Antinuclear

Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced Australia will cease payments to the United Nations-backed Green Climate Fund, a mechanism under the Paris treaty to help poor nations cut emissions and respond to extreme weather and rising seas.

Australia’s high per-capita emissions and coal dependence mean it was expected to be a generous benefactor. However, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has pressured the government to abandon the fund and it is unpopular with conservative Coalition MPs, including Tony Abbott.

Australia contributed $200 million in the first funding round and took a leadership role in 2016 when it co-chaired the fund.

But in a radio interview last month Mr Morrison, when asked if Australia would be bound to its climate targets under the Paris agreement, said: “No, we won’t … nor are we bound to go and tip money into that big climate fund. We’re not going to do that either. I’m not going to spend money on global climate conferences and all that nonsense.”

Fund board member Tosi Mpanu-Mpanu, of the Democratic Republic of Congo, said Australia’s stance was “beyond frustrating”, particularly in the wake of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report that this month warned of devastating planetary damage without radical action.

“This backtracking from [the] previous commitment by Australia is disappointing,” he told Fairfax Media.

“Australia is the world’s biggest coal exporter … it has a major responsibility to provide financial support for developing countries to adapt to and mitigate climate change.”

Mr Mpanu-Mpanu suggested abandoning the fund was in contravention of the Paris accord and said commitments by developing nations to lower emissions under the treaty relied on financial support from nations such as Australia.

Parties to the Paris deal will meet in Poland in December to finalise the rules of the treaty and “this decision by Australia will cast a shadow on the process of reaching an agreement”, he said…….

The condemnation from the developing world further cements Australia’s position as a global outlier on climate action after the government indicated it would not ramp up emissions reduction efforts under the Paris treaty and rejected the IPCC’s call for a coal phase-out by 2050.

Developed countries originally pledged $US10 billion to the fund but it was left short after US President Donald Trump withheld $US2 billion of the $US3 billion his nation promised…… https://www.canberratimes.com.au/politics/federal/poor-nations-castigate-australia-for-abandoning-global-climate-fund-20181023-p50beh.html