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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones; this is 7am.

The Albanese government is campaigning to host the next United Nations Climate Conference in partnership with Pacific nations. Some have described this as an Olympic moment - but there is real concern it is just a public relations exercise, a massive greenwashing of Australia’s climate policies. Pacific countries are now demanding Australia do more on climate action before agreeing to be part of the bid.

Today, contributor to The Saturday Paper Polly Hemming on how Australia is peacocking in the Pacific.

It’s Tuesday, June 20.

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RUBY:

Polly, last year, when Labor was campaigning for government one of the things that it said, one of its agenda items was to host COP, which is the biggest, the most important climate conference in the world. If we go back to that time and that promise, tell me what it was about and why Labor was making it?

POLLY:

Yeah, absolutely. You're right. As you say, Labor announced its desire to host this event, United Nations Climate Conference, when it was campaigning for the 2022 election.

Archival Tape – Anthony Albanese:

“So we also do see it as a part of our international policy, that's why we're committed to making a bid to host the next COP that's available in three years time and thats why I think this is a policy….”

POLLY:

I should explain, COP stands for Conference of the Parties, and this is an annual conference that's been going for about 30 years where parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change - The UNFCCC - meet, and they negotiate how best to reduce global emissions and also support those countries that are hardest hit or most affected by the impacts of climate change. And it's been going for about 30 years. There've been some really big agreements that have come out of COPs in the past. In 1997, in Kyoto, Japan, the Kyoto Protocol was adopted…

Archival Tape – Speaker 1:

“We’ll recommend the adoption of this protocol to the conference by unanimity.”

POLLY:

…and this was an international global agreement that developing countries would reduce their emissions. And in 2015, at the COP in Paris, the next major international agreement or climate treaty, the Paris Agreement, was adopted.

Archival Tape – Reporter:

“It's being hailed as an historic agreement and a turning point for the world. It’s the first time so many nations have signed onto a binding agreement on climate change…”

POLLY:

As the names of those agreements such as the Kyoto and Paris, the COP is hosted in different countries each year. And while it's an incredibly important event and really important decisions come out of it, it's turned into, I suppose, a bit of a carnival, you know, in the same way that we see mega sporting events being used by countries as nation branding exercises, the COP has turned into a way for countries to show how ‘climate-y’ they are, doing that inverted commas. They're a really great marketing opportunity.

Archival Tape – Advertisement:

“It hasn't stopped here. Egypt started taking steps towards environmental awareness.”

POLLY:

Last year we saw Egypt hosting the COP…

Archival Tape – Advertisement:

“Making our country worthiest of hosting the most important climate change conference COP 27. Now we call…”

POLLY:

…and, Egypt, of course, is a bit of a low-key petro state. And that event was sponsored by Coca-Cola. So it was described as the world's biggest plastic polluter, sponsoring a climate event being held by the world's biggest polluter.

Archival Tape – Advertisement:

“...from a civilisation inspired by nature. We today inspire the future.”

POLLY:

And this year, the COP is being hosted by the United Arab Emirates. So you can kind of see as the world's third largest fossil fuel exporter, why Australia might be keen to host one of these events. It's increasingly looking like you don't actually have to take that much substantive climate action, but it's a really good opportunity to peacock and showcase what is happening in your country.

RUBY:

Right ok, so the idea then of hosting a COP, I mean, it would be a way for Australia to to signal its climate credentials to, you know, say here we are providing some leadership on the climate crisis. But you're saying that in reality that would be more about marketing than actual change and I want to unpack that a little bit more. But before we kind of go to that, I mean, it's been a year since those initial intentions were made by the Labor Party. So does the Albanese Government still intend to go through with its bid to host a COP?

POLLY:

It does. And I should also say right up front that committing to this event or signalling that Australia was going to host this event at the time when they made this commitment, it was to partner with Pacific nations in hosting the event. And it was also part of a whole lot of other climate promises that were really designed to show the world and, and the Australian community, that if Labor was elected, Labor was going to get serious about climate action. So we would be back there on the international stage, we'd be reducing our industrial emissions, we'd be becoming a renewable energy superpower. And to go to your question, is Labor still planning on hosting this event? There's nothing to indicate that it's not. Penny Wong has been flying around the Pacific over the last 12 months and I think even in her most recent visit to Tuvalu, she indicated that Australia would be hosting a COP in partnership with Pacific countries.

RUBY:

Hmm. Okay. So it's clear at this point then that the Australian government still has significant interest in fossil fuel projects. Given that, how is the relationship between the Albanese government and various Pacific nations tracking at the moment?

POLLY:

I think the Australian Government, Australia has been on its best behaviour for the better part of a year and has said all the right things about renewable energy and critical minerals and hydrogen and and the Pacific.

Archival Tape – Penny Wong:

“This is a different Australian government and a different Australia and we will stand shoulder to shoulder with you, our Pacific family, in response to this crisis. We understand that we need to work together like never before, for our peoples and for generations to come.”

POLLY:

But Australia hasn't increased its climate finance to the Pacific in the latest budget. All the money was for defence and security in the region. You know, law and order in the region which is really protecting Australia's interests more than anyone else, and again is to try and deter that threat in inverted commas of China. They haven't boosted the amount of climate finance that the previous government had committed, yet they still are giving $11 billion every year to fossil fuel subsidies. And recently the Northern Territory Government announced fracking would proceed in the Beetaloo Basin and the Federal Government has given that its blessing. A new coal mine has been approved. Of course the Australian Government subsidised a kind of fossil fuel export facility in Northern Territory. And I think the actions that contradict the rhetoric that we've heard for the last year are becoming very apparent to Pacific leaders and I think that is going to undermine what started off as a really promising relationship and it's also going to affect whether Pacific leaders do ultimately support Australia's bid for the COP. You know, while our government has been spending vast amounts of money on submarines and worrying about what China's going to do in the next 40 years, Pacific leaders have been mobilising and have issued what was called the Port Vila Treaty. Six countries publicly issued a resolution to say that they were no longer going to believe the fossil fuel lie and have issued a call for a fossil fuel free Pacific. So there's a clear disconnect between what Australia says it's doing and how Australia says the Pacific is feeling and potentially how the Pacific is actually feeling and what the Pacific is going to do in response.

RUBY:

We’ll be back in a moment.

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RUBY:

Polly, It seems like there's this open question still then about whether Pacific nations will ultimately support Australia's bid to co-host a COP. But what about the rest of the world? Because in the past we've been singled out, along with countries like Saudi Arabia and Russia, for our continued reliance on fossil fuels. And earlier you were suggesting that that might not necessarily be an issue, that petro states are not cut out of hosting COP. So does our continued reliance on fossil fuels change anything in our bid to host? Does it matter at this point?

POLLY:

Well, I think it should matter. I think it's really important to remember that the Paris Agreement, which is the whole international framework that is being discussed at the COP, is about keeping global temperature rises as close to 1.5 degrees of warming as possible, and Australia's own domestic climate target isn't actually aligned with the 1.5 degree goal. So we're potentially already in breach of this international treaty. So do we have the right and the credibility to host an event like this? I think this is the fundamental question straight off the bat. So process wise, what has to happen is Australia doesn't just need the support of the Pacific region and Pacific leaders. It needs to have support from its own little regional UN bloc. So countries like Switzerland and New Zealand, the United States - they all have to agree to support Australia's bid and many of them have indicated currently that yes, they will, they do support Australia's bid. They haven't nominated it officially yet. But I think what's really important to remember is that the Australian Government is incredibly good at marketing. You know, we've had some crack at tourism campaigns, it's even better at greenwashing and it heavily promotes a vision of green hydrogen, critical minerals... What it doesn't mention is that all these things are in addition to fossil fuel expansion. They're not instead of fossil fuels, all that stuff will be happening as well. And I'm not sure whether the international community or the countries who said that they're going to be supporting Australia's bid are actually aware of that or aware of the decades in which the Australian Government has used these UN climate conferences to water down global agreements and to secure loopholes ultimately to protect our resources industry. Like literally decades, the Kyoto Protocol, we completely gamed, we changed international accounting rules so we could actually increase emissions instead of reducing them. We're still trying to find markets for our fossil fuel exports. The Prime Minister was in India and yes, he was trying to secure markets, you know, buyers for green hydrogen and critical minerals. The media didn't promote the fact that he was out there trying to sell Australia's gas and coal as well. So is there really any incentive to host an event like this in good faith, or is it going to be more incentivised by trying to subvert it? Because if the Australian Government raises the climate ambition of Korea, of Japan, of India, then its essentially talking its biggest buyers of our fossil fuels out of buying them.

RUBY:

Yeah, I mean, surely the very idea of hosting a COP does pose quite a big problem for the Australian Government. Now if they have to walk this line between saying we're taking climate change seriously and then the reality of some government policies and, and you'd think that hosting a COP would, would really throw that tension into relief and politically speaking, might no longer seem like such a good idea.

POLLY:

Yeah, I'm to be clear, I'm not for or against the COP. I recognise I sound incredibly cynical. You know, whatever works to get Australia to stop producing and exporting fossil fuels I'm for. And one good thing that has come out of this is that it started a conversation about whether Australia actually deserves to host an event like this. Is it going to be ultimately rewarded for decades of greenwash if it is given this event? It's going to be exposed on the world stage in 2026. If it's not given hosting rights, then I don't think that's a bad thing either, because it shows that actually someone, or countries, and world leaders are taking the process seriously and saying it should only be awarded to climate leaders. There are a lot of domestic supporters in Australia who see hosting the COP as a way for Australia to kind of boost its ambition, like the idea that hosting this event is so prestigious and desirable that it's really going to make Australia want to better itself, kind of boost its game.

Archival Tape – Mark Alfred:

“Hey everyone, it's Mark Alfred from the Pacific and Christine Ali from WWF Australia, we’re here at COP and…”

POLLY:

So there is a kind of a small movement in Australia that is really championing Australia's bid very heavily and it's been described by WWF as Australia's Olympic moment on climate action.

Archival Tape – Christine Ali:

“Yeah, I think it's a really exciting time. It's great to see Australia stepping up as a real climate leader and wonderful to be working really cooperatively with the region”.

Archival Tape – Mark Alfred

“Well there you have it.”

POLLY:

And again, it's that this is the opportunity for Australia to really show the world its leadership. It's that Olympic metaphor I think that probably is most worrying because if you look back at history, the Olympics has consistently been used by countries with very questionable reputations to try and, well, essentially sports wash human rights abuses, you know, political instability, environmental transgressions. So the COP is really a great PR exercise. And in a joint media release, ministers Penny Wong, Chris Bowen and Pat Conroy all said that co-hosting COP 31 will help restore Australia's reputation. And that to me seems to suggest very strongly what they're actually interested in. You know, we've now had 12 months since the last election. There's been more than enough time to at least shift the dial a little bit on Australia's emissions or our intent to keep producing and exporting fossil fuels. We haven't seen any of that, but we're still hearing a lot about Australia's reputation and that's what good marketers do, that's what good communicators do, and Australia excels at that. I think one positive thing to come out of this is that it is starting another really important conversation and added scrutiny domestically and internationally to Australia's climate contradictions between our rhetoric and what we're actually doing. And that can only be a good thing. The more pressure Australia is under, the more chance there is of action. Minister Bowen loves to remind us how little time there is till 2030. More pressure from all sides domestically and externally and from the Pacific can only raise ambition and that can only ultimately achieve action.

RUBY:

Hmm. Polly, thank you so much for your time.

POLLY:

Oh, pleasure. Thanks Ruby.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today…

The Senate has passed the legislation to hold a referendum on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament later this year. The vote ends months of parliamentary procedures and now requires the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to set a referendum date, in between two and six months time.

And…

Australia’s four largest banks have downgraded their growth forecasts for the economy for the year ahead. It comes as households pull back on spending in response to interest rate rises.

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am. See you tomorrow.

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