A new report released today by the Australia Institute think tank makes it clear Australia’s plan to use an accounting loophole to meet its commitment under the United Nations sponsored Paris Agreement on climate change has no legal basis and suggests it has reneged on a pledge to make deeper emissions cuts once a global deal was reached.
The analysis commissioned by the Australia Institute and carried out by Climate Analytics, a Berlin-based science and policy institute, found there were no grounds for Australia to claim credit towards its Paris Agreement emissions target for having beaten targets under its predecessor, the Kyoto Protocol.
The report found the two agreements were separate treaties and should not be treated as a continuation of one agreement.
The report has been released as Australia faced a challenge from at least 100, mostly developing, countries at the United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP25) summit in the Spanish capital, Madrid, over its plan to use a large amount of carry over credits from the Kyoto Protocol to meet its emissions target for the Paris Agreement in 2030.
Carryover credits were allowed under the soon-to-be-obsolete Kyoto Protocol in a bid to encourage countries to be as ambitious in cutting pollution as possible.
They were not mentioned in the original Paris Agreement but have been added to the text being negotiated in Madrid, with some countries proposing they be banned.
Officials of Australia’s conservative Liberal-National government told Senate estimates hearings earlier this year that Australia was the only country planning to use them, and several developed countries have explicitly ruled out using them.
Australia strongly opposes a ban and has factored in the credits as necessary for it to meet its Paris Agreement commitment.
The Australia Institute says the key findings of the report are:
- There is currently no legal basis for the ‘carryover’ of pre-2021 units from the Kyoto Protocol for use under the Paris Agreement. The Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement are separate treaties.
- Even within its own legal framework, the Kyoto Protocol does not permit the carryover of units or underlying reductions beyond the 2013-2020 second commitment period.
- Most of the claimed ‘overachievement’ derives directly from the fact that Australia had substantial domestic deforestation emissions in 1990. It would be perverse to reward Australia in 2030 for the existence of large-scale deforestation that took place forty years earlier.
- So called ‘overachievement’ can also be said to come directly from Australia’s decisions to allow itself an increase of eight per cent in its emissions in the first Kyoto commitment period compared to 1990 levels and a minimal 0.5 per cent reduction for the second period. Having chosen far less ambitious targets than other countries Australia is now claiming to have ‘overachieved.’
- Efforts to seek recognition under the Paris Agreement for these historical artefacts as ‘overachievement’, in an effort to minimize future mitigation efforts, would be antithetical to the goals and principles of the Paris Agreement, to which Australia has itself subscribed as a Party.
- Australia’s exploits to water down its climate action through loopholes would only encourage other countries to follow suit.
- Were Australia to succeed in using carryover credits in the way it has proposed it would reduce Australia’s 2030 target from 26 per cent to only a 14.3 per cent reduction below 2005 emissions levels using 2018 projections (the cut is even greater under 2019 projections).
Anote Tong, former President of Kiribati, has strongly criticised Australia’s plans saying; “The Paris Agreement is a new and separate treaty, to start afresh to take ambitious climate action going forward and there seems to be no legal grounds to import questionable credits from past treaties.”
“If Australia has overachieved, then it means it has the capacity to do more, not less.
“Australia is on fire due in large part to climate change and it is beyond me why the Australian government is looking for ways to weaken the Paris Agreement so it and others can do less to solve the climate crisis.
“If Australia really believes it is a member of the Pacific family, and cares about its own people, then it should stand in solidarity to ensure the integrity of the Paris Agreement.
“We are not even on track to limit global warming to 1.5 (degrees Celsius), and it is not right that some countries are looking to do less. It is important that Australia shows leadership in the most challenged region in the world.”
Richie Merzian, climate and energy director at the Australia Institute said; “Australia’s emissions from electricity, transport and industrial production are still rising but Australia is claiming it will meet its Paris Agreement commitment to reduce emissions by 26 to 28 per cent by relying on a range of complicated accounting tricks.”
“Australia has always demanded an easy ride at international climate talks,” Mr Merzian added.
“Having distorted the rules in the past, and having previously demanded some of the least ambitious targets in the developed world, the Australian government is now arguing that because we ‘overperformed’ against past benchmarks we should gain some ‘credit’ for this in the future.
“This research makes clear that there is no scientific, moral or legal foundation for the Australian government’s determination to gain credit for its historic recalcitrance.
“Australia’s determination to build new coal mines and ignore the link between enormous bushfires and climate change has already diminished its credibility at these talks, but demanding the right to use the land clearing practices of the 1990s as a substitute for burning less coal today is a bridge to far for the vast majority of the countries gathered in good conscience at this COP,” he added.
“It is a serious concern that the Australian government continues to employ dodgy accounting in order to evade action and actually reduce its emissions,” said Dr Bill Hare, report co-author and head of Climate Analytics.
“There is nothing to be proud of claiming credits for action that never happened under the Kyoto Protocol so that Australia can bludge off the efforts of others, nor, as the report shows, undermining the Paris Agreement by demanding legal recognition for emission units that do not belong to it.”
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