Australia scores Fossil awards at COP22
November 21, 2016 at 1:23 am John Englart 2 comments
CAMoreland member John Englart accepts Fossil Of The Day award at COP22
The second week of COP22 in Marrakech Australia received a Fossil of the Day award for comments that Josh Frydenberg made, and also shared a fossil as one of the countries expanding fossil fuel production that is incongruent with meeting the temperature targets enshrined in the Paris Agreement.
This was a funny UN climate conference: for 3 days there were no nominations at all, whether this is due to poor intelligence or countries simply getting on with the tasks at hand and negotiating in good faith.
On Wednesday of the second week the Climate Action Network had two nominations for Australia. This is the citation from Climate Action Network:
“Our first Fossil of the Day award goes to…Australia for making ugly complaints about dirty baggage. We don’t mean to gossip, but today the Australian Energy and Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg was caught complaining to US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz about American charities standing in solidarity with Australian communities who are fighting to prevent the construction of the largest ever coal mine down under – Adani’s Carmichael mine. Australia ratified the Paris Agreement last Friday, so lobbying for coal expansion at the United Nations climate negotiations is an ugly, ugly thing to be doing. Shape up, Australia.”
The Guardian: Australia dubbed ‘fossil of the day’ after lobbying for coal mine at climate talks
Mashable: Known environmental menace, Australia gets the award it deserves
RenewEconomy: Australia lobbies for Adani coal mine at climate talks
ZME Science: Australia lobbies coal mine at climate talks
On Thursday Australia also shared a Fossil of the Day award:
“The first Fossil of the Day award goes to…take a deep breath…Turkey, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, France, Japan and Indonesia for duplicity at the UN climate negotiations. While representatives from climate vulnerable countries, cities, business, and civil society are fighting to keep dirty fossil fuels in the ground, as well as preventing the expansion of polluting airports (hat-tip to France), these countries are doing their best to increase their domestic fossil fuel extraction. By doing so, they are quite literally drilling under and undermining everyone’s efforts to keep global warming below the critical threshold of 1.5C degrees. These countries helped forge the Paris Agreement which is now in force, committing them to halt climate change, so they really need to get the left hand and the right hand talking to each other. Big words at the UN don’t mean much when you’ve got big fossil fuel plans back home!”
You can check out all the Fossil of the Day Awards on Facebook.
Entry filed under: media coverage. Tags: COP22, Fossil of the day, Marrakech.
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