The Australian elections, on May 21, allowed a change of government. Labor has promised to make tackling global warming their top priority, unlike their Tory predecessors. Yet the new minister of mineral resources has pledged to support a mega gas project that will emit more than a billion tonnes of CO2 over its operating life.
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“It is an aberration, today we know that we are in a context of climate emergency. We only have three years to peak our emissions and drastically reduce them“, alarmed Saturday June 4 on franceinfo Lucie Pinson, general manager of the NGO Reclaim Finance.
franceinfo: Is this project a disaster?
Lucia Pinson: It is an aberration, today we know that we are in a context of climate emergency. We only have three years to reach the peak of our emissions and reduce them drastically. For this, to limit global warming to +1.5°C which is the international objective adopted by the States, we must no longer develop new projects such as this gas terminal. But also all the others: oil and gas fields, or those in the coal sector. This is a scientific imperative that has now been recognized by the highest authorities in energy, climate, science and politics: this ranges from IPCC experts to the United Nations, via the International Energy Agency. This type of project directly threatens climate objectives and our chances of avoiding dramatic consequences, when we are already seeing the increasingly concrete impacts of climate change.
How is this decision by the Australian government finally explained?
This is explained by contradictions between the climate agenda, which is supported on the one hand, and the interests of businesses, on the other. The economic interests of some will have relays in the government. These inconsistencies, unfortunately, we will find them in France and in other countries. Of course, we must remember the responsibility of politicians but also that of companies that continue to pursue the development of these new projects. In Australia, it can be called a “climate bomb”. It should be remembered that TotalEnergies, the French oil and gas major, is also involved in more than twenty climate bombs and dozens of new oil and gas projects which are all incompatible with our climate objectives. And yet, here again there is an inconsistency, since we have TotalEnergies which has expressed the wish to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 but which is doing nothing to achieve it. There is also the responsibility of the financial actors since these climatic bombs develop because there are banks, insurers, investors who bring their support. And this term, climate bomb, makes it possible to make climate action very concrete.
Doesn’t public opinion play its role in Australia?
We have seen a strong mobilization of the population in Australia in recent years, also against massive coal mining projects. The mobilization in particular against the Carmichael project, led by the Indian company Adani, has made it possible to warn of the environmental, social and climatic risks linked to fossil fuels and to generate a truly massive mobilization of the Australian population in this country. A few years ago we were few to alert on these subjects. Today it takes, we see a large part of the population very worried, especially in France, about climate change. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always bear fruit at the election level, nor does it take the place it should in the media. We can hope that there will be a surge in action tomorrow as the impacts of the disruption are increasingly felt. We can hope that this will shock the most refractory.