Canada and Australia “have turned themselves into an axis of carbon,” at just the moment when most of the world’s governments are reaching consensus on the need to price carbon and move urgently toward a low-carbon economy. At the UN Climate Summit, Cushman wrote September 23, “these two governments, with their energy-rich domains sprawling across opposite ends of the earth, will present strikingly similar defences against what much of the rest of the world is offering. And their stance is earning them opprobrium among advocates of strong and immediate action.” In the 2014 Climate Change Performance Index, which tracks government policies and actual emissions, Climate Action Network Europe and Germanwatch ranked Canada last and Australia second-last among developed nations—just ahead of Iran, Kazakhstan, and Saudi Arabia among the 61 countries in the overall survey. Cushman warned that Canada’s and Australia’s efforts could be damaging if they draw wider support: “If they attract others, this axis could become a potent force standing in the way of progress toward a universally binding pact.”
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