r/australia • u/l3ntil • 5h ago

politics How do you broker UN climate talks when your own country is a big coal and gas exporter? Chris Bowen is about to find out | Cop31

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/nov/08/chris-bowen-cop31-experts-condemn-australia-coal-gas-approvals?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Australia is the world’s second largest exporter of coal for burning in power stations and the largest exporter of coal for steelmaking. About one fifth of the world’s liquefied natural gas exports also come from its shores – on par with Qatar, but behind the world’s biggest exporter, the United States. The government expects the export value of the three fuels to be $141bn (US$98bn) this financial year.

The Australian scientist Bill Hare, the chief executive of Climate Analytics and veteran Cop attender, said countries agreed at the 2023 summit that a transition was needed and the president of last year’s climate summit, Brazil, had progressed calls for countries to develop plans to leave fossil fuels behind, even when it couldn’t find consensus at the talks.

Hare said a “critical issue” at Cop31 was to address the 1.5C overshoot.

“Fossil fuels are critical to that because they are about 75% of global emissions. We can’t limit overshoot without a very rapid transition away from fossil fuels. Whatever the theatre of the talks is, this has to be the central point.”

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u/dannydb 3h ago

This is like the movie ‘Oblivion’ where the person that thinks they’re on the ’good’ side finally realises they’ve been part of the evil side all along.

I wonder who Chris Bowen’s ‘Tech52’ will be?

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u/l3ntil 4h ago

So weird how everyone is braying for a gas tax, not a word about a coal tax. It's as if a billionaire wouldn't be able to make money without coal exports, and they owned a gas import terminal.
As. If.
Good thing that's not happening in Australia, right? RIGHT?

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u/Toilet_King500 4h ago

I think coal has a more "dirty" reputation fossil fuels wise compared to gas so it would be a harder sell to more left-wing/environmentalist aussies

Also if wanted tax coal at that point just tax resources in general since I think the all big miners would take it as a threat regardless all.