For much of the past three decades, Australia has been viewed internationally as a laggard on climate change – and with good reason.

Australia was the last of the G20 economies that ratified the Kyoto Protocol and the first to dismantle a national carbon pricing scheme, and often sits near the bottom on global rankings of climate action.

In his first encounter with world leaders at the Quad meeting in Japan earlier this week, Australia’s new Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced that the country was ready to take ambitious action on climate change.

But how well does this claim hold up? Will an Albanese government repair Australia’s tattered international reputation on climate change, and its strained relationships with the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and Pacific Island countries over this issue?

The Albanese government has taken crucial steps this week to mend Australia’s international standing on climate change. But Labor’s insistence on maintaining a booming coal export industry will hamper its comeback, and questions remain about whether it will do enough to boost funding for climate action internationally.

Climate looms large in Albanese’s first week
In their first week in office Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong have placed climate change diplomacy firmly on the agenda.

In Albanese’s opening address to Quad partners – India, the United States and Japan – he stressed the importance of tackling climate change for national security, saying it will build “a stronger and more resilient Indo-Pacific region”.

Wong has travelled to Fiji in the government’s first efforts to pick up the pieces of Australia’s fraught relationship with Pacific Island nations, pledging to boost development assistance to the region already hit hard by climate change impacts.

Read more - https://theconversation.com/laggard-to-leader-labor-could-repair-australias-tattered-reputation-on-climate-change-if-it-gets-these-things-right-182860