As an Australian, I find it <i>fascinating</i> that New Zealand is using Australia as a role model for climate policy. One of the two major parties plans to drop out of the Paris Agreement entirely, retargetting everything to 2050 for the next generation of politicians to deal with.
Australia has a similar issue to US.<p>It makes most of its export dollars from coal/gas/iron/aluminium.<p>Western Australia is the mining powerhouse.<p>But because they make so much money from coal and gas, that influences politics and they can’t transition faster to other sources. Australia is energy independent from coal and gas.<p>China on the other hand doesn’t have its own gas, oil or coal to satisfy their demands. So for them energy independence means going full throttle on solar and batteries.<p>Australia could have done that. For their population size they could be net zero, but their politics and money influence will slow it down significantly.
A more nuanced analysis can be found here<p><a href="https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2024/08/high-coral-cover-and-bleaching-gbr/" rel="nofollow">https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2024/08/high-co...</a>