Turnbull pledges $800 million for climate change

“We do not doubt the implications of the science, or the scale of the challenge”, the prime minister said.

Australia will commit an extra $800 million over five years to help poorer countries cope with climate change but will redirect the funds from the existing foreign aid budget. In 2014, the country signed $200 million for the Green Climate Fund in Peru.

The Prime Minister said Australia supported a new global climate agreement that was strong and effective.

“The fact is that Australia will need new policies to achieve its targets to 2020 and beyond”. While Australia meet its first Kyoto target, its worth remembering that it allowed its emissions to rise.

Much effort in Australia has been directed to developing climate change initiatives, only for them to be subverted or scrapped by conservative ideologues.

It comes as Palmer United Party bash leader Clive Palmer, who secured the assessment last yr in exchange for supporting the authorities’s arguable Direct Action plan, stated the Climate Change Authority strayed from its original temporary to exclusively look at emissions trading schemes.

As seen under governments since Hawke, Parr said this framing makes “some policies and global negotiating positions seem natural and necessary, while excluding others. What is at stake is the future of the planet, of life”.

But Australia rejected a statement on fossil fuel subsidy reform that was being led by New Zealand.

“There is no sense in abandoning the current workforce, who have years of experience and a wealth of knowledge about how the industry operates”, Electrical Trades Union national secretary Allen Hicks said.

Australia’s pledge to ratify the second phase may encourage other countries to do the same.

He said it would also put pressure on Australia to lift its 2020 emissions reduction goal. “So they are actively encouraging sub-national governments to attend”. In August, the government announced a target of 26-28% below 2005 levels by 2030, equivalent to 22% below 2000 levels.

He said Paris was “not the end of the journey”, while a report in The Australian, quoting unnamed sources indicated he was considering increasing the target in the next two-yearly review.

“He’s keeping the right wing of his own party happy”, and retaining the substance of Tony Abbott’s policies, Mr Shorten said.

But the Climate Change Authority urged comments on various forms of mechanisms that could fit Australia, be it a regular cap-and-trade system, a baseline-and-credit ETS, a Carbon dioxide intensity-based market or something different.

Australia needs to “reset” discussions related to climate policy, according to the government’s advisory body on climate policy.

Ms Bishop said the funding was for what the aid budget was “designed to do – to assist in natural disaster relief”. Oxfam climate change leader in Paris, Kelly Dent, also said the commitment was far less than what comparable countries had committed to.

Canberra was one of more than 600 cities around the world to take part the largest global weekend of climate action ahead of the Paris talks.

Those talks were set to start in full force on Monday night as most world leaders flew out of the French capital, leaving diplomats to wheel and deal the language of the text.

Greens Leader Richard Di Natale was also scathing of the decision, claiming Mr Turnbull’s announcement in Paris has been a “huge disappointment”.

“We firmly believe that it is innovation and technology which will enable us both to drive stronger economic growth and a cleaner environment”, Turnbull said.