Top UN climate adviser says Australia needs to phase out coal

Australia should “urgently” commit to a low net zero emissions target with its 20 partners, the UN’s top climate adviser said at a conference in Canberra on Monday.

Selwin Hart, Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General on Climate Action, will deliver his speech at the Crawford Leadership Forum 2021 which will be launched launched at the Australian National University (ANU).

“Market forces alone show coal’s days are numbered, as many investors increasingly abandon it in favour of renewables, which are now cheaper in most places,” Hart said in a speech recorded for an Australian National University board of executives conference.

Global investors stepped back from the coal but, he said, the shift didn’t come quickly enough.

General António Guterres, said OECD nations such as Australia should aim to phase out coal by 2030.

However, Mr. Hart pointed out, no worker or community should be left behind at the transition.

Mr Hart said the region expected Australia to play a ‘leading role’- particularly on its target of cutting net emissions to zero by 2050.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has declared that the Government ‘s ‘preference’ is to reach net immigration by mid-century, but has not formally committed himself to doing so.