UN gives 10-year deadline to shut down coalmining

Australia has fewer than 10 years to shut the coalmining industry and find new jobs for workers under a UN timetable to be outlined on Monday.

Australia is under pressure from the UN to exit coal, commit to a net-zero target by 2050 and lift its ambition to cut greenhouse gas emissions more swiftly.

Australia has fewer than 10 years to shut its coalmining industry and find new jobs for workers under a UN timetable that will inflame tensions over Scott Morrison’s stand on net-zero emissions and the ambition of his 2030 climate goals.

UN assistant Secretary-General Selwin Hart says the goal to keep future warming below 1.5C within reach requires “the ­urgent global phase-out of coal”.

The UN road map will be outlined in a speech on Monday to ANU’s 2021 Crawford Leadership Forum, and follows a push from the Biden administration for Australia to increase its ­medium-term targets.

Pressure on Australia from the UN to exit coal, commit to a net-zero target by 2050 and lift its ambition to cut greenhouse gas emissions more swiftly comes as China rejects attempts by the US to shape action on ­climate change in the world’s biggest emissions nation.

The diplomatic effort to bolster ­climate ambition is in full swing ahead of the Glasgow ­climate summit in November, and the size of the challenge is ­becoming clearer.

In his speech at ANU on Monday, Mr Hart will refer to comments from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who said in March that phasing out coal was “the single most important step the world must take in the global climate fight”.

“He is not saying, however, that any country can or should shut its existing coal industry down overnight,” Mr Hart says.

“He has called for coal phase-out by 2030 for OECD countries and 2040 for all others, and has said it is essential that no worker and no community is left behind in the transition. If adopted, this timetable would leave nearly a decade for Australia to ensure a just transition for its coal workers and ­others affected.”

Coalmining added $33.8bn to the national economy in 2019-20, and directly employed nearly 40,000 Australians, according to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The country is forecast to export $17bn in thermal coal in 2021-22, according to the latest report by the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources. As much as 80 per cent of the coal mined in Australia is shipped overseas.

Mr Hart says the UN “fully understand the role that coal and other fossil fuels have played in Australia’s economy, even if mining accounts for a small fraction – around 2 per cent – of overall jobs”.

“But it’s essential to have a broader, more honest and rational conversation about what is in Australia’s interests, because the bottom line is clear”, he says.

“If the world does not rapidly phase out coal, climate change will wreak havoc right across the Australian economy: from agriculture to tourism, and right across the services sector.

“Similarly, construction, housing and the property sector, in a country where the vast majority live on or near a coastline.”

As the UN puts pressure on Australia, US special climate envoy John Kerry has been in China seeking to negotiate a joint agreement between the world’s two biggest emitters before the Glasgow talks. China accounts for 27 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, higher than the developed world combined.

The country aims to peak emissions before 2030 and says it will be carbon neutral by 2060, but has increased the pace of coal-power development domestically and internationally.

Over several day’s last week, China made clear that co-operation would depend on the US meeting a set of ­demands on other issues.

On Saturday the South China Morning Post said Beijing had rebuffed American calls to make more public pledges on ­climate change before November, insisting it should follow its own plan.

Mr Kerry had presented a list of proposals for Beijing to accelerate its climate efforts. They included a public commitment to the 1.5C limit of global warming targeted in the 2015 Paris Agreement, a definite timeframe for carbon emissions to peak before 2030, and a moratorium on financing overseas coal-fired projects.

But during the negotiations, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the Sino-US climate change co-operation “cannot be separated from the overall environment of Sino-US relations”.

The Chinese demands included the US must not challenge, slander or even attempt to subvert the path and system of socialism with Chinese characteristics; the US must not attempt to obstruct or interrupt China’s development process, remove all unilateral sanctions, high tariffs, long-arm jurisdiction and technology blockade it had imposed; and the US must not infringe upon China’s state sovereignty or damage China’s territorial integrity – referring to issues surrounding China’s Xinjiang province, Tibet, Hong Kong and Taiwan.