COP summit: Australia signs global climate pact in major energy policy overhaul
Energy Minister Chris Bowen has signed Australia up to ‘a just, orderly and equitable transition away from fossil fuels’ amid bitter divisions at the UN climate change conference over the world’s energy future.
Australia has vowed “a just, orderly and equitable transition away from fossil fuels” amid bitter divisions at the UN climate change conference in Brazil over the world’s energy future.
As he prepares to take up his post as lead global climate negotiator, Energy Minister Chris Bowen signed Australia up to the Belem Declaration on the Transition Away from Fossil Fuels.
The statement, backed by two dozen countries, requires a rapid scale-up of renewable energy and an urgent phase out of fossil fuel subsidies, with the aim of limiting global temperature rises to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
Smart Energy Council’s senior international fellow Thom Woodroofe said the declaration was “the strongest statement Australia has ever made on phasing out fossil fuels”.
It came as COP30 (Conference of the Parties) delegates remained deadlocked on Saturday (AEDT) over the summit’s proposed final statement that made no mention of fossil fuels.
While Labor has pledged Australia’s energy mix will be 82 per cent renewable within five years, the nation remains one of the world’s biggest fossil fuel producers, earning about $238bn a year from coal and gas exports.
The COP30 summit had been scheduled to end at 6pm local time on Friday but the deadline was blown and delegates were preparing to sit into the night to try and thrash out an agreement.
An updated draft text of the summit’s final statement scrubbed all references to transitioning from fossil fuels amid pressure from major oil and gas producing nations.
COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago urged delegates to overcome their differences to strengthen international efforts to fight climate change.
“This cannot be an agenda that divides us,” he said. “We must reach an agreement between us.”
Mr Bowen will become COP31 president for climate negotiations after Australia dropped its bid to host next year’s climate summit in a deal with Turkey.
“As COP president of negotiations, I would have all the powers of the COP presidency to manage, to handle the negotiations, to appoint co-facilitators, to prepare draft texts, and to issue the public decision,” he said on Thursday (AEST).
Opposition leader Sussan Ley said Australia could not afford to have a part-time energy minister as Australians faced an energy crisis marked by soaring power prices.
Mr Woodroofe said: “Australia’s hands are well and truly on the helm of the international climate negotiations.
“The important thing now is what Australia actually does with the role it has. An ambitious COP31 still means Australia doing things like championing a new global rooftop solar pledge, setting a road map for the Pacific to become the first region in the world to achieve 100 per cent renewables, and ratcheting up global climate ambition, including through new frameworks to ramp up electrification.”
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