Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Milne suggested that I must have been there. I do not know if she noticed, but we were sitting last week and I was here. So, no, I was not at the pre-COP ministerial meeting because we sat last week. Australia has not made any formal offer in relation to financing. I have made that clear. When the terms of the international agreement are clear, obviously, any announcement of any funding by Australia would clearly be made public. Senator Boswell, I agree with you—we do not agree on this bill and we do not agree on a lot of things—but, yes, if Australia does make these sorts of policy decisions, the Australian government should explain it, absolutely. But there has been no announcement and no pledge of funding at this stage.

We do know that financing arrangements are the subject of negotiations. Some countries have made offers, many have not and there is a lot of discussion about the mechanisms and frameworks for that. As I said to you, Senator Boswell, and you have asked me the question in the chamber before, there is also a very live discussion about what proportion of that is public finance and what proportion is private finance and there are different views about that. These continue to be issues that Australia and others will negotiate and consider and it is the case that climate finance is something that needs to be looked at—and why is it? It is because we do need to try and encourage developing nations to take a lower pollution development path. It is actually in our national interest to do that because if you believe, as the government does, that climate change has an effect on this country then we do have an interest in trying to support reductions in emissions elsewhere and/or adaptation.

We do have an election commitment which is being delivered to an International Climate Change Adaptation Initiative of $150 million. That money is being expended by AusAID and other mechanisms and that is primarily focused on Australia’s region, so from memory, the Pacific, PNG and East Timor—I might be wrong on that, but that is my recollection. We also have consistent in fact with Mr Turnbull’s own initiative prior to the last election a $200 million International Forest Carbon Initiative which assists developing countries in reducing emissions from deforestation, which can account for around 18 per cent of global emissions—that is, deforestation and forest degradation. Through that program, Senator Boswell, we are working in Indonesia; we have demonstration activities there. We are working with the Indonesians on how we can help to support them in reducing emissions from deforestation given that is a significant source of emissions. These are partnership arrangements. The sorts of figures that are being discussed are global figures at 2020 and there is no agreement as yet about the proportion of public and private finance or the mechanism.

That is the status of the negotiations. I think the merit of some of the assistance to date is that there have been some very good projects in the Pacific, for example, and also in Indonesia arising out of Australian assistance just as—as Senator Boswell will know—under both governments Australia provided aid and continues to provide development aid to many developing nations.