What is Australia's fair share when it comes to financing the necessary climate transition?
In a headline today, the Australian government has pledged AU$150m in #ClimateFinance for Pacific nations.
Good news, right? Isn't this PM Anthony #Albanese "ending the #ClimateWars" by actually doing what #Australia ought to have done years ago? Let's consider that assumption.
Back in 2009 at the much hyped, but ultimately deeply disappointing international climate negotiations in #Copenhagen known as #COP15, one step forward that was agreed, even as more comprehensive or ambitious agreements slipped away was that the wealthy nations of the world (including #Australia) collectively pledged to be providing US$100b each year to help the poorer nations transition away from #FossilFuels (#ClimateMitigation) and develop in ways that help societies adapt to the warming that cannot be mitigated (#ClimateAdaptation).
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Over the last ten years, the promise of a #GreenClimateFund has been a big piece of the puzzle when it comes to global climate agreement. Arguably, the #ParisClimateAgreement reached in 2015 and signed by every nation in the world (bar war-torn #Syria) in 2016 was one of the biggest steps forward in international cooperation over a global crisis in the history of humanity (while still being thunderously inadequate to the scale of the #ClimateCrisis). After decades of arguing and partial steps, 2015 was the first time a major agreement had been reached that included all the major polluting nations promising to reduce their carbon emissions towards a goal of at least somewhat #HabitablePlanet
And the pledge of a US$100bn/yr Green Climate Fund was widely acknowledged in international negotiations as a major enabler of this historic Paris Climate Agreement. Though still far from adequate (some estimates said that to be fair, it really ought to have been five times as large), it was nonetheless a solid first formal step towards recognising the massively unequal responsibilities of various nations when it comes to causing planetary #ClimateDisruption.
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