Cormann’s OECD bid hit by climate outcry

Australia’s climate record is once again in the spotlight, after the British opposition reportedly urged the UK to ‘blacklist’ Mathias Cormann.

Mathias Cormann has hit back at a reported bid by the UK opposition to ‘blacklist’ his bid for a plum international job.

Australia’s longest-serving Finance Minister has embraced green energy as part of his campaign to become the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Secretary-General.

Mr Cormann said he would “use every lever available through the organisation to help lead and drive ambitious and effective action on climate change as a top priority” if elected to the role.

But the British opposition has reportedly demanded UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson blacklist Mr Cormann due to Australia’s climate change record.

UK Labour climate spokeswoman Emily Thornberry wrote to Mr Johnson seeking assurances Britain would not back Mr Cormann’s bid, according to the Nine newspapers.

Mathias Cormann’s bid to run the OECD has been hit by criticisms of his climate record. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

She reportedly described his climate record as “one of denial, inaction and deeply retrograde steps on issues like emissions trading, carbon pricing, and fossil fuel investment”.

While advocating strengthened trade and security ties with Australia, she said “we would be doing neither ourselves nor our Australian friends any favours by backing an opponent of net zero to take up such an important international role”.

But Mr Cormann said Australia’s per-capita investment in renewable energy was three times as high as the UK last year, and warned against “polarising” the debate.

“The challenge in Australia, and globally, is not about whether to address climate change, but how this is done in an effective and least cost way,” he said.

“To maximise global emissions reduction outcomes, we will have to bring people together, not to continue to polarise the debate. I am well positioned to help achieve that.”

Mr Cormann’s bid faces its biggest challenge from Cecilia Malmstrom, the Swedish former European Union Trade Commissioner.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has reportedly been urged to blacklist Mr Cormann. Picture: AAP Image / Mick Tsikas

Ms Malmstrom, who is leading a pack of ten candidates for the OECD role, described climate change as “an urgent crisis for humanity” and backed a European Union plan to tax carbon-intensive products.

The Morrison government has resisted calls to follow major European powers and the incoming Biden Administration in adopting a net zero target by 2050.

Greens Leader Adam Bandt has called on Mr Cormann to denounce the Coalition’s record on policy to show he is committed to the issue.

“If Mathias Cormann now thinks that his government’s climate denial was wrong, he should publicly say so,” he told NCA NewsWire.

“Until then, his record of climate wreckage speaks for itself, he shouldn’t get this crucial job and Labor shouldn’t have supported him for it.”

Labor has backed Mr Cormann’s bid, arguing that disagreements over climate policy were a domestic matter.

But the party’s climate spokesman Mark Butler said the OECD’s “very clear” positions on climate change had forced Mr Cormann to alter his stance.

Scott Morrison was barred from speaking at a UN climate conference over the weekend. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

“Mathias Cormann has seen the light and recognises that the rest of the world has a very different view to these questions to the one he articulated here in Australia,” he told ABC Radio.

“Mathias’ pronouncements about climate policy over the last several weeks … have been quite different to the positions he took when he was stalking Malcolm Turnbull on two different occasions.”

Prime Minister Scott Morrison was also barred from addressing a UN climate conference this weekend, despite his pledge to no longer use Kyoto carry-over credits.

Mr Morrison had planned to announce the policy shift at the summit, but insisted he was not bothered by the snub.