Foreign Minister Penny Wong addresses UN General Assembly on climate action and reforming the United Nations

Australia's in person delegation to the United Nations General Assembly, 77th session, was lead by Foreign Minister Penny Wong and included Yawuru elder from Broome and Senator Patrick Dodson.

Although the media reporting concentrated on her remarks regarding the need to reform the United Nations, the Ukraine War and geopolitics, a substantial amount of her speech focussed on Australia's escalating action addressing climate action both for Australia and in the Pacific region.

UN Secretary General speech at #COP26: "We know what must be done" as negotiations centre on draft decision texts

UN Secretary General setting the tone for the final days of negotiations, arguing we need ambition in the COP26 decision text and in the CMA (Paris Agreement) Decision text.

The Draft decision text as of Friday morning still mentions coal and fossil fuels. The original Paris Agreement does not mention coal, oil or gas, or fossil fuels even once. Will it survive till the gavel comes down?

Veteran climate journalist Ed King has summarised current status, and he argues the draft text appears to maintain reasonable ambition:

"The latest COP26 draft political text landed at 0713 (UK time), and appears significantly more balanced with stronger elements on adaptation, finance and loss & damage. The elements of the text aimed at speeding up action to close the gap towards emissions goals are there - with no radical changes from the previous version and dates still intact. The language on coal has been qualified but has survived the night, which many predicted it wouldn't." 

• Para 27: New UN work programme to scale up GHG cuts, reporting at COP27 in 2022
• Para 28: 'Urges' [strong language] countries who have not landed new plans to do so by 2022
• Para 29: Requests all countries to raise climate targets in line with 1.5-2C by and of 2022
• Para 30: Commissions annual UN assessment of climate plans from 2022
• Para 32: Urges [strong] countries to deliver net zero mid century plans by 2022
• Para 36: Signal to countries to accelerate shift off fossil fuels, coal to renewable energy
• Para 44: Notes "deep regret" of developed countries for missing $100bn target 
• Para 46: Urges countries' to 'fully deliver on the $100 billion goal 'urgently' through 2025
• Para 66: Welcomes further operationalisation of the Santiago Network on Loss and Damage
• Para 67: Decides [very strong] the Santiago Network will have a technical assistance facility to provide financial support for technical assistance on loss and damage 

UN Emissions Gap report says 7.6% emissions reduction per year required to meet 1.5C Climate Target, Australia marked as a climate laggard

Global greenhouse gas emissions need to fall by 7.6 per cent each year between 2020 and 2030 or the world will miss the opportunity to get on track towards the 1.5°C temperature goal of the Paris Agreement, warns the latest UN Environment Emissions Gap report. It is clear we have a global climate emergency.

If current committed actions are all undertaken, the world is on target to heat at least 3.2C degrees by 2100 warns the report.

G20 nations account for 78 per cent of all emissions, but 15 G20 members, including Australia, have not committed to a timeline for net-zero emissions.

At the moment Australian total emissions are currently rising, and projected to keep rising past 2030. This is unsustainable. Australia proposes to keep current low targets and no substantial ambition coming into the UN climate conference COP25 in Madrid this December. Indeed, the Australian Government want to negotiate a 'deal' to use an accounting trick to halve our already low 2030 Paris Agreement Target, by arguing Kyoto Protocol credits can be used to meet Paris Agreemnet targets. No other country is proposing similar use of these credits. They are two spearate agreements.

The Australian Government is sending Energy and Emissions reduction Minister Angus Taylor to attempt to bluster a deal for Australia. His overtures are likely to be rebuffed by the global community, especially given the UN Environment emissions Gap report which advises ALL countries need to be reducing emissions, but especially the industrialised nations like Australia.

Australian missing in action at UN Climate Action Summit

It has been well noted that Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison did not attend the UN Climate Action Summit.

Indeed, the Secretary General made clear that only those nations that brought updated plans would be allowed to speak. But the Australian Prime Minister could still have attended. The Government chose not to, as the Morrison Government has no plan for extra ambition, no speech written, no climate and energy policy of substance.

Australian total emissions continue to rise, with National Greenhouse Gas Inventory to March 2019 showing a 0.6% increase.

Greta Thunberg at Climate Action Summit: "young people are starting to understand your betrayal"

Three speeches from the UN Climate Action Summit: Greta Thunberg, António Guterres UN Secretary General, and Pope Francis.

Greta Thunberg full speech at UN Climate Summit, New York

"This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be standing here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to me for hope? How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. And all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!

"For more than 30 years the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away, and come here saying that you are doing enough, when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight.

With today’s emissions levels, our remaining CO2 budget will be gone in less than 8.5 years.

You say you “hear” us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I don’t want to believe that. Because if you fully understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil. And I refuse to believe that.

The popular idea of cutting our emissions in half in 10 years only gives us a 50% chance of staying below 1.5C degrees, and the risk of setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human control.

Maybe 50% is acceptable to you. But those numbers don’t include tipping points, most feedback loops, additional warming hidden by toxic air pollution or the aspects of justice and equity. They also rely on my and my children’s generation sucking hundreds of billions of tonnes of your CO2 out of the air with technologies that barely exist. So a 50% risk is simply not acceptable to us – we who have to live with the consequences.

To have a 67% chance of staying below a 1.5C global temperature rise – the best odds given by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – the world had 420 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide left to emit back on 1 January 2018. Today that figure is already down to less than 350 gigatonnes. How dare you pretend that this can be solved with business-as-usual and some technical solutions. With today’s emissions levels, that remaining CO2 budget will be entirely gone in less than eight and a half years.

There will not be any solutions or plans presented in line with these figures today. Because these numbers are too uncomfortable. And you are still not mature enough to tell it like it is.

You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us I say we will never forgive you. We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now is where we draw the line. The world is waking up. And change is coming, whether you like it or not.