The leader of the Paris Climate Agreement talks says she is "deeply pained" by the attitude of the Australian Government to climate change in the wake of this summer's unprecedented bushfires.
Costa Rican diplomat Christiana Figueres became the United Nations' top climate negotiator in 2010 and was at the helm for the historic Paris Climate Agreement in 2015.
Her task was to bring the leaders of 195 countries together to negotiate a binding agreement to stop the world warming beyond 2 degrees celsius - no easy task after the disastrous failure of the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit.
In an interview with Hack's Avani Dias about her new book, she hit out at the Australian Government's response to the bushfire disaster.
"I am deeply pained by the attitude of the current Australian Government, that still after the worst disaster that has ever hit the planet, the bushfires in Australia, that this government is still denying climate change and denying the fact that there is a lot that Australia can and should be doing," Figueres said. Australia at the coalface of climate change
A common argument against Australia doing more to reduce emissions and transition away from fossil fuels is that as a country, Australia is only responsible for around 1.3 per cent of global carbon emissions.
Figueres also criticised that defence, saying Australia is at the frontline of climate change.
"I see it the following way: we now know because of the consequences of the bushfires, that Australia is actually one of the most vulnerable countries to unmitigated climate change," she told Hack.
"We also know Australia cannot single-handedly solve the problem."
List of Much worse disasters affecting the planet ( just a few of many )Before and after co2 levels increased.
No wonder skeptics remain sceptical with climate change leaders of this quality!
An alternative listing is given by Peter Hough in his 2008 book Global Security.[1]
