Australia has a long-standing reputation as a climate laggard. Over the past nine years of Liberal-National Coalition government, Australia has routinely appeared near the bottom of the Climate Change Performance Index, an independent monitoring tool for tracking the climate protection performance of 60 countries and the EU.
The election of a new Labor government in May 2022 raises the question: will Australia be reborn as a climate leader at the next United Nations climate change conference (COP27) in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt?
At COP26 in Glasgow in 2021, Australia was the only major developed country to resist the requirement to strengthen its 2030 target, set in 2015, to reduce emissions by 26-28 percent from 2005 levels. Nor did Australia sign the voluntary pledge to reduce methane emissions or the statement in support of the clean energy transition, which included an end to public finance for new fossil fuel projects. Instead, the Australian pavillion at COP26 became a talking point for hosting a major Australian gas company.
