Faking it

A new occupation has emerged in the American media: the Donald Trump fact checker. Nearly every speech, tweet, post and accusation the US president makes is either exaggerated, lacking in crucial detail or simply and spectacularly wrong. His generic response to reports of these inaccuracies, or any that contradict his preferred narratives, is to attack whichever journalist, masthead or broadcaster that generated what he describes with an Orwellian flourish as “fake news”.

Australian prime minister Scott Morrison has been spending some time with Trump during his US visit, and if his speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York overnight is anything to go by, he seems to have taken some lessons.

Morrison cited Australia’s ratification last month of a new maritime treaty with Timor-Leste as an example of Australia’s record of supporting the United Nations’ role as “the prime custodian” of the “international rules-based order”. The reality is that Australia refused to allow international courts to adjudicate maritime disputes, spied on Timor-Leste during treaty negotiations, and forced the tiny nation to pioneer the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea’s compulsory conciliation process.

But it was the lavish praise Morrison heaped on Australia – in the absence of anyone else willing to do so – for its response to “the great global environmental challenges” that caused observers to risk choking on their food.

We learnt that Australia is “committed to leading urgent action to combat plastic pollution choking our oceans”. But Australian governments have consistently ruled out doing just that. The only bans on plastic here are limited to those by some states and retailers on particular types of thin checkout bags. On average, each Australian continues to use 130 kilograms of plastic each year.

Morrison talked up Australia’s support for research into recycling and the recent COAG agreement – that Australia would ban waste exports “as soon as practicable” – but there’s no timeline and there’s no commitment to generate less waste before Australia pollutes.

Morrison described the Great Barrier Reef as “vibrant and resilient”, citing the UNESCO World Heritage Committee’s 2012 assessment of its “gold standard” management plan. But that assessment took place while Adani’s proposed Carmichael coalmine was still being assessed by Queensland’s then-premier Anna Bligh. Since then, Australia has lobbied hard to prevent UNESCO from listing the reef as “in danger”.

Morrison claimed that Australia “is responsible for just 1.3 per cent” of global carbon emissions. Even if that figure were accurate, it would suggest that Australians – who make up just one-third of a single per cent of the world’s population – are emitting more than four times their per-capita allowance. The reality is much more sobering. Australia mines 57 tonnes of CO₂ potential per person each year, and is the world’s third-largest fossil-fuel exporter.

Finally, Morrison repeated Australia’s claim to be “exceeding” its emissions targets. That claim is taken seriously by nobody. Australia famously played hardball at the 1997 Kyoto summit, securing a target that would effectively allow it to increase its emissions by 28 per cent on 2000 levels, while everyone else agreed to reductions. Having met this target with emissions to spare, Australia now – just as famously – argues that it can use “carry-over credits” from Kyoto to say that it will reach its Paris targets by 2030.

Before the speech, Morrison told a press conference that media criticisms of Australia’s climate policy are “completely false and completely misleading”. He could have been using Trump’s autocue. In the same vein, Morrison then told the world overnight that “Australia is carrying its own weight and more”. That’s a lie, but only if we still expect facts to stand independently of those who assert them.

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