Australia, a nation among the developed, is currently one of the most prime advocators of coal and fossil fuels. Prime Minister Scott Morrison, from the Liberal Party, is a conservationist who is still stuck in the past with supporting and subsidizing coal mining and fossil fuels extraction.
He has only recently agreed to attend the UN Climate Conference in Scotland, and that was not without criticism from Queen Elizabeth II and mocking from a billboard in Times Square.
Australia is currently the largest exporter of coal and has suffered among the most from wild fires. But still, Australia doesn't have any concrete plans for working towards curbing climate change, whereas other developed nations all have pledged in some manner to reduce emissions by 2050, or even 2030! The Liberal Party and the National Party have used coal as their political agenda.
And as much as I hate to say this, because I am from India, Adani, one of India's largest industrialist, is looking to invest in Australia to build the world's largest coal mine. And the current Australian government is ready to provide subsidies for this investment to happen.
Australia, is like a black mole, because it is becoming the sole reason for negating other developed nations' climate change efforts. It is not only slowing other countries' efforts, but also pulling their efforts because only when everyone work together does any real change take place quickly.
Article: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/21/world/australia/australia-coal-fossil-fuel-carbon.html
4 comments:
Keeping coal mines open does give Australia more jobs available, but at what cost? Australia needs to adapt to a more eco-friendly industry and start looking into more renewable resources. Coal mines may provide many jobs, but it is also contributing to climate change as seen by the many wildfires. Even with the jobs created by the coal industry, this industry cannot be sustained because of the damage it causes to nature and the price it takes to fix it. Another reason Australia needs to make this shift is because of societal norms, they cannot be one of the only developed countries to not have a plan to help reduce/slow down climate change.
It is interesting to see that a well-developed country has this much resistance to adopting greener energy and technology. It is mostly a common consensus among countries in the world that humans are consuming scarce resources on earth at a shocking rate and that the consequences will be severe if humans don't act on it quickly enough. Not to mention that Australia is a victim of global warming itself (wildfires).
Coal mining is contributing to the most amount of jobs in rural areas in Australia, it is also contributing to the country's exports and GDP. However, Australia uses coal to produce electricity. The country can easily shift to more renewable sources for electricity and can also invest in cleaner coal.
Sana, I can agree with what you're saying, but there is a deeper understanding which would change what you said. Coal mining, or any mining, is a very dangerous job, that has both short term and long term effects; short term being immediate death due to mine collapse which is rare, and long term being cancers and diseases that come from inhaling coal and coal soot, which happens in almost every miner, even in the 21st century. Australia is basically not caring for the coal miners and is gaining economic output by damaging lives of its poor miners.
And coming to shifting to renewable sources of electricity "easily". Australia is a great place for establishing several projects to generate electricity from renewable sources but they take a long time to establish and is not "easy" to switch, at least in the near future due to the political climate in Australia, which is very conservative according to American terminology. And as said before, cleaner coal does mean cleaner environment, but doesn't mean a good life for the miners.
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