Australian Targets

Thursday, November 11, 2021

Regulations to force CEFC green bank to fund Carbon Capture and Storage wins Australia a Gold Fossil Award, Brazil 2nd for backwards time travel

The dastardly deeds keep rolling with Australia, with commitment to change the regulations for the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to fund Carbon Capture and Storage to keep fossil fuels afloat.

The announcement echoed in Glasgow in the cavernous meeting halls of the UN Climate Change conference COP26 and Climate Action Network awarded a 1st place award to Australia. This is Australia's 5th Fossil of the Day award at this COP.

The Federal Government will add $500m boost to CEFC, but will try to update regulations for this money to go on Carbon Capture and Storage (A failed technology), and soil carbon. Legislation is required and this is not a done deal yet. It requires Labor and Senate crossbench to support this. Many Australians will be calling on Labor, Greens and Crossbench MPs and Senators to oppose this change to the CEFC remit.


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, Glasgow, Scotland, DATE 10/11/21

And it’s GOLD for Australia at last at COP26 here in Glasgow!!

Australia wins the first Fossil of the Day award this time.

The day has finally come. After bagging four fossil awards so far at COP26 Australia has now won its first GOLD (applause, please). All that hard work and effort has paid off after:

  • No new policies to reduce emissions or phase out fossil fuels;
  • Failing to deliver ambitious NDCs;
  • Approving three new coal projects in the last months;
  • Ruling out signing the Global Methane Pledge;
  • An ‘inaction plan’ for EVs in favour of gas guzzling cars;
  • Rolling out the red carpet for gas-giant Santos in their COP pavilion;
  • Inviting consultation on ten new areas for offshore petroleum exploration;
  • Not updating the 2030 target.

Now safely back in Oz, the PM has outdone himself by announcing another truly brilliant #ScottyFromMarketing plan. To keep the fossil fuel ball rolling he’s going to invest a whopping $740 million in fossil fuel tech, such as Carbon Capture and Storage, which Australia’s public green bank is going to be forced to swallow.

All eyes are on Glasgow and draft texts at the moment but Scott John Morrison, you’re still catching our eye by flying the carbon emissions flag down under - whatever next.

Brazil wins second place for transporting an entire country back in time 

A report released, this week, by the Brazilian NGO Instituto de Estudos Socioeconômicos (Inesc) showed that Brazil has increased the volume of direct and indirect subsidies granted to fossil fuel companies by 25% from 2019-20 - an astronomical $22bn.This eclipses, by some way, the country’s education budget, which the nation’s Chamber of Deputies has reported fell by 56% between 2014 and 2018, from about $2.3bn to just over $1bn.

Decisions that lead to such breathtaking disparity are very difficult for us to comprehend. We started to understand the mindset that can lead to such inequality after hearing comments from the Brazilian Minister of the Environment, Joaquim Leite, during the COP26 plenary, on Wednesday:

"We have to recognise that where there is a lot of forest, there is a lot of poverty."

On first reading, we mistakenly assumed the statement actually came from the travel journal of an opium-addled 18th century missionary coloniser. But no, those words were actually spoken in Glasgow, in 2021. Unfortunately, they only go to confirm the Brazilian Government's illogical, and very dangerous, rationale. These are sobering figures and comments that make us wish we had a time machine to send Bolsanaro’s government back to the prehistoric age, where their ideas and policies belong.

==END==

About the fossils: The Fossil of the Day awards were first presented at the climate talks in 1999, in Bonn, initiated by the German NGO Forum. During United Nations climate change negotiations (www.unfccc.int), members of the Climate Action Network (CAN), vote for countries judged to have done their 'best' to block progress in the negotiations in the last days of talks.

About CAN: The Climate Action Network (CAN) is a global network of over 1,500 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in more than 120 countries working to promote government and individual action to limit human0induced climate change to ecologically sustainable levels.

Climate Action Network (CAN) is a global network of more than 1,500 civil society organisations in over 130 countries driving collective and sustainable action to fight the climate crisis and to achieve social and racial justice. CAN convenes and coordinates civil society at the UN climate talks and other international events.

www.climatenetwork.org


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