The climate catastrophe balloon is losing altitude but COP co-president Chris Bowen obviously has yet to get the message. As energy price pressures continue at home, Mr Bowen has set up a modestly titled “office of the presidency” inside his Climate Change and Energy Department for his additional responsibilities in Turkey for this year’s COP31 UN climate conference.
News that a revised set of possible worst-case scenarios will be used in the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change state of the climate report, AR7, is confirmation that peak climate has passed. The worst-case scenario this century is now 40 per cent less than what was previously routinely misused by activists to jolt policymakers into action.
There has been a further blow for climate diehards with the decision by Britain to cut by half its promised contribution to the Green Climate Fund, the UN’s key redistribution effort.
The British government has notified the UN fund that its contribution for the 2024-27 period will be cut from £1.622bn to £1.1bn. Britain was the GCF’s biggest contributor after the withdrawal of the US in January but it is redirecting the money from the GCF to spend on defence.
The UN is worried that other European donors will do the same.
Australia returned to the Green Climate Fund under the Albanese government after we were pulled out by the Coalition over concerns about financial governance. Yet we have still delivered $1.3bn in climate finance to the Pacific. According to DFAT, climate change is at the heart of Australia’s International Development Policy. The policy commits to incorporate a climate objective in at least half of all new bilateral and regional investments valued over $3m from 2024-25. This goal increases to 80 per cent in 2028-29.
As president for COP negotiations, Mr Bowen will be under pressure to keep the funds flowing to developing countries, the major concern of the UN process.
Unfortunately for taxpayers, the federal government has admitted it cannot give an accurate account of how much money is being spent on net-zero programs domestically. This is because net-zero spending “cuts across many portfolios” and “existing budget systems do not readily facilitate reporting on established programs”.
We do know that funds have been used to create a new “office of the presidency” under the “International and Climate Negotiations” division within the Climate Change and Energy Department.
Opposition energy spokesman Dan Tehan is right to question what exactly the office will do and how much it will cost. The Coalition has claimed the government will spend more than $200m related to Australia’s role at the COP summit. It is an extraordinary figure but a welcome reduction on the $2bn that could have been needed had Australia been successful in its bid to host the meeting.
Mr Bowen’s response that criticisms showed the Coalition was “embarrassingly out of touch, and not fit to govern” is a case of “doth protest too much”. The case for proper cost-benefit accounting is now more important than ever, particularly when it comes to climate action.
The climate catastrophe balloon is losing altitude but COP co-president Chris Bowen obviously has yet to get the message. As energy price pressures continue at home, Mr Bowen has set up a modestly titled “office of the presidency” inside his Climate Change and Energy Department for his additional responsibilities in Turkey for this year’s COP31 UN climate conference.
News that a revised set of possible worst-case scenarios will be used in the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change state of the climate report, AR7, is confirmation that peak climate has passed. The worst-case scenario this century is now 40 per cent less than what was previously routinely misused by activists to jolt policymakers into action.
There has been a further blow for climate diehards with the decision by Britain to cut by half its promised contribution to the Green Climate Fund, the UN’s key redistribution effort.
The British government has notified the UN fund that its contribution for the 2024-27 period will be cut from £1.622bn to £1.1bn. Britain was the GCF’s biggest contributor after the withdrawal of the US in January but it is redirecting the money from the GCF to spend on defence.
The UN is worried that other European donors will do the same.
Australia returned to the Green Climate Fund under the Albanese government after we were pulled out by the Coalition over concerns about financial governance. Yet we have still delivered $1.3bn in climate finance to the Pacific. According to DFAT, climate change is at the heart of Australia’s International Development Policy. The policy commits to incorporate a climate objective in at least half of all new bilateral and regional investments valued over $3m from 2024-25. This goal increases to 80 per cent in 2028-29.
As president for COP negotiations, Mr Bowen will be under pressure to keep the funds flowing to developing countries, the major concern of the UN process.
Unfortunately for taxpayers, the federal government has admitted it cannot give an accurate account of how much money is being spent on net-zero programs domestically. This is because net-zero spending “cuts across many portfolios” and “existing budget systems do not readily facilitate reporting on established programs”.
We do know that funds have been used to create a new “office of the presidency” under the “International and Climate Negotiations” division within the Climate Change and Energy Department.
Opposition energy spokesman Dan Tehan is right to question what exactly the office will do and how much it will cost. The Coalition has claimed the government will spend more than $200m related to Australia’s role at the COP summit. It is an extraordinary figure but a welcome reduction on the $2bn that could have been needed had Australia been successful in its bid to host the meeting.
Mr Bowen’s response that criticisms showed the Coalition was “embarrassingly out of touch, and not fit to govern” is a case of “doth protest too much”. The case for proper cost-benefit accounting is now more important than ever, particularly when it comes to climate action.