Australian climate strategy insufficient, says Biden team

Senior US officials have questioned Australia’s climate change strategy ahead of Joe Biden’s leaders’ summit.

Scott Morrison will urge 40 world leaders at US President Joe Biden’s climate summit to support low-emissions technologies and not compete over targets, as the US called on Australia to show more ambition in reaching net-zero emissions by 2050.

The Prime Minister, who will also promote Australia’s role in supporting climate change action in the Indo-Pacific region, said “performance matters” and he would have more to say on the ­nation’s emissions reduction commitments later this year.

“The most important message is this — when is not the question anymore. How is the question,” said Mr Morrison, who was due to address the summit late on Thursday night. During the summit Mr Biden is expected to announce a new US target of cutting emissions by 50 to 52 per cent by 2030 compared with 2005 levels. But the federal government will wait until before the UN Climate Change Conference in November to update the nat­ion’s emissions reduction goals.

Ahead of Mr Morrison’s address to the two-day virtual summit, unnamed senior US officials held a briefing in Washington calling into question Australia’s climate change strategy, which focuses heavily on developing new low-emissions technologies.

The Biden administration official said it was “insufficient to follow the existing trajectory and hope that they will be on a course to deep decarbonisation and getting to net-zero emissions by mid-century”.

Mr Morrison hit back on Thursday, saying “we set commitments and we meet them and beat them”. “I’d make this one comment on the anonymous report. And that is the trajectory to any net-zero outcome is not linear and anyone who thinks it is, I think doesn’t get it,” he said.

Mr Morrison said Australia had a “very strong story to tell” on emissions reduction, and was performing “better” than most of the nations appearing at the Biden climate conference.

With China President Xi Jinping expected to attend the White House summit, there was growing scepticism domestically and abroad about Beijing’s ability to hit any of its climate goals, including its target of net-zero emissions by 2060.

In addition to the more than $1bn in pre-budget announcements this week supporting low-­emissions technologies and international partnerships, Mr Morrison on Friday will unveil a $100m oceans package, headlined by action on “blue carbon” eco­systems, boosting seagrass and mangroves to “help to cut ­emissions”. He said “the climate and the planet’s oceans are inextricably linked. This investment will boost the seagrass and mangroves that will help cut emissions and it’ll mean cleaner beaches.”

The environment budget package will also support Australian marine parks, protect marine life and expand Indigenous Protected Areas. The government has also committed $60m to develop a carbon offset scheme in the Indo-­Pacific region.

In a pre-summit briefing hosted by the US Department of State, senior Biden administration officials said Australia must recognise “that there’s going to have to be a shift” and expressed hope Mr Morrison would pledge to do more. Mr Biden was expected to unveil a new US emissions reduction target at the summit, speculated to be a 50 per cent cut by 2030. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson also announced an ambitious new target aimed at cutting emissions by 78 per cent compared to 1990 levels by 2035.

The Australian understands Mr Morrison will not shift on his 2018 decision to freeze funding to the Green Climate Fund, set up through the Paris Agreement process to support developing nat­ions, despite Mr Biden tipping $1.2bn into the GCF last week.