As world leaders clear their diaries to attend next week’s COP27—the UN’s annual climate change summit, which will this year be hosted in Egypt—Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese will stay home, despite concerns over the issue reaching record highs.
According to the Australia Institute’s annual Climate of the Nation report, concerns about climate change in Australia are at “all-time highs”, as a growing number of voters start to throw their support behind a range of decarbonisation policies and climate action.
The report, which folds together responses from a nationwide survey of more than 2,500 people, found that not only are more people growing more concerned about the impacts of climate change, but that their concerns have intensified, too.
The survey found that 57 percent of Australians support the International Energy Agency pathway, which says that avoiding “the worst effects of climate change” by limiting global temperature rises to 1.5ºC, will require no new fossil fuels projects to be built.
As it stands, there are more than 100 new fossil fuels projects in the pipeline across Australia.
“Australia will struggle to be taken credibly as a clean energy export superpower while we remain a fossil fuel export superpower,” said Richie Merzian, the director of climate and energy at the Australia Institute.
According to the survey, just under two thirds of Australians support an end to new coal mines. Meanwhile, 73 percent of those asked think that all levels of Australian government should plan to phase out coal mining and transition into other industries.
Sophie McNeill, an Australia researcher at Human Rights Watch, told VICE that, at a minimum, Albanese’s attendance at COP27 is crucial if the government wants to show the international community it is serious about climate change.
“I think people are getting a bit weary of the Albanese government trying to have it both ways. You can’t be a climate champion and approve new fossil fuel projects—sorry, but it’s not a part of the deal,” McNeill said.
“We had a climate election, the Australian people spoke firmly, and it was reinforced in these survey results today: everyone is increasingly concerned and worried and scared about this. COP27 is where the prime minister should be next week.”
The prime minister will instead send Climate Change and Energy Minister, Chris Bowen, who will lead Australia’s delegation at the conference and join United States President Joe Biden, and newly-elected conservative British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, who faced similar public pressure from his own party to walk back an earlier decision not to attend.
When former prime minister, Scott Morrison, was slow to confirm his own attendance to the summit just last year, Albanese was critical, and then critical again when Morrison finally did attend.
While he was there, the former prime minister gave a speech that promised world leaders that his government was handling climate change “the Australian way”, which at the time ranked dead last. The speech was heavily debunked by a range of experts, and even went viral on the Chinese social media platform, Weibo, after Morrison mistakenly told a sparsely-filled room that there was “global momentum to tackle China”.
After Morrison delivered a speech at the summit in Glasgow, Albanese told reporters that the world “wasn’t really listening” to Australia. Heading into the final sitting weeks of the year, some members of parliament fear that this time around, the world might not be given the chance.
Independent MP for Warringah, Zali Steggall, told VICE that Albanese’s absence is a massive missed opportunity for Australia to “rejoin the world stage” as a nation that has the potential to be a world leader on climate change.
Instead, she said, “we have 114 new approvals” for coal and gas projects in Australia under the Albanese government, which run at odds with global ambitions to keep the Earth’s climate below 2ºC of warming.
“To suggest that there is any scope for new projects is ridiculous. It’s a farce,” Steggall said.
“I think what’s interesting is a contrast of [what we saw] in the initial period post-election, [Albanese] was very quick to go on a global tour of international relationship building, found the time to go to Ukraine, and [stand for] plenty of photo ops,” she said.
“But now, COP27 is the serious end of the business, and it’s incredibly important that we tackle these issues, especially at a time where you have a global crisis in relation to inflation, energy prices, and the need to accelerate transition.”
On Wednesday, Albanese defended his decision to miss the summit, saying he “can’t be in all places at once”, and suggested that this year’s summit may be less important than the last, because its focus will be on implementing existing policies, rather than brainstorming new ones.
Greens leader Adam Bandt suggested Albanese would only avoid the summit because he knows he would “cop a grilling” for the continued expansion of coal and gas in Australia since he entered office earlier this year.
“Whoever represents Australia at the summit will find it hard to argue that we should host a future global climate summit while also opening new coal and gas mines,” Bandt told VICE.
“The rest of the world wants us to stop digging and whoever goes will have to face the music on Labor’s support for new coal and gas.”
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