Climate Change Authority (CCA) would be headed by former fossil fuel executive Grant King and head of the ‘greenhouse mafia’ (the Australian Industry Greenhouse Network) Susie Smith (also a former gas executive).
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https://reneweconomy.com.au/climate-agencies-are-being-gassified-as-australia-ramps-up-international-greenwash/
