Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison has sharply rebutted his British counterpart Boris Johnson, who has predicted that the recently concluded COP26 climate conference in Glasgow would be the "death knell” for coal power.
“I don’t believe it did,” said Morrison, after being asked whether he agreed with Johnson’s assessment about the future of coal.
“And for all of those who are working in that industry in Australia, they’ll continue to be working in that industry for decades to come, because there will be a transition that will occur over a long period of time,” said Morrison.
The Australian leader said that he wasn’t apologetic for “Australia standing up for our national interests, whether they be our security interests or our economic interests.”
“We have a balanced plan to achieve net zero by 2050, but we're not going to make rural and regional Australians pay for that,” he added.
The Morrison government has officially made a commitment to reduce its carbon emissions by 26 to 28 percent (based on 2005 levels) by 2030. Morrison said that Australia would “beat” and “exceed” its climate change targets, after he was criticised by opposition and climate activists who claim that Canberra isn't doing enough to tackle climate change.
Australia is one of the world’s biggest producers and exporters of coal. Despite the ongoing global push to reduce reliance on coal power to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2030, the Australian coal industry is projected to grow in coming years, according to Canberra’s own assessment.
Although Australia’s metallurgical coal exports are expected to rise from 171 million tonnes this year to 186 million tonnes in 2022-23, its thermal coal exports are also projected to rise partially during the next year, according to the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics has revealed that the number of people employed in coal mining rose by more than 22 percent between September and November last year, compared with the same period a year earlier.
Morrison’s deputy Barnaby Joyce was even more bullish than his boss about the future of coal, arguing that revenues from coal exports paid for many public services in the country.
“Obviously, in Australia, we need to understand that our economy is vastly different to [British MP and COP26 chairman] Alok Sharma’s economy, and I saw his depressed look as he put down his gavel, but maybe he could have led the way and told us he was going to shut down the North Sea oil production, one of England’s biggest exports, or UK’s biggest exports, maybe the Scottish have a different view on it,” Joyce said on Monday.
“It is one of [Britain's] biggest exports... second-biggest export,” said Joyce, who chairs the National Party of Australia, an ally of the country’s ruling coalition.
The defiant statements by the Australian leadership come a day after the British Prime Minister conceded during a press conference that the nations had failed to come to a unanimous agreement on ending the use of coal, despite 90 percent of the global economy agreeing to a net zero carbon emissions target in the Glasgow Climate Pact.
“We can lobby, we can cajole, we can encourage but we cannot force sovereign nations to do what they do not wish to do,” Johsnon said.
A last-minute intervention by Indian environment minister Bhupender Yadav (supported by China) at the summit altered the phrasing of the final pact, revising the commitment from “phasing out” coal to “phasing down” the fossil fuel.
COP-26 chairman Sharma, himself a native of Uttar Pradesh in India, said that both the Asian giants would have to “justify” the toning down of the coal pact to the developed world, as he admitted that he was “emotional” when the deal was almost on the verge of collapse.