Good morning. The Coalition is edging towards a net zero emissions target and the climate roadmap makes it way to cabinet today. Australia will make tracks on the moon after signing a deal with Nasa to build a rover. And lockdowns have kept rock’n’roll off the stage but have given time for the music photographer Tony Mott to go through his archives and share some of his best shots and stories.
More Australians than ever are worried about the climate crisis and want serious action to address it, according to an annual survey, which found 75% of respondents are concerned. The poll suggests a clear majority – 69% – want the government to put Australia on a path to net zero emissions. Cabinet meets today to consider a new climate roadmap, and Darren Chester has declared there’s “about a 95% chance” the Nationals will line up behind a net zero target because “Barnaby Joyce can count, and most of the room is in favour of credible action”.
The climate crisis is dominating headlines across the country in the lead-up Cop26, and the prominent News Corp commentator Andrew Bolt has said his company’s new major editorial campaign to speed up climate action is “rubbish” and the “global warming propaganda” provides political cover for Scott Morrison. Other commentators have brought up the idea that Australia should consider nuclear energy. But is it worth it? Here is what we know about the pros and cons of nuclear power in an Australian context.
G20 leaders have agreed they will have no option but to involve the Taliban in sending humanitarian aid to Afghanistan but say that this stops short of political recognition of the Taliban as a government. Mario Draghi, chair of the G20, said there was a consensus at the meeting to act through the UN and its agencies. “Addressing the humanitarian crisis will require contacts with the Taliban, but this does not mean their recognition.” Aid agencies say Afghanistan is on the verge of “a humanitarian meltdown” since it has been 75% dependent on foreign aid to survive – and support has dried up since the Taliban seized power in August.
Australia
Five million doses of hydroxychloroquine imported by Clive Palmer as a potential treatment for Covid will be destroyed after standoff with the commonwealth over who should take responsibility for an unclaimed shipment at Melbourne airport.
Australia has signed a deal with Nasa to send an 20kg Australian-built rover to the moon to help collect lunar soil and examine how its oxygen could support human life in space.
General practitioners and health departments are still in the dark as to how they should roll out Covid booster shots, as 500,000 severely immunocompromised Australians become eligible for a third dose from this week.
Jeff Kennett’s former chief of staff John Griffin has remained a paid lobbyist more than two years after he was appointed to the administrative appeals tribunal.
The NSW “freedom day” has brought confusion and greater constraints to regional areas who were not affected by lockdowns. Some regional businesses are choosing to close or only serve takeaway so as to not discriminate against people who are not fully vaccinated.
Canberra is on track to become the most vaccinated city in the world, with almost the entire territory’s population expected to be fully vaccinated by November.
The world
The climate activist Greta Thunberg is “open” to meeting with Joe Biden at Cop26 in Glasgow but does not expect much from either the US leader or the make-or-break summit.
The ashes of a prominent German Holocaust denier have been buried in the gravesite of a Jewish-born musicologist in Berlin, in what the cemetery management say was a “terrible mistake”.
The EU will offer to remove a majority of post-Brexit checks on British goods entering Northern Ireland as it seeks to turn the page on the rancorous relationship with Boris Johnson.
Recommended reads
The rock’n’roll photographer Tony Mott has led the kind of life that for the rest of us seems like a surreal dream. Travelling with Paul McCartney. Partying with Queen. He has photographed everyone from Prince to Rihanna to Marianne Faithfull. Lockdown has offered many artists the rare chance to sort through archives. Mott has been digging through his negatives and giving new life to previously unseen photos, each with a story to tell: teenage Avril Lavigne beside a bullet train in Tokyo, whose management took the entourage out to dinner in a brothel; Stevie Nicks, who had the tendency to get lost, and mistook the gig venue for the gate lounge at an airport; and so many more.
In July last year a video of various objects being cut open went viral. Knives sliced into a Croc shoe, a pot plant, a roll of toilet paper, a pile of towels – all revealing spongy innards layered with icing. Increasingly elaborate cakes and decorative baking has become an online obsession, particularly for Donna Lu. “It is mesmerising to watch the labour people devote to something whose sole purpose is destruction, where the full value of the artistic work is not realised until it is taken apart,” she said.
New Gold Mountain captures the harsh beauty of Australian land but is narratively more interested in the consequences of capitalism’s compulsion to drain it of resources, writes Luke Buckmaster. The four-part SBS miniseries about the Chinese community in 1850s Ballarat gives a fresh, cinematic spin on history. “In a world of information overload, where there is tendency to assume every story worth telling has already been told, Corrie Chen’s series reminds us this is far from true: history and culture, as always, is a matter of perspective.”
Listen
As the world begins to move away from coal, with more countries vowing to be coal-free by 2030, Australia stands in stark contrast. The federal environment minister, Sussan Ley, has just approved four new coal projects in one month. In this episode of Full Story, Laura Murphy-Oates speaks to the barrister Chris McGrath and Guardian Australia environment reporter Lisa Cox about how and why these coal projects were approved – and the future of Australia’s relationship with coal.
Full Story is Guardian Australia’s daily news podcast. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.
Sport
The Socceroos have lost to Japan 1-2 in the 2022 World Cup qualifier, bringing their 11-match winning streak to an end. “We’re devastated. We did drop three points here. If we’d come off with a 1-1 draw you’d have accepted it,” said goalscorer Ajdin Hrustic. “We’re going to close this chapter now. We’re going to keep going. I’m 100% sure we’ll finish on top if we keep playing the way we’re playing.”
Media roundup
Liberal defector Dan Cregan has been installed as South Australia’s Speaker in a late-night coup just four days after he quit to become an independent, report the Advertiser. The Herald Sun says Melbourne’s Royal Children’s hospital has isolated the neonatal intensive care unit after an unknowingly infected parent visited the site.
Coming up
A Senate inquiry into job security will hold a hearing.
The IMF will release the latest world economic outlook.
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