Prime Minister Tony Abbott has insisted jobs and economic growth, not what might happen in 16 years time on climate change will be front and centre at the G20 summit in Brisbane, even as senior US officials said climate change was an issue for the global economy. In an extraordinary statement, Mr Abbott, who last month said coal is good for humanity and would remain an essential part of our economic future in Australia and right around the world, argued for Australia, Im focusing not on what might happen in 16 years time, Im focusing on what were doing now and were not talking, were acting despite the long-ranging superpowers climate deal. In Washington, US State Department senior spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that at the G20 meeting there will be a focus on economic issues and how we are co-ordinating with the global economy. Climate in our view is part of that. In Beijing, analysts told Fairfax Media China was unlikely to push as hard as the US appeared to be doing to put climate talks on the G20 agenda. The Prime Ministers comments came after the United States and China announced a deal that will see the US target an emissions cut of 26 to 28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2025 and as China pledged to cap growing carbon emissions by 2030. The federal governments Direct Action policy, in contrast, mandates a 5 per cent cut in emissions by 2020 against 2000 levels, a target Mr Abbott said he was confident Australia would hit. While Mr Abbott and his most senior ministers, including Joe Hockey and Julie Bishop, welcomed the US-China deal on Thursday, they hosed down its immediate impact on Australias post-2020 emissions reduction target, which is due to ne set in the first half of 2015. Mr Abbott has resisted attempts to make climate change a high priority agenda item for the G20 summit of world leaders and Mr Hockey said climate change would only be part of the agenda while accusing companies who do not pay tax where they earn profits of committing theft. Mr Abbott said the US and China were the two most significant countries and theyre obviously the two biggest emitters but said that at the APEC Beijing conference climate change was hardly mentioned. Forthcoming climate conferences in Lima and Paris would focus on the environment and he expected at the G20 if other countries want to raise other subjects theyre entirely welcome to do so but my focus, and I believe the principal focus, of the conference will be on growth and jobs. In Washington, Ms Psaki said the US hoped the China climate deal would provide momentum for further international action and I am certain in bilateral meetings the issue of climate, as we look to the Paris negotiations a year from now, will be a part of the agenda at the G20. The joint US-China announcement is seen as deft diplomacy by Chinese President Xi Jinping, with the deal seen as symbolically important, as Chinas economy has already begun shifting away from dirty coal and its 2030 target is not seen as overly ambitious. Wang Tao, a Beijing-based climate change expert at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Centre for Global Policy, said the joint announcement was a clear signal that would have leverage and implications on potential negotiations around climate change at the G20. Its regrettable that Australias scrapped the carbon tax and its actually moving on the other direction from everyone else in the climate change negotiations, Dr Wang said. In a speech to the Sydney Institute on Thursday evening, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten predicted the federal governments stubborn isolationism on climate change could damage free trade negotiations in the future. Just imagine, in the lead-up to next years Paris conference we could be talking about the Brisbane Declaration as the turning point in global climate negotiations, he said. As G20 president, we have an opportunity to marshal co-operation on climate science – driving discovery and innovation for mitigating and managing the consequences of climate change.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Nov 2014 21:26:23 +0000
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