Guest essay by Eric Worrall
In yet another blow to COP26, reports have surfaced that British COP26 host Prime Minister Boris Johnson has caved in to Aussie PM Scott Morrison’s demands to delete hard climate targets from the UK / Australian free trade agreement currently being negotiated.
UK government accused of dropping FTA climate commitments due to Australian pressure
By Europe bureau chief Steve Cannane
When Boris Johnson and Scott Morrison announced they had finalised a trade deal between Australia and the UK it was sold as win/win deal.
Key points:
- A leaked email purportedly shows the UK agreed to drop climate references from the FTA in a bid to appease Australia
- Britain is due to hold the COP26 climate change summit in Glasgow at the end of next month
- The free trade agreement between Australia and the UK could be formally signed within weeks
But now the British government is under fire for giving ground to Australia on climate change goals just months before it will be urging other nations to cut emissions when it hosts the COP26 climate change summit in Glasgow.
A leaked email from a senior official in the British cabinet office – obtained by Sky News UK – allegedly shows the Brits agreed to drop certain references to commitments from the Paris climate change agreement in a bid to appease Australia and get a free trade deal over the line.
John Sauven, the Executive Director of Greenpeace in the UK, told the ABC he had seen the email and said it shows Australia was pushing to remove references to Paris temperature commitments from the free trade agreement.
“The Australian government said they would not sign a trade agreement if those were in the trade deal and three ministers, senior ministers in the cabinet were consulted on this and the agreement was that in order to get the trade deal over the line they would remove those temperature commitments which basically underpin the Paris Agreement from the trade deal,” he said.
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The funniest part of this latest blow to international climate action is it is probably the European Union’s fault.
If the European Union had not been so eager to punish Britain for leaving, Britain might have been less desperate to sign free trade agreements with Australia and other non-EU countries.
So what we have is a case of two hardline climate activist power blocks, the UK and the EU, which are so busy fighting each other, they’ve fumbled an opportunity for pressuring the rest of the world to commit to genuine climate action.
My prediction – Glasgow COP26 is going to be a total fiasco.
Between NATO fury over President Biden’s botched Afghanistan withdrawal, an ongoing feud between the green EU and green Britain, increasingly absurd demands for cash from poor countries, and China and Australia simply refusing to play ball, the only agreement I expect out of COP26 is an agreement to hold a COP27 climate conference.
Update (EW): The UK has apparently denied watering down climate commitments in the Australia / UK free trade agreement.
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In a statement to SBS News, the UK government denied its trade deal with Australia abandons that ambition.
“Any suggestion the deal won’t sign up to these vital commitments is completely untrue,” a spokesperson said.
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Read more: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/backlash-after-australia-watered-down-climate-change-pledge-in-uk-trade-deal/1879d7a7-ec74-404c-8b9c-b992af4ba8b4
This article has a very odd way of looking at things.
Firstly, was this UK/Aus FTA not signed sealed and delivered several months back?
To say that Boris “caved in” is a funny way of putting it. The man is not interested in details he just wants the headline of the FTA being agreed. He does not read what he is signing up to, as has been demonstrated amply with the Brexit deal.
A far bigger cave-in was to our own farming lobby. The farmers who are fine with a EU FTA which lets in huge amounts of Irish beef, but were going to be wiped out by cheap Aus beef imports. Boris caved in to these subsidy farmers to such an extent that consumers will see hardly any benefit from cheaper foods, one of the key promises of the Brexit campaign.
To say the Aus/UK deal wouldn’t have happened if the EU had been a bit nicer is just BS. The key advantage of Brexit is being able to negotiate our own bespoke bilateral trade deals. This is the number one economic advantage that we were promised by the Brexiters. So they are always going to happen.
The key advantage of Brexit is being able to negotiate our own bespoke bilateral trade deals.
a pity then that all we have done so far is renegotiate the deals we had via the EU, only a little bit worse, with some added cheese sales to lactose intolerant nations…
Hang on, the Australia deal is additional to the EU rolled-over deals. There are more in the pipeline as well.
But you keep telling us the UK is so advanced Griff
I’m surprised no-one on this site has picked up on the 2.5% tax increase voted through in the UK yesterday. There is no transparency where this money will end up. Something that will be worth investigating after COP26, where Boris will be showering many “poor” countries with bribes, supposedly to reduce their CO2 increases.
After giving our money away like this, COP26 will be labelled a great success because of the supposed reduced future CO2 emissions.
But is this largesse actually being funded via increased social security taxes, under the cover of improving social care for old people?
Unfortunately not something we are likely to cover, unless it is described as a climate levy. On a personal level I’m horrified at some of the things happening in Britain the last few years, I don’t think it will end well.
A lot of us living here are horrified also ! Even voting in a Tory government has not slowed down the deluge of nonsense. What I was getting at was, is this national insurance increase actually a Climate Levy in disguise?
That’s why many of us departed those shores decades ago, in search of political sanity as well as sunshine. Nice to return occasionally, to visit the Museum!
“My prediction – Glasgow COP26 is going to be a total fiasco.” – article
Wait – what? Fiasco???
Eric, you’re scaring me. Reason and sanity might replace the nutballism going on right now.
II woke to a 5AM temp of 50F. Too chilly. I may have to run the furnace before long.
The whole world is going topsy-turvy and Eric uses reason and sanity in one article.
DADDY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We should have planted more popcorn!!!!
“My prediction – Glasgow COP26 is going to be a total fiasco”
I agree with you but this is a sort of ‘shooting fish in a barrel’, ‘sun rises in the east’, type of prediction.
Every COP is a total fiasco.
Another Copenhagen … Copenfloppin.
The lying oaf Johnson has no cards to play and is desperate to sign trade deals to cover for his botched Brexit. He has been very lucky that the Chinese provided Covid to shut down the European economies and hide the problems. But as normality returns he faces a whole load of trouble, and that doesn’t include breaking manifesto promises and raising taxes to highest level in history.
Exactly!
Australian trade prices for most commodities is at all time high except probably wine which China actually managed to hurt with tariffs on. So I think the most we have to offer the UK is some cheap wine to drown your sorrows, I doubt you will like the price of everything else.
COP26 is becoming Cope26.
Well done – ScoMo defeats BoJo! I’ve come to the conclusion that ScoMo does not believe the climate warming hoax, but cannot openly say that for political reasons. Regretfully, I cannot believe that here in NZ where our saintly but misguided PM still believes that nonsense. However, training as a burger flipper was not good training for understanding science!
Meanwhile in Germany….
Russia says construction of Nord Stream 2 completed – ABC News (go.com)
If true, then good on Australia. They have been one of the English-speaking nations that have been one of the most concerns for falling under the green spell in recent years.
“…they’ve fumbled an opportunity for pressuring the rest of the world to commit to genuine climate action.”
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GENUINE climate action??? LOL, there’s no such thing!
The UK is now reaping the effects of ditching trade with Australia and New Zealand in the 70’s when the UK was taken in to the Common Market by Heath.
Boris is a massive disappointment. We didn’t vote for this green crap, we didn’t vote for Carrie and we didn’t vote for tax rises, especially when the country still spends billions on foreign aid to places like China and India!
We voted for Cummings if truth be known, the architect of Brexit, but Boris’ wife got him thrown out and took power herself.
Boris is a mistake.
The first and most important item on every conference agenda is always approval for the next conference.
The next item is hotels, meals and entertainment.
And far down the list a couple of entries tacked on at the last minute covering the conference itself.