Climate change gulf looms between Barack Obama and Tony Abbott

Climate change may be the most significant long-term challenge facing the planet, Barack Obama has said in a newly aired TV interview, emphasising the growing differences with Tony Abbott who insists it is certainly not the most important issue facing the world.

As Obama and Abbott prepare for their first formal meeting in Washington on Thursday, the differences between their positions on global warming are clearer than ever, and according to diplomatic sources the president will not seek to downplay them.

Obama’s remarks in an interview broadcast on US television on Tuesday night come as his administration increases its diplomatic push to achieve a successful new international agreement on greenhouse reduction efforts next year and unveils the detail of tough new rules to force reductions in emissions from US power stations.

In an interview with New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman – conducted several weeks ago but broadcast in the finale of the Years of Living Dangerously series – Obama said “the science is compelling … if you profess leadership in this country at this moment in our history then you have to recognise that this is going to be one of the most significant long-term challenges, if not the most significant long-term challenge, that this country faces and the planet faces.”

But in New York on Tuesday, Abbott had a different view.

“Climate change is a significant global issue – it is a very significant global issue. Is it the most important issue the world faces right now? I don’t believe so. It is one of a number of significant issues that the world faces and we will do our bit. We will be a good international citizen. What we are not going to do is clobber our economy and cost jobs with things like a job-killing carbon tax.”

Asked whether he ever felt like “going off like a roman candle” at climate deniers in Congress, Obama laughed and said: “Er...yeah”, but he added “the good news is that the public may get out ahead of some of these politicians, and I think that as the public starts seeing greater frequency of extreme weather events, as they start seeing what used to be 100-year storms happening every year or two and you start seeing the economics of inaction, then the public start thinking: ‘you know what, we are going to start rewarding politicians who start talking to us honestly about this problem’.”

Abbott has downplayed the link between climate change and extreme weather events. For example during severe bushfires last year he said: "Climate change is real, as I've often said, and we should take strong action against it … but these fires are certainly not a function of climate change – they're just a function of life in Australia." When the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres, said the fires showed the world is "already paying the price of carbon", Abbott said “the official in question is talking through her hat".

US officials have been pushing for climate change to be included on the agenda for the G20 leaders meeting in Brisbane in November – as a way of building momentum towards a new global agreement – but Abbott has said that meeting is primarily about economics, although discussion of climate change may come up in discussions about energy efficiency.

Long-serving Democrat Henry Waxman has also told ABC’s 7.30 that Australia was becoming a laggard on climate policy.

Waxman, who was a co-sponsor of the 2009 bill to establish an emissions trading scheme in the US which failed to pass the Senate, told the program “as I understand it, Australia will go from being one of the great leaders in the world in tackling this problem, to one of the great laggers in addressing efforts to reducing the pollution that is threatening the planet that we're living on".

Abbott has said Obama’s policies were like Direct Action in that they don’t impose a carbon price, but according to Waxman the proposed Australian policy "doesn't sound anything like what President Obama is proposing" and such voluntary programs “never worked anywhere”.

"What President Obama is proposing ... is much closer to the existing Australian law and that's why I hope that Australian law is not reversed," he said.

"It would be a serious mistake for Australia to leave that policy and go to one that's voluntary," he added.

Obama is also proposing all new coal and gas plants be required to fit carbon capture and storage, new emissions standards for heavy trucks, stronger energy efficiency standards for buildings and a renewable energy target for federal agencies.

Some commentators have said the prime minister’s alliance with the Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper, would help “dismantle” a push for a global agreement on carbon pricing, or that he is not at odds with Obama because the US is using “direct action” rather than a carbon price to force American power generators to reduce greenhouse emissions.

In fact the UN meeting on the Framework Convention on Climate Change, scheduled for Paris late next year, is not tasked with forging an agreement on the mechanism to achieve emission reductions but rather with securing more ambitious pledges from countries about how far they will reduce their emissions after 2020.

The Coalition’s Direct Action policy is designed to meet only the minimum target of a 5% reduction by 2020 – despite advice from the independent Climate Change Authority that preconditions for a higher target, which previously had bipartisan agreement, have been met. The Coalition has said it will participate in the Paris meeting but has not given any indication of what Australia’s post-2020 target will be, or how it will be determined.

Australia’s policy is entirely voluntary. Companies can choose to bid into a series of “reverse auctions” for government funding. The new US policy requires power generation to reduce emissions by 30%, with states determining the mechanism by which they achieve this. States such as California which have emissions trading schemes will use them to achieve the goal.

However, Obama praised Australia's gun laws as he lamented the lack of action by Congress on restricting the sale of firearms in the wake of another school shooting in the US.

During a question and answer session on Tumblr, the president said: "Australia had a mass shooting, similar to Columbine or Newtown, and Australia said 'That's it, we're not seeing that again', and basically imposed very severe, tough gun laws," he said, referring to the 1996 Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania where 28-year-old Martin Bryant killed 35 people.

"They haven't had a mass shooting since," the president said.

Abbott and Obama are likely to find more common ground on issues of defence, security and trade. The US vice-president, Joe Biden, will join Abbott and Obama at their meeting.

Abbott has met possible a Republican presidential candidate, Jeb Bush, in New York and was due to have a private dinner with News Corp’s chairman, Rupert Murdoch, and senior executives.