Australia wins third fossil award for reducing climate aid funding among trifecta of Fossil Awards for USA at COP25

On Monday December 9, Australia picked up it's third Fossil of the Day award at this United Nationas climate conference COP25 meeting in Madrid.

This award was goven to the USA and Australia for not contributing to the Green Climate Fund on Fonance Day at the conference. Both USA and Australia have stopped pledging any money to the Fund which allocates money for projects in developing countries for both mitigation and adaptation.

Turnbull increases climate aid for Pacific at Regional leaders meeting

Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull attended the Pacific Leaders' meeting forum, and announced a small increase in climate related aid for the region. But this comes after the Abbott Government slashed Australia's foreign aid budget to extremely low levels in 2014.

Related: Pacific pariah: how Australia’s love of coal has left it out in the diplomatic cold | Pacific Island nations lead in ratification of Paris Agreement on climate change

Can a leopard change it's spots? Australia's schizophrenic #climate diplomacy

This article originally appeared at nofibs.com.au


It seems Ministers from 62 nations were won over by Australian Environment Minister Greg Hunt's charm at Precop with applause being delivered to speeches from Ministers from both Australia and Canada. (see my article on the Paris Precop ministerial meeting)

Australia is being seen as back on side diplomatically on the climate issue, especially after Hunt was a important broker in a deal phasing down HFC emissions in the Montreal Protocol update last week.

Australian Government funds $4 million sweet deal for #climate contrarian Bjorn Lomborg

This sweet deal for statistician and climate contrarian Bjorn Limborg is likely to really piss off Australian climate scientists.

With one fell swoop the Government has alienated climate scientists, and probably a heavy proportion of other academics and the general public. The Abbott Government is funding climate contrarian Dr Bjorn Lomborg, a Danish Professor of Statistics, to establish a 'Consensus Centre' at the University of Western Australia at a taxpayer funded cost of $4 million for a four year period, at a time when the Treasurer is arguing we need budget constraint.

Of course most Australian climate scientists were probably already not very sympathetic to the Abbott Government with the failure to appoint a Science Minister, axing the Climate Commission (a budget saving of just $1.5 million), and cuts to science and research funding.

It has been clear for many years that 97% of research papers say climate change is happening, and while Lomborg does not directly deny anthropogenic climate change he casts doubt on climate impacts, often cherry picks his data selectively, makes straw man arguments, and runs cost benefit models to argue for delaying climate mitigation action.