The employment minister, Michaelia Cash, says Australia’s national interest is best served if Donald Trump stays the course with the Paris climate agreement.
With the US president expected to make a decision this week about whether America will pull out of the Paris accord, officials were asked during Senate estimates hearings whether Australia had made diplomatic representations to the Trump administration encouraging the president to remain in the agreement.
Cash, who was the minister at Wednesday’s hearing, said the government had made it clear that the US saying the course with the global climate agreement was desirable and in Australia’s national interest.
She said Australia was committed to the Paris agreement and to our carbon emissions reduction target, and she said Australia’s interests were best served by the US maintaining its commitment to the Paris agreement.
The secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs, and former foreign policy adviser to Malcolm Turnbull, Frances Adamson, was asked whether Australia had made representations to the Trump administration about the Turnbull government’s pro-Paris position.
Adamson said she could not point to a “particular discussion” but she said the Australian government’s view on the Paris deal was well known to the Trump administration.
The ambassador for the environment, Patrick Suckling, said discussions between political leaders were “confidential” but he told the hearing he had expressed Australia’s commitment to the Paris deal in contact with US officials.
Adamson said it was in Australia’s interests that all the current signatories to the deal maintained their commitment. If particular countries left the agreement, that would weaken the accord.
After Trump indicated after the G7 summit in Italy this past weekend he would make a decision about US participation in Paris this week, the environment and energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, said Australia would stay the course with the agreement.
But government conservatives have already signalled a US withdrawal would mean Australia needs to reconsider its position. The frontbench conservative Zed Seselja has noted if the US withdraws “that would change the nature of that agreement”.
Seselja’s observation followed an earlier public warning from the chairman of the Turnbull government’s backbench committee on environment and energy, and fellow conservative, Craig Kelly.
Kelly has argued Australia will need to review its participation in the Paris agreement on climate change if Trump pulls out.
The US Republican senator and one-time presidential aspirant John McCain, during his visit to Australia this week, argued the US should uphold its commitment to the Paris agreement, or accede to it with minor modifications.
McCain said the death of the Great Barrier Reef was one of the “great tragedies of our lives”. He said climate change was undeniably real and world leaders needed to act now to halt and reverse global warming.
