As Australians gamble on the Melbourne Cup, Prime Minister makes each-way bet on climate change at COP26

On the day Australians gamble more than any other, the Prime Minister is having a punt, too.

Australians have just dropped around $200 million in bets on which horse would take out the Melbourne Cup at Flemington Racecourse.

In the wee hours on the other side of the world, Scott Morrison set out his wager, an each-way bet that $20 billion invested in technological potential will either fix the climate crisis, or at the very least, convince other nations Australia is contributing sufficiently to efforts to limit global warming.

“The Australian way is to bet on them — and we think that’s a good bet,” he boomed to other world leaders at the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow.

He was talking about the researchers, scientists, entrepreneurs and investors his government is relying upon to turn potential technological breakthroughs into actual cuts in pollution.

Just as the bookies carefully calibrate the chance of success for each horse at the track, world leaders have sized up other nations’ contributions to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

And most aren’t willing to back the odds of Scott Morrison’s long-game on technological dependence delivering the goods.

Allies and neighbours alike are looking at what can be done in the next few years, while Australia’s gaze remains fixed on the far horizon of the middle of the this century.

‘The Australian Way’ not received well on international stage

Scott Morrison, like other world leaders in Glasgow, was allocated just a few minutes to address his counterparts at the climate talks.

There would be no surprises in his speech. The Prime Minister made it clear ahead of his arrival that Australia’s commitments to reduce emissions would not change for 2030, and committing to net zero emissions by 2050 was predicated on both the significant advancement of existing technologies and the emergence of as-yet-unknown technologies.

From the lectern, he chose to deliver a defensive speech, high on nationalism despite the global context.

Prospective technological developments were billed as “the core of the Australian Way”, the slogan developed in domestic political negotiations between the Liberals and Nationals proved to be an awkward transplant for the international stage.

The speech was low on urgency: “Technology will have the answers to a de-carbonised economy, over time,” Mr Morrison told other world leaders.

While lacking haste, it was not short of boasts.

“Australia has the best rates of rooftop solar in the world,” he declared, a message Australia has been pushing via its network of diplomats around the world.

We’re “ahead of the pack” on emissions reduction, he said, and will be “far exceeding our Paris commitment”.

He cited the 20 per cent cut thus far as notable progress on the target of a 26 to 28 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030.

However, Mr Morrison’s take on Australia’s efforts ignores the low level of ambition that target represents, compared to other developed countries, when it was set six years ago.

It rings even more hollow when you consider Australia was given exemptions under the Kyoto Protocol to continue to increase its emissions when other nations began cutting theirs.

World leaders say Australia has not made a safe bet

In stating his case for some kind of Australian exceptionalism, the Prime Minister spoke loudly, despite the twin microphones before him.

His voice seemed to rebound across the room as he talked around — but not directly to — the fact that Australia would not commit to greater emissions reduction this decade.

The forceful faith in technology-not-yet-known, in decades beyond the end of this one, was in stark contrast to the tenor of those leading the meeting.

From the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, there was a plea for immediate action.

“Countries must revisit their national climate plans and policies. Not every five years. Every year. Every moment.”

Speaking for the host nation, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson reflected the urgency, albeit in terms that could only be described as, well, Johnsonian.

“We’re in roughly the position … as James Bond,” he said, “strapped to a Doomsday device … while a red digital clock ticks down remorselessly to a detonation that will end human life as we know it.”

US President Joe Biden used his time at the lectern to be equally firm in stating when action needed to occur.

“This decade. The science is clear: We only have a brief window left before us to raise our ambitions and … to meet the task, that’s rapidly narrowing.”

And, from Australia’s near neighbours in the Pacific, the message was even blunter.

“Empty promises of mid-century ambition are not enough,” Fiji’s Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama said.

“All higher emitting countries must halve global emissions by 2030.”

In failing to offer more action this decade — the main objective of COP26 — Scott Morrison needed to make a case for Australian exceptionalism.

In some sense he succeeded, but not as hoped.

“The Australian Way” seems to have highlighted that this nation, as in past COP meetings, is acting as a brake on climate action, not a ready participant.

Which makes it all the harder to convince ‘developing’ countries — which includes the likes of China and India — to follow suit.

Scott Morrison will depart Glasgow with Australia’s six-year-old 2030 target unchanged. He may be able to brush off the criticism Australia is copping at COP26, but it is likely to follow him.

Frank Bainimarama, the strong man and powerful voice of the Pacific, made it clear that success in limiting climate change should not be left to chance.

“We have moral authority,” he said. “You have a moral obligation.”