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Opinion: How much will Australia pay for China’s ‘climate change losses’?

China is counted as a developing nation under a plan to fund climate change losses. So just how much will Australia pay, asks Matt Canavan.

Who will pay for climate 'loss and damage'?

In case you missed it, there was another one of those climate change summits last week. You know, the ones that rich people fly to on private charter jets to remind the rest of us to take the bus.

Their hypocrisy was not all wasted though. The 45,000 people that attended ticked off on a 10-page “implementation plan”. The plan had 15 “notes” (two of them with serious concerns), 10 “recognises” and “welcomes”, eight “emphasises”, four “encourages”, three “urges” and just two “resolves”. There were no decisions, commitments or anything that would approach a binding agreement.

So this climate change conference finished like all the others. It ended with the whimper and veneer of a consensus and yet all the countries will do whatever they like.

I am being a little harsh. There was for the first time an agreement on compensating developing countries for the “loss and damage” associated with climate change.

As the UN trumpeted in a press release issued after the conference, “Governments took the groundbreaking decision to establish new funding arrangements, as well as a dedicated fund, to assist developing countries in responding to loss and damage.”

The Australian government has issued no official statements on this fund but it has apparently agreed to it. Our government has done so without telling us how much Australians will have to pay.

A bucket wheel machine tranfers coal at a coal storage centre in Jiujiang, in China's central Jiangxi province. Picture: AFP
A bucket wheel machine tranfers coal at a coal storage centre in Jiujiang, in China's central Jiangxi province. Picture: AFP

By the way, under this fund, China is defined as a “developing country”. So we will have to pay it for climate change loss too, even though China has emitted almost three times the amount of Australia’s emissions over time.

While we have not been given the exact figures of this fund yet, a UN report has estimated developed countries will have to pay developing countries $3 trillion a year for climate “loss and damage”.

So what will Australia’s share of this bill be?

A related climate fund for developing countries established in 2009 required Australia to contribute 2.7 per cent of $100bn. Using the same share would require Australia to pay $81bn a year to developing countries.

Australia’s annual reparations bill would be more than the cost of Medicare and the NDIS combined and about double what we spend in defence.

Such a burden would bankrupt Australia and is made even more absurd given that climate agreements do not even require developing countries to cut their emissions.

Matt Canavan is an LNP senator for Queensland

Matt Canavan
Matt CanavanContributor

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Original URL: https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/opinion-how-much-will-australia-pay-for-chinas-climate-change-losses/news-story/8ebaa32f91aa8d578bdac473a1a478c7