an agreement reached between the leaders of over 40 nations to phase out their use of coal-fired power between 2030 and 2040. Coal is one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions across the globe. Yet, as a developed economy heavily reliant on polluting fuel, Australia was missing from the deal, as it was from the Global Methane Pledge as well. Methane has an 80 times potent in warming the earth than carbon dioxide, and is said to account for 30 per cent of global warming since pre-industrial times. Nevertheless, Australia, one of the top methane emitters in the world, chose to back out once again, claiming that such an agreement would be detrimental to the country’s agricultural sector.
The international community has found the conduct of Canberra at COP26 extremely disappointing, with representatives and negotiators from Pacific countries describing it as a “deep betrayal” of the region. Over the days following the summit, many Pacific leaders condemned the outcome of this year’s UN conference as a “monumental failure”, which puts their countries in severe existential danger.
“1.5 is barely alive,” Auimatagi Joe Moeono-Kolio, a Pacific senior political adviser from the Fossil Fuels Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, said. “The first draft of an otherwise very unambitious text had one notable bright spot in it – the phase-out of coal. This was further watered down. For a planet in crisis, this represents a monumental failure in recognising the clear and imminent danger entire countries are now in, including my own.”
Meanwhile, a Samoan negotiator called out the leaders of developed economies who held the reins on the commitments and the outcomes of COP26. “The Alliance of Small Island States and Pacific SIDs really pushed hard, everyone engaged, but unfortunately it is always up to the developed and rich to determine the fate and direction of these pledges and outcomes,” Galumalemana Anne Rasmussen, the representative of Small Island Developing States (SIDs) to the COP bureau, said.
