The big smoke: Morrison under increasing pressure to change with the climate

When Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor took the stage in Madrid for an official address to the United Nations climate conference this week, he made no mention of the bushfires ravaging Australia.

Images of the inferno that has razed millions of hectares only contributed to Australia's reputation as an outlier on climate change action. Energy Minister, Angus Taylor, never mentioned Australia's bushfires when he spoke at Madrid.

It was an omission that drew international interest, says Australian National University professor of environmental economics Frank Jotzo, who was representing the university as an observer at the conference.

"When any Australian at this conference is talking to anyone not from Australia, the conversation turns to the fires and that so much of Australia is burning," he says. "People are perplexed about how an Australian energy minister, in an official statement, could not talk about the bushfires."

International media had already seized on Australia's horror start to bushfire season, in which six people have died and more than 700 homes have been lost. Images beamed around the world of the inferno that has razed millions of hectares only contributed to Australia's reputation as an outlier on climate change action.

Read the story from The Age by Mike Foley - “The big smoke: Morrison under increasing pressure to change with the climate.”