Darling Jacinda. She has never met a high horse she cannot preach from, and she never misses an opportunity to insult our closest neighbours. Doing her bit for the planet by wearing the same dreadful boots that she has worn for the past 2 years has given Jacinda the right to lecture the Australians about climate change, even though her own carbon footprint has been truly woeful lately. Our record on climate change is not that great, Jacinda and in case you didn’t know, we still sell coal to China.
But there is nothing like the hypocrisy of the left, is there?
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has moved to take the heat out of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s challenge to Australia on climate change, and says Pacific nations which seek Chinese investment should remember it comes on the back of “coal-fired everything”.
Peters said calls for Australia to step-up on climate change were a “bit of a paradox” because many Pacific countries were not openly challenging China’s reliance on coal.
Australia has come under fire from some leaders at the Pacific Islands Forum for what they say is a lack of action on climate change and tardiness to shift away coal-fired power.
It is amazing how easy targets are always hit. Scott Morrison is the first Australian premier to go to the Pacific Islands Forum for 35 years. He will probably be the last for the next 200 years. But nobody ever tackles China, who are the biggest emitters in the world by a country mile because everyone is too afraid to go there.
The New Zealand prime minister said on Wednesday every nation needed to “do its bit” in the fight against climate change, and Australia would have to “answer to the Pacific” for its own role.
Just a thought, but if you want Australia to stop sending our criminals home might you not consider being slightly more diplomatic?
No. Of course not.
Speaking on ABC radio on Thursday morning, Peters, who is also deputy prime minister, said there was “a big picture we have to contemplate” to act with consistency and integrity.
He said while island nations were worried about their long-term future amid rising sea levels and more fierce weather events, China’s high emissions also had to be part of the conversation.
“You need to look at everybody, not just Australia, but also who is getting that coal and what things they are doing with it,” Peters said.
Finally, someone has said it. Let us stop picking on those countries who will probably keep footing the bill anyway and point out the bleeding obvious. Unless emissions from China and India are reduced dramatically, the world will go to hell in a handcart (if it is actually going to hell in a handcart, but for the purposes of this discussion.. it is) regardless of anything that either New Zealand or Australia manages to do.
“What I’m sadly hearing is variations on a theme … that they’re all attacking the Australian Prime Minister or that they’ve all taken the view, including New Zealand’s Prime Minister, that the Australians are somehow acting incorrectly when that is not the proper picture or the real picture at all.”
Australia has pushed back on attempts from smaller island states to include a strong statement urging the world to speed up its transition away from coal towards renewable energy.
Peters said leaders meeting in Tuvalu must “look at all the details” and defended Australia’s stance on climate change.
Most of you know that I am no Winston Peters fan, but he is completely right on this. He is bringing a harsh dose of reality into the game, and he is also trying to pour oil on the rapidly becoming very troubled waters of the Pacific Islands. If they upset the Australians too much, then they just might tell all the other Pacific nations to go… find themselves. That includes New Zealand, in case you didn’t know.
He said the island countries should remember Australia was a “great neighbour” to the Pacific.
“They should remember who has been their long-term and short-term friends,” he said.
STUFF
I completely agree, Winston. As Foreign Minister, you are absolutely right to make this call. I just wish you had not brought this bunch of amateurs into government because I am almost certain that even you did not expect them to be as incompetent as they obviously are.