REBECCA LEVINGSTON, HOST: The Prime Minister is already on his way home from Glasgow but COP26 negotiations between countries will continue. Representing Labor, Pat Conroy is the Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific and is also the Shadow Minister Assisting for Climate Change, Defence and on Government Accountability. Pat, good morning.
PAT CONROY, SHADOW MINISTER FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND THE PACIFIC & SHADOW MINISTER ASSISTING FOR CLIMATE CHANGE: Good morning.
LEVINGSTON: Well, good evening, I should say fairly late at night in Glasgow at the moment. Just give us a sense of the mood and the setup at this climate change conference.
CONROY: It is incredibly hectic and busy. There's the main negotiations that people have been reporting on but there's also a sort of trade expo going on where countries and companies have pavilions or Australia has a pavilion, and there's side events and side briefings. So you all have to line up to go through one door, which takes about 30 to 40 minutes, one entrance gate, because there's about 20,000 people at this conference. So it takes a while to get through and then it's very busy and you see film crews scurrying through, and you're getting bowled over by delegations of First Nations people from South America. So it's a lot of colour and movement is probably the way of describing it.
LEVINGSTON: So if we turn up to the Australian pavilion, what's there and what's being talked about?
CONROY: Well, the most popular thing in the pavilion is the free coffee. It's a masterful marketing ploy. I must applaud the Government for that. So lots of visitors from other countries are partaking in the free, barista made coffee. And then there's rotating presentations of various technologies. So one day it might be Twiggy Forrest's hydrogen focus. Today it was about storing carbon in cement blocks that can be used for building. So that's a great initiative. Perhaps more controversially, from some environmentalist point of view, yesterday Santos advertising their carbon capture and storage technologies. So it's a way of sort of demonstrating some of the technologies that may be relevant for the decarbonisation task. But it's fair to say it's also got lots of slogans from the Australian Government, particularly the sort of unique 'Australian way' of cutting emissions, which has generally been met by derision around the world, but it's certainly in all the marketing material.
LEVINGSTON: Santos being there is interesting in that the gas transition that has been championed by the federal government, how is that viewed by other countries in terms of a fossil fuel that's central to our economy, but indeed addressing climate policy?
CONROY: Well, it's raised eyebrows. I've had a few delegates from other nations talk to me frankly, off the record, about how it jars. That's not to say that carbon capture and storage doesn't have a critical role in decarbonising the world. It does. And no one I think seriously disagrees with that. But I think having sort of a large gas company advertising their technology sort of reinforces some international perceptions out there that this government is hostage to large greenhouse gas emitters and is out of lockstep with the, or out of step rather, with the rest of the world. So certainly an interesting way of saying that you're taking a different approach to climate change.
LEVINGSTON: You're listening to Pat Conroy, a Labor MP who's at Glasgow COP26, the climate change conference - opened just a couple of days ago. Already, some of the world leaders are on the way home, including the Prime Minister of Australia, Scott Morrison, but of course now, negotiations and details are nutted out between other representatives at the International Conference. Pat Conroy is the Shadow Minister Assisting for Climate Change, Defence and on Government Accountability. So Pat, as a result of Australia attending COP26, what changes?
CONROY: Well, we've lodged our net zero emissions commitment as part of our, what's called, updated 2030 Nationally Determined Contribution. But not much changes for Australia at this stage because Australia hasn't increased its ambition for 2030. That's been the main focus of this conference. That's what Joe Biden and Boris Johnson have been pushing every nation to do. And the good news is that a lot of countries have updated their reduction targets. And that means for the first time in the history of the climate conferences, the commitments from all the governments around the world mean that we've got a decent chance of keeping global warming below two degrees. That's obviously if the governments deliver on their commitments. But that is great news. We have to get to one and a half degrees, but two degrees is a great start. But it does make Australia's refusal to be more ambitious stand out a bit more. The truth is, if every country had an emissions reduction targets similar to ours, we'd be on track for global warming of about four degrees not two degrees. So not much changes from Australia's point of view other than the rest of the world continues to think that we're a laggard when it comes to taking action on climate change. And that will be to the cost of Australia in the long term.
LEVINGSTON: Australia hasn't signed up to a global pact to cut methane emissions. That means Australia’s alongside China, Russia, India and Iran in refusing to commit to that agreement. You're there as Labor's representative at COP 26 – would it be different under a Labor government?
CONROY: We've been frank that, given where climate policy is in this country and we've had eight wasted years, we wouldn't have signed up to the methane initiative just because we haven't had enough time to prepare the agricultural sector, or the mining sector for the necessary changes. So we're being frank with people. We're not pretending otherwise. But that's not the only global pact that's been announced this week that the Government has refused to sign up to. They also refused to sign up to the global deforestation pledge that Joe Biden's been coordinating – that has the end of deforestation by 2030. That raised some eyebrows that Australia didn't sign up to that and there was also a clean energy pledge that we didn't sign up to. So this all reinforces sort of a perception out there that Australia isn't really committed, and is not going through and matching its rhetoric with real actions. So there are some question marks. And the tragedy of this is that there's tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of jobs that could be created if we do embrace the move towards clean energy. And that's been [inaudible]....
LEVINGSTON: Pat Conroy given the PM is already on a plane heading home, how much longer are you staying in Glasgow?
CONROY: Ahh I'm here till next Monday. So there's still some important negotiations and discussions going on. Tomorrow's going to be a big day tomorrow. Each day has a theme. Today was climate finance, which is very important, particularly to the developing world, especially the Pacific. Tomorrow is all about energy. So in the morning, there'll be debating the future of energy production around the world. And in the afternoon, there'll be lots of discussions about the future of coal and particularly coal exports which obviously is incredibly relevant to Australia. So there's lots more going on in the climate conference other than just the leader’s presentations.
LEVINGSTON: Whose still there from the federal government?
CONROY: Angus Taylor is here. And he, I would expect he will be leading our detailed negotiations, meaning the Australian Government's detailed negotiations of the full treaty. I'm not sure when he leaves. Typically, the final deals aren't nutted out till the final Friday or Saturday of next week. I'm not sure whether he's staying around for that long, but he'll certainly be there today.
LEVINGSTON: Just finally, did you run into Leonardo DiCaprio today?
CONROY: Sadly, I did not see Leonardo DiCaprio. I know he was floating around. The biggest celebrity I saw, not much of a celebrity for non-political tragics, was John Kerry, the US Climate Envoy and former Secretary of State. He's probably as famous a person as I saw at the conference. I did run into Malcolm Turnbull as well. But no Leonardo.
LEVINGSTON: Malcolm Turnbull hasn't exactly assisted Scott Morrison in this particular international representation. Has the conflict between Prime Minister Scott Morrison, the French President Emmanuel Macron, emphasised by the likes of former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, has that overshadowed some of the climate policy discussions?
CONROY: Well it fits a continuing theme that we saw in the climate action or climate debate, which is that Mr. Morrison's trip has been a diplomatic disaster. His speech on Monday, addressed to a very large gathering of world leaders was effectively - you don't matter, you can't deliver, you're not who can help us fight climate change, only scientists and boffins working on new technologies can help. Which is incredibly tone deaf to say to a group of global leaders – you can't deliver on anything. And secondly, it's wrong. Only through the nations of the world taking concerted action can we fight climate change. So this has been a very insulting trip by Mr. Morrison. Whether it was that speech that was very patronising, or obviously, leaking private texts from President Macron to The Daily Telegraph. This has been a diplomatic disaster from woe to go for the Prime Minister. And look you'd expect me to say that, I'm from the Labor Party, but I think Malcolm Turnbull certainly talked about it yesterday, and I think any independent observer would say this has probably been the worst international trip of a Prime Minister in living memory.
LEVINGSTON: The Prime Minister would disagree. Given that Angus Taylor, the Energy Minister is still there, he would disagree as well. No doubt there'll be continued conversation on that front. Pat Conroy, though, appreciate your perspective this morning/this evening. Thanks so much.
CONROY: Not a problem. Have a great morning.
LEVINGSTON: Pat Conroy, Shadow Minister for International Development in the Pacific also the Shadow Minister Assisting for Climate Change, Defence and on Government Accountability.