Antinuclear

Prime Minister Tony Abbott an international embarrassment on climate chnage

Abbott takes Australia to last place on global climate change leadership, Independent Australia 21 October 2014, Australia has plummeted alarmingly down Global Green Economy Index under the Abbott Government, reports Alan Austin. AUSTRALIA HAS BEEN EMBARRASSED ABROAD by the Abbott Government yet again on the environment.

This time on clean energy, by the annual survey from US-based green economy consultancy Dual Citizen.In its fourth Global Green Economy Index(GGEI) released yesterday, Dual Citizen places Australia at 37th out of 60 countries on clean energy performance. And last on global leadership………

Australia has the ignominy of being easily bettered by Colombia (ranked 14), Peru (16), Kenya (17), Zambia (24), Ethiopia (26), Rwanda (27) and the Philippines (32).

The previous GGEI released in 2012 showed Australia ranked 10th on performance, out of 27 nations then evaluated. …….

This latest humiliation for Australia follows more than nine earlier embarrassments on the world stage caused by inept decisions, actions or inactions by the Abbott Government on environmental issues.

These include:

• Obstructing the UN climate meeting in Warsaw last November with damaging  ‘bad behaviour’.
• Allowing three million cubic metres of dredged seabed to be dumped in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park to make way for the Abbot Point coal export facility.
• Logging Tasmania’s endangered  forests.
• Repealing Australia’s modest carbon tax/price.
• Abbott’s call for an alliance with Canada and others in June to oppose the global climate initiatives of US President Obama. The Canadian Star ridiculed this folly with the heading,‘Climate disdainers Canada and Australia form Axis of Weasels’.
• Abbott’s refusal to attend UN Secretary General Ban-Ki-Moon’s climate summit in New York in September.
• Recalcitrance at that UN climate summit in New York by the Australian representatives who did attend.
• Earning Australia the title ‘world’s dirtiest nation’ in The Slate. The influential US journal headlined its analysis: ‘The Saudi Arabia of the South Pacific: How Australia became the dirtiest polluter in the developed world’.
• Cutting the renewable energy targets.

Those episodes created the strong impression worldwide that the Abbott Government was failing Australia’s people, their local environment, the global community and the planet. This report shows with rigorous research that this highly negative impression is indeed sound.

This further undermines Australia’s once proud reputation as a good global citizen. The GGEI report has received prominent media coverage worldwide, including in Denmark, the USA, Brazil,Spain and Argentina…………http://www.independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/abbott-takes-australia-to-last-place-on-global-climate-change-leadership,7019

October 27, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, climate change - global warming, politics international