Thread by @David_Ritter

Scott Morrison has left #CoP26 with Australia’s global reputation clearly tarnished.
Breaking last night, a new investigation reveals a shameful history of diplomatic bullying to water down climate action & buy silence in our own neighbourhood - the Pacific.
Here's a thread:

A quick heads up. Normally I include a source in each tweet - but everything here is sourced from @GreenpeaceAP’s investigation, based on interviews with present and former Pacific leaders, as well as Australian diplomats and academics: hubs.ly/H0-wXWc0

Starting back in 1997, the Australian government under John Howard coerced members of the South Pacific Forum to remove its concern about climate change risks and its support for emissions reductions measures from the Forum’s official communique.

At each of the 2015, 2016 and 2019 Pacific Island Forums (PIF), the Australian government again attempted to use its power and aid money to dilute the Forum’s official communique and block regional consensus on emissions reductions.

In 2015, the Australian government blocked the Pacific region’s consensus on supporting a 1.5 degrees warming limit at the PIF and meetings leading up to COP21 - which could have derailed the Paris Agreement outcome.

In 2018, the Australian government tried to change the first clause of the Boe Declaration on Regional Security, objecting to the wording that “climate change remains the single greatest threat to the livelihoods, security and wellbeing of the peoples of the Pacific.”

In 2019, Scott Morrison attempted to use financial assistance coercively to curb insistence on stronger language in the text of the Kainaki II Declaration - which focussed on urgent climate action.

In addition to bullying, the Australian government has deceptively utilised supposed Pacific climate funding for alternate projects.
Some of the largest and most expensive ‘climate adaptation' projects have been found to have no link to climate change or climate resilience.

Australia’s climate aid absolutely lacks the generosity of comparable OECD countries. Australia spends only about 1% of its foreign aid on climate adaptation projects, while Canada and Sweden allocate 10% and 6% respectively.

In 2018, Australia halted its contributions to the UN Green Climate Fund, with Morrison telling Alan Jones the Paris accords were non-binding and that he refused to "tip money into that big climate fund" or " spend money on global climate conferences and that sort of nonsense.”

By far the largest portion of Australia’s climate adaptation aid goes to projects tagged as ‘significantly focused’ rather than ‘principally focused’ on climate adaptation - many of these actually have no relevance to climate change:
theguardian.com/world/2021/nov…

In fact, in 2018, only 23% of Australian projects tagged ‘significantly focused on climate adaptation’ in the Pacific mention climate or the environment in their project long descriptions.

Former President of Kiribati Anote Tong told researchers that many aid projects described as climate related do not improve the climate resilience of Pacific peoples.

In 2018 and 2019, Australia spent $80.67 million (USD) of climate aid financing on a ‘governance facility’ in Papua New Guinea - no project descriptions from DFAT or the OECD contained mention of climate adaptation.

With this collective history of diplomatic bullying, coercive funding and misrepresenting climate finance, it’s no wonder our international standing was already on shaky ground when Scott Morrison blundered into #CoP26 with no real plan, spruiking fossil fuels & blocking action

Former Australian Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Gareth Evans said Australia’s “credibility in all sorts of ways depends on our being seen to be responsible, good international citizens and Australia is putting that reputation very much at risk on the climate front”

Across the world, Australia’s laggard contribution to climate progress is viewed as a joke and a disappointment:

https://twitter.com/David_Ritter/status/1454200170338349056

In the lead up to #CoP26 and during the conference, Pacific leaders have been loud and clear - Scott Morrison is not doing enough:
abc.net.au/news/2021-10-0…

Leaders from across the Pacific have shared their disappointment with Australia's net zero "plan", with descriptors like it "doesn’t go far enough", is “hollow” and “not quite clear”.
abc.net.au/news/2021-10-2…

Scott Morrison has left Glasgow with Australia’s international reputation in shambles. We’ve lost the trust of key allies & our closest neighbours in the Pacific.
The surest way to restore our international standing is for Morrison to commit to rapid, deep emissions cuts by 2030

Read the full report and tell Scott Morrison to increase his ambitions, supporting our Pacific neighbours here: hubs.ly/H0-wXWc0 #CoP26 #auspol