The Morrison government's refusal to commit to zero net emissions by 2050 is as inherently absurd as Donald Trump's insistence he didn't lose the presidential election. Both epitomise the proverb "there are none so blind as those who will not see".
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But while Trump's delusions are both pathetic and tragicomic, their impact is limited. He will soon be gone and everybody knows it. That is not true of the Coalition's flawed belief it can continue to put off hard decisions on energy policy and climate change. In addition to becoming a major cause of embarrassment for Australia on the world stage this will have dire consequences.
That is why Christiana Figueres, the former executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, singled Australia out for a very public "naming and shaming" this week.
When an individual of Figueres' stature tells the world your record on climate is "suicidal", that your policy making has been "unstable, volatile and unpredictable", and that elements of your approach to meeting the Paris Agreement targets (by using "carry over credits" from Kyoto) display "a total lack of integrity and [are] not something that does Australia proud" people are going to listen.
Figueres likened the use of the Kyoto credits to meet Paris Agreement targets to using points from one sports match towards the results of another. Using that logic you could argue NSW won the State of Origin.
Her remarks, made ahead of a United Nations meeting to be held on December 12 at which governments have been invited to present more ambitious climate plans with the intention of keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees, are the latest indication of how far out of step Australia is with most developed countries.
US President-elect Joe Biden's commitment to zero net emissions by 2050 and his appointment of John Kerry as a climate change envoy marks a shift in America's position on climate and must surely pressure Australia to follow suit.
Britain's Conservative government, led by Boris Johnson, has just committed to a $21.8 billion 10-point plan to combat the crisis and rebuild the UK economy in the wake of the coronavirus at the same time.
Mr Johnson said his "green industrial revolution" would turn the UK into "the world's number one centre for green technology and finance, creating the foundations for decades of economic growth". He estimated it could generate up to 250,000 jobs. "Green and growth can go hand-in-hand," he said. "Let us meet the most enduring threat to our planet with one of the most innovative and ambitious programs of job creation we have known".
The policy's headline grabber was the decision to bring forward the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel-powered cars in the UK from 2040 to 2030. It will still be possible to sell hybrid-electric vehicles until 2035.
Contrast this to Australia, where governments are still arguing over how to tax vehicles that aren't subject to the fuel excise and where the uptake of electric vehicles is among the lowest in the developed world. When the NRMA called for a ban on new diesel and petrol cars as early as 2025 in April there were only 7300 electric cars on Australia's roads.
Transport contributes to almost 20 per cent of Australia's emissions and this proportion has been rising for decades.
With reports that the melting of ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica continues to accelerate, and that 400 million people could be at risk of inundation by the end of the century if the temperature increase isn't held below 2 degrees, time to act is running out.
No government, least of all ours, can afford to keep looking the other way.