This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Scott Morrison signalled that Australia is unlikely to update its emissions reduction commitments under the Paris agreement before a speech to the UN in which he declared that the media was misrepresenting the country’s climate change record.

During a press conference before his UN speech at a recycling facility in Brooklyn, the prime minister said he wouldn’t characterise “misrepresentations” about Australia’s climate stance as fake news.

But he suggested that negative media coverage fuelled criticism that was “completely false and completely misleading”. People expressed “prejudiced” views about Australia’s climate policy, he said – “Now where do they get their information from? Who knows, maybe they read it.”

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Asked whether Australia intended to update its emissions reduction commitments as required by the Paris agreement’s five-yearly review process, Morrison suggested that Australia’s 2030 target was fixed: “We are keeping to the commitments we have set and do you know why? That’s what I put to the Australian people.”

The Paris global climate accord includes a five-yearly global stocktake to assess collective progress, and Morrison’s signal in the US appears at odds with advice this year from Australian officials who restated a commitment to “review and refine” domestic commitments when the EU and China questioned Australia’s policies.

Asked whether he would keep a commitment Australia made at the Pacific Islands Forum to develop a 2050 climate policy by next year, Morrison said: “We will assess that as we said we would do, but my priority is meeting 2020 and 2030. We will look at the broader context but, honestly, our focus is on meeting those commitments.”

The forum’s communique says all parties to the Paris agreement will “formulate and communicate mid-century long-term low greenhouse gas emissions development strategies by 2020”.

With Morrison facing criticism for failing to attend Monday’s climate action summit at the UN, and with attendees at the UN general assembly reporting that Australia is getting some negative blowback because of climate change – the prime minister sought to use his first address to the UN as leader to project a more positive message about his country’s stance.

“Australia is taking real action on climate change and getting results,” he told world leaders. “We are successfully balancing our global responsibilities with sensible and practical policies to secure our environmental and economic future.

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“Australia’s internal and global critics on climate change willingly overlook or ignore our achievements, as the facts simply don’t fit the narrative they wish to project about our contribution. Australia is responsible for just 1.3% of global emissions. Australia is doing our bit on climate change and we reject any suggestion to the contrary.”

Morrison said few countries in the OECD could report to the general assembly that they had overachieved on their Kyoto commitments. He didn’t mention Australia was given special treatment in the Kyoto process – it was permitted to include carbon emissions from land clearing.

He said emissions per person and the economy’s emissions intensity were at their lowest levels in 29 years. He did not tell the general assembly that emissions across the economy are rising in Australia, and have risen every year since the Coalition abolished the carbon price.

Emissions in the electricity sector had fallen, he said: “In the year to March 2019, emissions from Australia’s electricity sector were 15.7% lower than the peak recorded in the year to June 2009.” But he did not mention that emissions in other sectors of the economy are rising, driven predominantly by an increase in liquefied natural gas production in Western Australia, and transport.

Morrison also noted that while Australia was a “resource-rich country, it is important to note that Australia only accounts for around 5.5% of the world’s coal production”.

After the Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg used an appearance at the UN this week to excoriate the lack of action by world leaders, Morrison returned serve in the same venue. Australia’s prime minister said his view was that children had “a right not just to their future but to their optimism”.

He told the general assembly he received “many letters from children in Australia concerned about their future”.

“We should let our kids be kids – teenagers be teenagers – while we work positively together to deliver practical solutions for them and their future,” he said.

Morrison said Australia was committed “to leading urgent action to combat plastic pollution choking our oceans; tackle overexploitation of our fisheries, prevent ocean habitat destruction and take action on climate change”.

He said Australia was determined to create a “circular plastics economy”.

“Recently, I announced that Australia will ban exports of waste plastic, paper, glass and tyres, starting in 2020. That’s about 1.4m tonnes of potent recyclable material.

“Australia is also leading on practical research and development into recycling – turning recycled plastic and glass waste into roads, manufacturing 100% recycled PET bottles and capturing methane and waste to create energy.

“New technologies are coming on line with the potential to recycle used plastics into valuable new plastics – creating a circular plastics economy.”

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He said Australia would invest $167m in a domestic recycling plan and create the right investment environment so that new technologies were commercialised, “preventing pollution entering our oceans, and creating valuable new products”.

The prime minister also restated that Australia would be investing in climate actions through the aid budget in its region rather than through the UN climate fund.

He rejected a view expressed this week by the UN’s chief, António Guterres, who warned the 74th general assembly that the world faced a “great fracture”, with the countries at risk of cleaving between the US and China.

Australia would resist the path of “binary choices”, Morrison said.

“Approaching its 75th anniversary next year, the UN must reform and evolve to respond effectively to the challenges of the 21st century, and to fulfil its core mandate, the UN must be ever mindful of the principles and values that have always been foundational to the UN’s efforts.”

He said the UN was founded on liberal democratic principles: “We believe they should remain the guiding principles for the UN into the future.”