Australia’s economy is the worst-placed in the rich world to stay competitive when global efforts to curb climate change force a price on carbon-dioxide emissions, a report said yesterday.
Australia ranked 15th in its ability to generate business in a low-carbon world, an analysis commissioned by London-based think tank E3G and Sydney’s The Climate Institute said.
Only South Africa, India, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia had lower rankings. France, Japan, the UK, South Korea and Germany ranked highest for carbon competitiveness, because of their energy efficiency measures and their shift from coal for power-generation.
In a preface to the report, economist and climate campaigner Lord Nicholas Stern said the global economic downturn provided an opportunity for countries like Australia to improve energy efficiency.
“Countries which don’t seize this opportunity will undermine their future competitiveness,” he said.
Climate Institute head John Connor said that Australia had more work to do than any other nation to decouple economic growth from carbon emissions.
“We’re coming at the back of the pack in terms of how efficient our economies are and how we can be helping towards a global agreement,” he said. “This is something which puts our jobs and living standards at risk if we don’t get on with economy-wide measures to change our economy to cut carbon pollution and to increase our productivity.”
Australians are the world’s worst carbon-dioxide polluters per capita, the British risk assessment company Maplecroft Ltd said. The US, Canada, the Netherlands and Saudi Arabia round out the top five emitters of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels in the per capita list Maplecroft released last week.
Australia has an average output of 20.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide per person per year, compared with 19.7 tonnes for the US and 4.5 tonnes for China.
As if to highlight the great leap forward that Australians need to make in adjusting to a world where carbon pollution is priced rather than free, the head of the country’s biggest labor union said that green jobs was a “dopey term” and that carbon clean-up campaigns were “judgmental nonsense.”
Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union President Tony Maher said opposition to coal mining was “well-intentioned naivety.”
CHAGOS ISLANDS: Recently elected Mauritian Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam told lawmakers that the contents of negotiations are ‘unknown’ to the government Mauritius’ new prime minister ordered an independent review of a deal with the UK involving a strategically important US-UK military base in the Indian Ocean, placing the agreement under fresh scrutiny. Under a pact signed last month, the UK ceded sovereignty of the Chagos archipelago to Mauritius, while retaining control of Diego Garcia — the island where the base is situated. The deal was signed by then-Mauritian prime minister Pravind Jugnauth and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Oct. 3 — a month before elections in Mauritius in which Navin Ramgoolam became premier. “I have asked for an independent review of the
France on Friday showed off to the world the gleaming restored interior of Notre-Dame cathedral, a week before the 850-year-old medieval edifice reopens following painstaking restoration after the devastating 2019 fire. French President Emmanuel Macron conducted an inspection of the restoration, broadcast live on television, saying workers had done the “impossible” by healing a “national wound” after the fire on April 19, 2019. While every effort has been made to remain faithful to the original look of the cathedral, an international team of designers and architects have created a luminous space that has an immediate impact on the visitor. The floor shimmers and
THIRD IN A ROW? An expert said if the report of a probe into the defense official is true, people would naturally ask if it would erode morale in the military Chinese Minister of National Defense Dong Jun (董軍) has been placed under investigation for corruption, a report said yesterday, the latest official implicated in a crackdown on graft in the country’s military. Citing current and former US officials familiar with the situation, British newspaper the Financial Times said that the investigation into Dong was part of a broader probe into military corruption. Neither the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor the Chinese embassy in Washington replied to a request for confirmation yesterday. If confirmed, Dong would be the third Chinese defense minister in a row to fall under investigation for corruption. A former navy
‘VIOLATIONS OF DISCIPLINE’: Miao Hua has come up through the political department in the military and he was already fairly senior before Xi Jinping came to power in 2012 A member of China’s powerful Central Military Commission has been suspended and put under investigation, the Chinese Ministry of National Defense said on Thursday. Miao Hua (苗華) was director of the political work department on the commission, which oversees the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the world’s largest standing military. He was one of five members of the commission in addition to its leader, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Ministry spokesman Colonel Wu Qian (吳謙) said Miao is under investigation for “serious violations of discipline,” which usually alludes to corruption. It is the third recent major shakeup for China’s defense establishment. China in June
RSS