Climate Change – Morrison's UN Plastic Distraction

Climate change experts say Scott Morrison is using recycling and plastic in the ocean as a distraction from the much bigger threat of global warming. Car Salesman Tactics exposed

UPDATUniversity of New South Wales' Climate Change Research Centre deputy director Steven Sherwood urged him to tackle the "real problem" of carbon emissions"It's great that he is concerned about plastic in the oceans and recycling, but that problem has zero to do with emissions of carbon dioxide and global warming so it sounds like kind of a distraction to me," Professor Sherwood told SBS News"It's something that people can see, it's kind of icky whereas carbon dioxide you can't see, but in terms of the threat that it poses to our future I don't think the two are comparable on any timescale."

While Mr Morrison downplayed Australia's contribution to global emissions, Professor Sherwood said the government's failure to step up action had not gone unnoticed by bigger countries like China which is holding off increasing its targets until other developed countries do more.  

"Even though we're pretty small, we do set an example. If we decide we're not going to particularly worry about this problem then other's aren't going to either."

The federal government insists it's on track to meet its Paris Agreement target to reduce emissions by 26-28 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030, even as emissions continue to rise. 

Mr Morrison instead told the UN that estimates of future emissions had fallen. 

"In 2012, it was estimated Australia would release 693 million tonnes of emissions in 2020. As of 2018, this estimate has fallen to 540 million tonnes."

Professor Sherwood said more ambitious plans were needed to roughly halve carbon emissions by 2050 and limit a global temperature increase to 2 degrees Celcius. 

"That requires getting started yesterday in terms of planning and executing changes. If you are just not going to do those things then that is just not going to happen.

"Currently Australia is one of the highest emitting countries per capita. We're in a position where it's relatively easy for us to reduce our emissions and yet we have among the weakest targets among developing countries compared to Europe."