Scott Morrison prepares clean energy plan after talks at the White House
Scott Morrison is preparing to move swiftly towards new low emissions technologies and cleaner energy sources ahead of the Glasgow climate summit.
World
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Scott Morrison is preparing an integrated climate change plan to more swiftly transition Australia’s energy exports from fossil fuels towards new low emissions technologies.
Ahead of the upcoming Glasgow climate summit, where he is under pressure to adopt a net-zero emissions target by 2050, the Prime Minister told The Australian he was advocating for climate action involving realistic “plans, not just a number and a date”.
Asked if he would commit to a specific climate target, Mr Morrison told The Australian: “I can assure you we will have a plan.”
“People will know what we will be doing and what that will be achieving. We believe that will address what they would like to be achieved.”
Mr Morrison told The Australian his new climate plan would aim to achieve two objectives: the “environmental goal” of cutting greenhouse gas emissions and the “economic prize” of enmeshing Australian new energy technology in Asia’s development.
In a challenge to Chinese aggression, Australia and the world’s three largest liberal democracies declared they are “undaunted by coercion” and their co-operation is “unflinching” during a historic summit at the White House.
On the last day of Mr Morrison’s diplomatic offensive in America on Friday local time, he joined US President Joe Biden, Indian PM Narendra Modi and Japanese PM Yoshihide Suga in a show of strength and unity at the first in-person meeting of the Quad, aka the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue.
“We stand for the rule of law, freedom of navigation and overflight, peaceful resolution of disputes, democratic values, and territorial integrity of states,” the leaders said in a joint statement issued after the two-hour meeting.
“(We are) undaunted by coercion, to bolster security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.
Morrison said: “It’s a very practical group. We’re focused on demonstrating how democracies get things done … in the region in which we live.”
Modi described the Quad as “a force for global good”.
In a tacit acknowledgment that the United Nations is not fit to counter Chinese belligerence in the Indo-Pacific, Morrison said it is up to “countries like Australia and India and the United States and Japan (to) stand up for the values that we believe in.
“We resist any suggestion or any pressure that would come on any of us to be anything different to what we are.
“We want that for all countries in the Indo-Pacific, whoever they are. They value their sovereignty, they value their independence and that should be a shared project.”
The four leaders, who sat at socially-distanced desks arranged in a circle around a large flower bed in the elegant East Room, set out plans for a “free and open Indo-Pacific” to compete with China’s Belt and Road initiative.
Supporting clean energy infrastructure, boosting the supply chain for critical minerals and providing vaccines to developing countries are part of the Quad’s alternative no-strings-attached offer to the Indo-Pacific.
The Quad will also sponsor 100 students each year – 25 from each country — to study at the best American STEM graduate universities.
And Australia will host a climate change summit for Quad countries early next year to explore low-emission technologies.
On his jam-packed Washington itinerary, Mr Morrison spoke with the IMF and the World Bank about China’s “debt diplomacy” in which Beijing builds infrastructure in developing countries and then saddles them with unsustainable debt so they become vassal states.
“There are a lot of countries out there putting debt on other countries which is causing a lot of stress and a lot of strain and it’s important that countries do not get in over their head on projects that at the end of today don’t really add value. But what will add value are projects that build up the clean energy capacity and energy transition of these countries.”
The Quad was Morrison’s second meeting with Biden on his five-day US trip.
Famously friendly with former president Donald Trump, who threw him a prized State Dinner at the White House in 2019, the PM said after the summit: “I appreciated my relationship with President Trump. I greatly appreciate my relationship with President Biden.”
Originally published as Scott Morrison prepares clean energy plan after talks at the White House
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