Analysis: Australia risks not only fracturing relationships over climate but rendering itself mute and hypocritical in the all-important global debate
Nearly seven years ago Flight MH17 was shot out of the sky over Ukraine killing 298 passengers and crew including 27 Australians and 93 Dutch. Officials could not immediately access the crash site to recover the dead and begin investigations because the area was controlled by Russian-backed separatists.
At the time India backed by China had shocked the assembly by seeking to dilute language in the agreement about the need to phase out fossil fuels. Observers now don’t see a material difference in the wording but at the time the COP president Alok Sharma clearly feared the fragile consensus the world had just arrived at would fray.
What is striking since the COP finished and the comments were reported, is not how frank condemnation of Australia has been, but how reserved it has been. At least from official sources. Al Gore has commented on Australia’s stance, noting that, without improving its 2030 target, its 2050 pledge has “little meaning”, but there has been no public word from the White House or the US delegation.
In failing to do so, says Morgan, would not just be thumbing its nose at the Paris process and the Glasgow Pact, but at the global rules-based order Australia professes to support.
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