(Image: Private Media/Tom Red)

Remember that the Morrison government has a two-part plan in relation to the COP26 conference in Glasgow.

The first part is to ward off complete isolation from Western countries — the purpose behind the pantomime of adopting a meaningless net zero by 2050 target backed by a plan to hope some tech fix shows up to stop global heating. The second is to increase coal exports — which means any international agreement to phase out coal-fired power must be resisted.

That was the logic behind Angus Taylor’s bureaucrats’ efforts to prevent the IPCC recommending phasing out coal-fired power and other fossil fuels. And that’s why Australia joined India, China and Russia in blocking a push at the G20 in Rome by the UK and EU countries to commit to phasing out coal production.

Russia and Australia are big coal exporters. India and China are big coal users. Despite China refusing to buy Australian coal, our coalminers have enjoyed a price surge driven by the global recovery and China’s dislocation of coal trade through its efforts to replace Australian coal with imports from other nations like Russia.

Morrison’s “Australian way” is more accurately described as the “Coal Club” way, in which some of the world’s worst human rights abusers join with Western countries addicted to coal exports, like Australia, to sabotage effective climate action internationally.

India’s Narendra Modi announced a net zero target for 2070 (earlier than most Nationals here want it), but UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, backed by News Corp’s less climate denialist British tabloids, knows the threat the Coal Club poses to the hopes of meaningful progress.

The economic benefit of our membership of the Coal Club is about $20 billion a year in thermal coal exports — nearly $24 billion this year due to the spike in coal prices driven by the northern hemisphere — and 44,000 jobs (or about a fifth of the average quarterly change in the total workforce) covering both thermal and metallurgical coal (which is $25-$30 billion of exports).

The direct benefit to the Coalition is through donations from coalmining companies and support from coal billionaires like Clive Palmer and Gina Rinehart, and to Labor through the donations of the mining division of the CFMMEU and the AWU.

But to reach the Paris agreement goal of confining global temperature rises to 1.5 degrees, our coal exports have to start materially reducing now and halve by 2050, according to one study. The International Energy Agency’s roadmap to net zero by 2050 — the global fossil-fuel industry’s own proposal — goes further: it sees all “unabated” coal-fired power, even in developing countries, phased out by 2040 (which, given CCS doesn’t work, means straight phase-out).

And the IEA sees no new coalmines as of right now.

Yet the Morrison government’s policy is to approve new coalmines and spend billions on rail infrastructure to subsidise the coal exports of mines that do not yet exist.

Strangely, the foreign media and climate analysts seem to get that Australia’s positioning is driven by a desire to keep coal exports going, while our own media, perhaps obsessed with the theatrics and personality clashes of the 2050 debate, doesn’t make the connection: 2050 net zero is cover for an ambitious plan to increase global greenhouse emissions through coal exports to support a tiny number of workers, a handful of regional seats and the interests of coal company owners and unions who can dictate policy to decision-makers.

That’s the basis for Australia’s positioning at COP26 in Glasgow. And, based on what happened in Rome, we’re going to be successful.