PLEA Network

1 July 2021, Renew Economy: Australia ranked dead last in world for climate action in latest UN report. Australia has been ranked dead last for climate action in the latest Sustainable Development Report, which assesses the progress of countries towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. In the latest edition of the report, produced by the UN-backed Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Australia received the lowest score awarded to any of the 193 members of the United Nations for the level of climate action, a withering repudiation of the Coalition government’s climate efforts. The annual report is an authoritative assessment of countries progress towards meeting the Sustainable Development Goals, including the progress of countries towards goals relating to “climate action” and the adoption of “affordable and clean energy”. Australia received the lowest score awarded, just 10 out of 100, for the ‘climate action’ goal, which tracks countries across four core metrics, including the level of emissions from fossil fuel use, embedded emissions in imports and exports and progress towards implementing an effective price on greenhouse gas emissions. According to scores provided in an database included with the latest assessment, Australia ranked amongst the top three countries for exported greenhouse gas emissions per capita, behind only Qatar and Norway. Australia also ranked among the top ten countries for per capita fossil fuel use. The report found that Australia had not achieved any positive progress against the four ‘climate action’ metrics and saw Australia slip below Brunei, the only country that received a worse score than Australia for climate action in the 2020 edition of the report. Read more here