Figueres on Australia, Youth and Ambition

In the weekend leading up to COP18, Christiana Figueres, UNFCCC Executive Secretary, spoke to the young people at the Conference of the Youth (COY) in Doha, Qatar. Her entrance was greeted with clapping and cheering in a room suddenly full of iPhone flashes as everyone competed for an up close and personal shot. She was even asked for an autograph at the end.

Indeed, Figueres commands a lot of respect in the world of scientists, climate change advocates and environmental activists. She commands this respect despite the bureaucratic pitfalls of the UN process and the sometimes seemingly endless negotiations, because her perseverance and her genuine dedication are ever-visible.

Last month, Figueres also spoke to the people of Australia. She presented a speech at the Lowy Institute about the necessity of a global, low carbon future and Australia’s role in its creation. She discussed the progress that has been made, the opportunities that climate change presents and her refusal to even contemplate a scenario where the world cannot keep its emissions below tipping point.

But most importantly, she sought to address two misconceptions that permeate Australian climate change discourse:

1.     Nothing is happening globally to address climate change.

2.     At a national level, only Australia is doing anything about climate change.

Figueres began her address outlining how more global progress has been made in the last three years since the supposed Copenhagen “failure” than in all the prior years of climate talks.

Progress including global achievements such as:

1. A commitment to a second Kyoto protocol period.

2. An implementation of voluntary mitigation pledges by all industrialised countries; along with 49 developing countries who have also made public pledges. This covers 80% of all public emissions.

3. A commitment to develop a new agreement which will be legally binding and applicable to all within the next three years. Also in Durban last year, countries worked towards lifting the ambition and transforming the 80% pledge coverage to 100%.

She concluded that there is progress and governments are moving forward, although “admittedly slowly… and I was not born with patience.”

The second misconception she addressed was the idea that Australians are acting alone on climate change and against our national interests. Or as she put it, “to those wonderful Australians who have pangs of loneliness out there in the desert… Australia is not alone.”

In fact nothing could be further from the truth.

Figueres stated that every single one of Australia’s top trading partners has some sort of scheme in place to regulate and reduce their emissions. China has a voluntary scheme that operates in seven of its largest cities that even at this pilot stage covers double the quantity of emissions that our carbon price regulates. The United States has a voluntary pledge to reduce emissions by 17% which is buttressed not by legislation but by regulations that operate on the power sector and transport industry themselves. The EU have schemes in place that cover 40% of their emissions. And finally, Singapore – a low lying city state without enough sun, wind or tide to produce energy, has pledged to reduce its emissions by 7 – 11%.

The Climate Institute have released an excellent infographic that sends home the message loud and clear – Australia is not alone.

Moreover, all these other countries who are working to reduce their emissions are not doing so because they want to “save the planet”. They are doing it because it is in their national interest for balance of trade, energy security and competitiveness that they want to gain or maintain in the future low carbon economy.

As Figueres put it – as countries have realised that it is in their short term national interest to take action on climate change, they have moved from a “you first” to a “move first” paradigm. And “by working on their own national interest they are working incidentally but quite powerfully in the global interest”. Figueres presents a powerful argument for Australia to increase its action on climate change: Australia simply needs to work out what unique strategy is in our national interest and use that understanding to move forward. By doing so we will not suffer economically through our efforts to reduce emissions. The idea that, as the world’s sunniest and one of the world’s windiest countries, renewable energy could be our “unique strategy” is one possible idea.

Her recent visit to COY reminded me of Figueres’ recent speech at the Lowy Institute because of its remarkable contrast. At the Lowy Institute, the final question Figueres was asked was delivered by an older man who earnestly asked her how long she thought it would take before governments realised that they had to lift their ambition and take strong, decisive and urgent action on climate change. This sense of individual helplessness may be understandable, even logical, but such emotions will not lead to systemic change.

This past weekend, Figueres embodied the opposite set of values – inspiration, hope and perseverance. To a room full of young people who will lose the most from inaction on climate change, she said: “Don’t give up. It’s definitely moving in the right direction; just not at the right speed or on the right scale.”

That’s one out of three. Check.

Let’s hope Doha can get us the other two.

By Sophie Trevitt, photo by Lowy Institute.