Australia formally misses UN climate deadline, only one country makes pledge close to 1.5°C

Australia has formally missed the deadline to submit its longer term emission reduction targets for the next phase of the UN-backed Paris climate treaty.

But it’s not the only one: By late last week just six countries had filed their 2035 emission reduction targets ahead of the February 10 deadline – and one of those came from the US, which under the new Trump/Musk administration has already withdrawn from the treaty.

According to an analysis by Climate Action Tracker, only one country out of the five still in the mix – the UK – came close to delivering on the agreed 1.5°C target.

“The UAE, Brazil, the US, Switzerland and New Zealand have all come up with 2035 targets that fall way short of what is needed to keep global warming to 1.5°C,” it noted in a report issued last Friday.

Bill Hare, the head of Climate Analytics, one of the partners of Climate Action Tracker, says the public deserve better, particularly in light of the latest assessment that the world has already breached 1.55°C in 2024, and the growing intensity of natural disasters and weather events that have had an impact across the globe.

“The public is entitled to expect a strong reaction from their governments to the fact that global warming has now reached 1.5° for an entire year, but we have seen virtually nothing of real substance,” Hare says.

“So far, governments haven’t lived up to their promises made ten years ago — to bring the world closer to a pathway consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C at the speed needed. The deadline they themselves set ten years ago needs to mark the beginning of a year that sees a marked turning point in government action.”

The federal government has so far only committed to a 43 per cent reduction in emissions below 2005 levels by 2030, with more than half of this to be delivered by its controversial use of land use and forestry, known as LuluCF that was include in the original Kyoto Treaty.

The federal government was expected to received a recommendation from the Climate Change Authority as early as last November on its 2035 target, but that was put on hold, largely because of the political ructions in the US and the re-election of Donald Trump.

It seems unlikely that the federal government will outline its 2035 target before the next election, due by May.

Australia will be under pressure to deliver a strong target, at some stage, given that it has ambitions of hosting the 2026 Conference of Parties, the annual UN climate talks. The host of those talks could be decided as early as June, at the annual interim meeting in Bonn.

That, however, may be a moot point should the federal Coalition win power at the next poll, because it seems it has no interest in cutting emissions in the short term, or in hosting the UN talks. The targets could become a point of contention should Labor find itself in a minority government, as many polls suggest it might.

The UN itself has put off the “symbolic” deadline until September, to give member countries the time to deliver a meaningful target for what it describes as one of the most important policy documents that governments will produce this century.

Climate Home News reports that in a speech last Thursday in Brazil, which is hosting the COP30 climate summit in November, Simon Stiell, the executive director of UN Climate Change, said the quality of the targets should be the paramount consideration. 

“So taking a bit more time to ensure these plans are first-rate makes sense,” he said. Stiell said countries needed to submit their NDC climate targets by September so they can be included in a UN assessment of planned emissions reductions, which will inform the COP30 conference.

The world is currently headed to average global warming of around 2.7°C, which scientists say will be catastrophic, resulting in unbearable heat and humidity in many regions, ice melt, coral bleaching, species extinctions and intense storms and other weather events.

In preliminary advice delivered by the Climate Change Authority early last year, a 2035 target of 65-75 per cent for Australia below 2005 emissions was suggested.

Climate activists suggest it must go further – at least 80 per cent. They note that Victoria has a legislated target of 75-80 per cent cuts, Queensland 75 per cent, and NSW is aiming for a 70 per cent cut.

Climate Analytics says Australia – to be consistent with the 1.5°C ambition – should have already had a 62 per cent emissions reduction target for 2030, and will need to deliver a target reduction of at least 77 per cent by 2035, if land use and forests are included.

Iron ore billionaire Andrew Forrest, who has vowed to real “real zero” by 2030 for his mining operations in the Pilbara, says the world should follow that example, and aim for real zero by 2040.

Conservative groups, the fossil fuel lobby and the federal Coalition have committed only to “net zero” by 2050 – and even holding true to that target is in dispute among its various factions.

The Coalition and fossil fuel lobbies has largely used “net zero” – which Forrest describes as a con – as an excuse to delay any meaningful action for another decade or two, hence their attachment to a nuclear power policy that delay emissions cuts in the grid and across the economy over the next 10-15 years at least.