Pacific pariah: how Australia’s love of coal has left it out in the diplomatic cold

(Rhetoric and reason become dreadfully entangled when our leaders tread the climate change tight rope. Malcolm Turnbull has been wrestling with this reality at the Pacific Islands Forum leaders' meeting as he has tried to explain away Australia’s obvious inaction in addressing this complex dilemma.

The PM has taken his call for jobs and growth, the antithesis of what is needed if climate change is to be genuinely and honestly addressed, to the world stage, the recent G20 Summit, and now to a more regional meeting at the Pacific forum.

Mr Turnbull has declared climate change important, rhetorically at least, but behaves in a way that suggests he doesn’t really believe what he is saying – Robert McLean)

Australia’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will have some explaining to do when he attends the Pacific Islands Forum leaders' meeting in Pohnpei, Micronesia, this week.

Australia’s continued determination to dig up coal, while refusing to dig deep to tackle climate change, has put it increasingly at odds with world opinion. Nowhere is this more evident than when Australian politicians meet with their Pacific island counterparts.

It is widely acknowledged that Pacific island states are at the front line of climate change. It is perhaps less well known that, for a quarter of a century, Australia has attempted to undermine their demands in climate negotiations at the United Nations.

Read the story on The Conversation by a lecturer in Politics and International Affairs at The University of the South Pacific, Wesley Morgan - ”Pacific pariah: how Australia’s love of coal has left it out in the diplomatic cold.”