There was a noticeable shift in mood on Monday when the United Nations Climate Summit began in New York.

Key points:

  • Australia wasn't invited to speak at summit due to lack of ambitious emissions-reduction target
  • Australia's absence was noted among attendees including Pacific neighbours
  • Morrison said he doesn't want children to have 'anxieties' about climate change
Empty platitudes were given short shrift from the outset, as UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres directed only countries that had come with ambitious plans to cut carbon emissions to speak.
Australia, alongside Japan, South Africa, the United States, Saudi Arabia, Brazil and others, manifestly did not fit the bill.
Asked to clarify whether those countries were banned from speaking, a statement from the UN said all countries were invited to bring ambitious targets to the summit — but that some just "didn't show up".
Physically, Australia had a presence at the summit — Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Ambassador for the Environment Patrick Suckling — but we weren't one of the 63 countries given a three-minute platform to spruik any new initiatives.
Under the Paris Agreement, countries are not due to report on their progress toward their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) until next year, but the secretary-general was pushing for more immediate action as climate change becomes more urgent.
"What the secretary-general has done by asking heads of state and governments to come to New York on Monday the 23rd, [was to] come with much more ambitious plans than [Australia has] had," Rachel Kyte, UN Special Representative for Sustainable Energy, told RN Breakfast on Monday.
"Because we need to get a handle on this sooner rather than later."
At last report, Australia still planned to stick to its pledge to reduce emissions by 26-28 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030.
It's widely believed we'll be using an accounting trick from our Kyoto surplus to get there, if at all.
Australia's emissions have continued to increase over the past five years, and most projections see us overshooting our 2030 target without some drastic reductions.

Australia's absence a 'national embarrassment'

Responding to a reporter's question about why he was in Chicago and not at the summit, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he was being "well represented" by Ms Payne, and that he would be meeting with Pacific leaders later in the week.
But his absence didn't go unnoticed.
Environmental scientist Ian Lowe said Australia was still ignoring the recommendations made by scientists during the Howard era.
"Australia's disinterest in the UN Climate Summit is, frankly, a national embarrassment," Professor Lowe from Griffith University said.
Richie Merzian from the Australia Institute said Australia had further damaged its relationship to its Pacific neighbours.
"Prime Minister Morrison's complete absence from such a crucial global meeting has been noted by many, especially Australia's neighbours in the Pacific, with the Fijian PM going so far as registering it as an insult," he said.

Pacific pivot undermined


Australia's return to its Pacific neighbours after years of neglect could risk being undermined by the Government's intransigence on the region's main threat: climate change.
Mark Howden, vice-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said our absence was misaligned with a vision of Australia as a "smart, innovative, forward-looking and lucky country".
"The restrained engagement of Australia in the UN Climate Summit was notable, especially in contrast with that of our neighbour New Zealand," Professor Howden said.
"And even more so in contrast with the challenge that Greta Thunberg set the attendees."
Leading into the summit, a UN report outlined the escalating climate crisis.
Most data in the report compiled by the World Meteorological Association were things we already knew: the last five years was the hottest five-year period on record, sea-levels are rising faster than anticipated, and CO2 emissions are still on the rise.
It was more a reminder for those in doubt about why the secretary-general had convened a meeting of the UN to "discuss a leap in collective ambition".
But the key takeaway was that emissions-reduction efforts must triple and that wealthy countries like Australia will need to do the bulk of the heavy lifting.
In that context, the Prime Minister's absence from the summit couldn't have been more stark, given his very public tour of the US.

Small island states refuse to be 'collateral damage'

But while he was spruiking Australian business and trade in Chicago, industry was doing some spruiking of its own in New York.
Nearly 90 companies with a market cap of $2.3 trillion pledged to embark on business plans to limit warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
At the same time, the shipping industry was announcing ambitious plans of its own to decarbonise.
Ms Kyte said the summit was a response to the climate emergency declared by youth the world over.
"This is about an appropriate response to that emergency," she said.
"We can use this summit as a slingshot toward further agreements that need to be reached in the climate negotiations, at the end of this year and at the end of 2020."
At the top of the speaking bill was the person responsible for those youth climate strikes.
Greta Thunberg delivered an impassioned plea for more action, and was followed directly by New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
Ms Ardern reiterated New Zealand's pledge to be carbon neutral by 2050 and to provide $300 million to support climate mitigation and adaptation in the Pacific.
Fiji, Indonesia, Vanuatu, and Palau all spoke from our region.
And Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, speaking on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States — which, as she pointed out, account for a fifth of UN member states — called for 2C of warming to be taken off the table as an acceptable compromise.
"If it was up to our community, it would have been solved three decades ago," she said.
"We refuse to be relegated to the footnotes of history as collateral damage."

Morrison doesn't want children to 'have anxiety'

China was given a platform at the summit, despite plans to significantly expand its fleet of coal-fired power stations.
Mr Morrison used his keynote speech at the Chicago Institute for Global Affairs to call on China to do more to cut its emissions, arguing that China was no longer a developing nation with the emissions concessions that come with it.