Australia urged by over 200 scientists to limit new coal, gas sites: ‘offsetting tiny fraction of emissions not credible solution’

Name: Record temperatures expected globally in 2023 as El Nino weather pattern returns
Uploaded: 2023-09-20T13:11:43.000Z
Duration: 2 min 26 s
Description: Record temperatures expected globally in 2023 as El Nino weather pattern returns

As the UN Climate Ambition Summit begins in the US, leading experts have called on Canberra to up the ante and reduce fossil fuel production

In a full-page New York Times ad, they say the climate can’t cope with over 100 extra mines and say the exporting nation has a ‘special responsibility’

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Coal at a port in New South Wales, Australia. The nation has plans to open many more mines, despite the damage fossil fuels cause to the planet. File photo: Bloomberg

Su-Lin Tanin Singapore

Published: 9:11pm, 20 Sep 2023Updated: 9:44pm, 20 Sep 2023

More than 200 international and Australian scientists and experts have urged Canberra to protect the planet by preventing increased production of fossil fuels, as the 78th session of the UN General Assembly and the UN Climate Ambition Summit gets under way.

Led by the Australia Institute think tank, experts including the American climate academic Professor Michael Mann and Australian immunologist Peter Doherty, a Nobel laureate, penned an open letter in a full-page advertisement in The New York Times, asking Canberra to “follow the advice of the world’s scientists” and abandon plans for new fossil fuel sites.

Australia is the third-largest fossil fuel exporter after Russia and Saudi Arabia, according to the think tank.

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong is currently in New York to attend the United Nations meeting, alongside Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Jenny McAllister.

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Record temperatures expected globally in 2023 as El Nino weather pattern returns

“Despite the dire warnings from the world’s scientists and the clear language from the UN Secretary-General [Antonio Guterres], the Australian government is not only approving new fossil fuel projects, it is subsidising them and fighting in court to smooth their path,” said Polly Hemming, the Australia Institute’s climate and energy programme director.

Australia urged by over 200 scientists to limit new coal, gas sites: ‘offsetting tiny fraction of emissions not credible solution’

As the UN Climate Ambition Summit begins in the US, leading experts have called on Canberra to up the ante and reduce fossil fuel production In a full-page New York Times ad, they say the climate can’t cope with over 100 extra mines and say the exporting nation has a ‘special responsibility’

As the UN Climate Ambition Summit begins in the US, leading experts have called on Canberra to up the ante and reduce fossil fuel production

In a full-page New York Times ad, they say the climate can’t cope with over 100 extra mines and say the exporting nation has a ‘special responsibility’