Australia has “gone from lifter to leaner” on action against climate change, and must not block the topic’s inclusion on the agenda for the G20 summit in Brisbane next month, the former treasurer Wayne Swan will say.



In a speech to the Lowy Institute on Wednesday, Swan will argue that Tony Abbott plans to “list the fig leaf of ‘energy efficiency’ on the agenda as a means to camouflage the anger and dismay within the international community at Australia’s stance as the first nation to go backwards”.

Swan wants the Brisbane leaders’ meeting on 15 and 16 November to specifically discuss climate change and spreading fairly the benefits of economic growth.

Abbott has previously argued the focus of the G20 should be on boosting economic growth because that was “the best way to address global poverty”.

When asked about climate change in February the prime minister said: “We do not want to clutter up the G20 agenda with every worthy and important cause because if we do, we will squander the opportunity to make a difference in the vital area of economic growth.”

But Swan, the Labor treasurer from 2007 to 2013, says climate change previously sat at the core of the G20 agenda “not just as an environmental issue but as a core issue of sustainable economic growth”.

“In the corridors of Washington, Berlin and elsewhere, there is genuine dismay about the lack of attention to climate change in the G20 agenda,” he says.

Referring to the Gillard government’s carbon pricing scheme, which has since been abolished by the Abbott government, Swan says: “Australia has been recognised around the world as an energy-intensive nation and a beneficiary of significant commodity exports, for taking seriously its international obligations to reduce its carbon emissions.”

“At best, Australia has gone from leader to laggard on climate change,” Swan says.

“At worst, it’s gone from lifter to leaner. This is at the very time significant players like the US and China are more willing than ever to address climate change, and international financial institutions like the IMF are highlighting the strong links between climate change action and positive economic outcomes.

“It’s important the Australian people understand just how unacceptable their government’s climate denialism is in the highest councils of global economic decision-making.

“Sadly, whatever the outcome of the G20 on any of the other substantive issues before it, history will recall that in 2014 Australia used its privileged position to slow progress on what President Obama has called a ‘growing and urgent threat’.”

Mining companies are campaigning for the G20 to support continued use of coal as a solution to the global “energy poverty” crisis.

Abbott said on Monday coal should not be demonised because it was “good for humanity”.

On Tuesday the treasurer, Joe Hockey, dismissed the finding that Australia was the highest per-capita emitter of greenhouse gases in the OECD.

Swan will also suggest G20 finance ministers and central bank governors who met in Cairns last month failed to make meaningful progress on infrastructure policy.

“As the host of the G20, the Abbott government’s ideological bent has denied the G20 an opportunity to build a consensus around the importance of debt-financed infrastructure,” Swan says, according to an advance copy of his speech.

“The big announcement we got from Cairns was a global infrastructure centre involving among other things a global database of infrastructure projects to help match potential investors with projects.

“I know you won’t mind my being blunt: this is simply not enough – a piece of new bureaucracy to cover for a lack of any meaningful progress on a vital economic agenda. And I know I’m not the only one who thinks that, including some of the people who will be in the room in Brisbane.”

Swan reflects on the role played by the G20, a forum for economic co-operation that includes 19 countries and the European Union. The G20 held its first leaders’ summit in Washington, DC, in December 2008 to plan responses to the global financial crisis, including strengthening financial regulation.

Swan describes the elevation of the G20 as “Australia’s biggest foreign policy achievement since the founding of Apec, 19 years previously”.

“I can tell you that when the discussion started about meeting in a broader group than the G8 to tackle the snowballing global financial crisis, 20 was not the number we were looking at,” he says.

“It was hard to move people off eight, for a start, but most of the talk was in the low teens – a G12 just adding China, India, Brazil and South Africa was a firm favourite. That we arrived at the G20, more particularly, that we got to 20, and so Australia was in the room and not with noses pressed against the glass outside, is a great achievement.

“Inevitably, though, having made such pains of ourselves insisting on the G20 as the steering room of the global economy, the expectations on Australia in its host year are enormous.”