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Greg Hunt says Australia is acting as a ‘shuttle’ between developing and developed nations at the Paris climate talks on the issue of the lower target. Photograph: Zhou Lei/Xinhua Press/Corbis
Greg Hunt says Australia is acting as a ‘shuttle’ between developing and developed nations at the Paris climate talks on the issue of the lower target. Photograph: Zhou Lei/Xinhua Press/Corbis

Australia acting as a 'broker' between blocs at Paris climate talks – Greg Hunt

This article is more than 8 years old

Minister predicts there is no chance developing countries will achieve aim of amending agreement’s purpose to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees

Greg Hunt says Australia is acting as a “broker” between competing country blocs on one of the most contentious issues in the Paris climate talks but has also clarified remarks that had the potential to damage the delicate negotiations.

Hunt predicted there was no chance developing countries would achieve their aim of amending the purpose of the agreement from keeping global warming under 2 degrees to keeping it under 1.5 degrees.

One hundred and eight countries are demanding the lower goal on the basis of the latest climate science, including the low-lying island nations that met with the US president, Barack Obama, on Tuesday.

Hunt said Australia was acting as a “shuttle” or “broker” on that issue, saying the concerns of those countries might be “referenced” in the final agreement but that inscribing it as a goal would be a “red line” for other nations and jeopardise the deal.

“We are acting as a broker in that space because you have some of the large developed economies and larger developing economies … we are acting as a broker in the middle of that triangle,” he said.

He said Australia was flexible on the issue. “We know that some of the larger countries under no circumstances would accept 1.5 degrees as a goal so in a sense it is not Australia’s battle or fight, so we are trying to be constructive by providing a pathway but it clearly won’t end up as a formal goal of the text because then it will be vetoed by others,” he said.

Asked about the issue of climate refugees from island states that could no longer support their populations under a 2 degrees warming scenario, Hunt said: “I think that is something we will deal with as a country when and if it arises.”

He also moved quickly to clarify statements about the progress of the talks, which have got off to an “uneven” start, according to the Climate Institute’s Erwin Jackson.

Previous climate talks, including the disastrous Copenhagen summit in 2009 and negotiations in the leadup to this conference in Paris, have suffered serious setbacks when the host country attempted to force acceptance of a cut-through negotiating text with imposed resolutions to some of the myriad disputed items.

At a press conference, Hunt appeared to suggest this was exactly what the French government was proposing to do when it formally takes over running the talks from the professional negotiators.

“There are of course numerous options the way the current text is constructed, in a sense the current text is somewhat diverting from where it is likely to be when the French produce a text as the basis for the final negotiations, most probably on Saturday, that text I understand does significantly narrow down the options,” he said.

When asked whether the French text could produce the same kind of backlash seen at previous meetings Hunt agreed that had happened but said the negotiations over the coming week would “attempt … to resolve as many issues as possible, or to bring them down to the finest points of detail” adding “it has long been discussed, understood and embraced that the co-chairs text will evolve into a French text, which is being discussed with all parties as we speak”.

The French presidency flatly denies it is working on any separate document, and Hunt said later he had only meant to refer to the efforts the French were making to help countries resolve their many points of difference within the current talks.

“The key phrase I used was evolved … the French are helping parties outside the room knock out options, but there is no secret or separate French text,” he told Guardian Australia later.

Hunt also released Australia’s plan to cope with already-locked-in climate change at the Paris summit – a compilation of existing efforts and policies including mapping Australia’s coastline to help state governments plan for future flooding, planning guidelines and CSIRO research for housing in areas subject to more intensive cyclones.

The Abbott government defunded the Howard government’s $50m national climate change adaptation research facility before restoring $9m over three years. The lion’s share of that funding will go to the coastal mapping database.

Jackson said there would not be “a good sense of progress this week for a day or so but it is fair to say that progress is uneven”.

“This is being driven by certain regressive countries in the Like Minded Developing Country group (which includes China, India, Indonesia and Malaysia) attempting to suck energy out of the process and weaken the effectiveness of a possible agreement,” he said. “Saudi Arabia, a wealthy and diplomatically effective oil state, is the focus of much frustration.”

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