Merkel adviser lashes Abbott’s ‘suicide strategy’ on coal
German Chancellor’s adviser on climate policy: Hans Joachim Schellnhuber. Photo: Scott Morton
A lead adviser to German Chancellor Angela Merkel on climate policy has attacked Australia’s complacency on global warming and described the Abbott government’s championing of the coal industry as an economic “suicide strategy”.
He said calling for continued coal use was not only poor climate policy, it made little sense economically when the rest of the world was turning to renewable energy.
“China will soon come up to peak coal consumption,” he said.
“Other Asian economies might peak even sooner.
“It’s almost a suicide strategy for the Australian economy.”
His comments come after countries savaged Australia’s performance at a special climate summit of world leaders in New York last week, where US President Barack Obama said combatting global warming was a joint effort by all nations and “nobody gets a pass”.
Germany, one of the world’s biggest producers of wind energy, has set emissions cuts of 40 per cent on 1990 levels by 2020, although it is lagging behind this target.
It has also set targets of 55 per cent by 2030 and 80 per cent by 2050 – a goal that would require most of the country’s fossil-fuel energy stations to cease operating.
Professor Schellnhuber, who is also director of the Potsdam Institute, said it had been disappointing to see Australia’s retreat on climate policy after it became “the darling of the world” when Kevin Rudd ratified the Kyoto Protocol in 2007.
Asked about the reaction to Australia’s performance in New York, he said: “Everybody likes Australian people but nobody liked the Australian government there.”
Professor Schellnhuber said instead of backing away from policies such as Australia’s renewable energy target, the Abbott government should be exploiting Australia’s enviable position as the country with the “biggest potential” to produce renewable energy.
He said this was especially important when Australia was one of the continents most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, which would hit the country in the form of unprecedented heatwaves, fires and coral bleaching.
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