Is Australia Doing Enough to Meet Its Climate Change Commitments?

Is Australia Doing Enough to Meet Its Climate Change Commitments?
A turtle swims over bleached coral at Heron Island on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia, February 2016 (Photo by XL Catlin Seaview Survey/Underwater Earth).

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series on countries’ risk exposure, contribution and response to climate change.

South Australia closed the state’s last coal-fired power plant in May, resulting in a massive increase in energy prices and prompting a backlash against the wind and solar energy sources that replaced it. The episode has raised questions about the viability of Australia’s renewable energy policy. In an email interview, Mark Howden, the director of the Climate Change Institute at the Australian National University, discusses Australia’s climate change policy.

WPR: What is Australia’s risk exposure to climate change, what effects of climate change are already apparent, and what sorts of mitigation approaches will they have to adopt or develop?

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