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Australia rejects more ambitious climate targets

2021-08-10T09:30:03.623Z


Australia ranks in the top group in terms of CO2 emission rates per capita and is one of the largest coal exporters in the world. Even so, Prime Minister Morrison does not want to do more in the fight against climate change.


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Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison (archive image)

Photo: LUKAS COCH / EPA

Australia has once again rejected calls for more ambitious CO2 emissions targets the day after the latest alarming global climate report was published.

Australia is already doing its part against climate change, said Conservative Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

His government continues to reject a commitment to greenhouse neutrality by 2050.

"I'm not going to sign a blank check on behalf of Australians for destinations with no plans," said Morrison.

Australia has announced that it wants to become greenhouse gas neutral "as soon as possible", but Morrison does not want to make any commitments.

The country has one of the highest CO2 emission rates per capita and is one of the largest coal exporters in the world.

More extreme weather events expected

At the same time, hardly any other country has suffered as much from the consequences of global warming as Australia in recent years.

There are repeated severe droughts, heat waves, floods and coral bleaching in the Great Barrier Reef.

From August 2019 to March 2020, devastating bush fires devastated more than twelve million hectares of land.

In its report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns that people will have to be prepared for far more extreme weather events. The report shows more clearly than ever before how rising greenhouse gas emissions are threatening the earth (read a comprehensive analysis here). The desired goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees above the pre-industrial period as far as possible will, according to the model calculations, probably be exceeded in the next 20 years, even with the strictest climate protection measures.

After the report was published, UN Secretary General António Guterres said that the alarm bells were deafening and that the evidence was irrefutable.

The rise in temperature could only be limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius if executives in politics, companies and civil society were united behind political guidelines, measures and investments.

"The report has to be the death knell for coal and other fossil fuels before they destroy our planet."

chs / dpa

Source: spiegel

All tech articles on 2021-08-10

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