Hello I’m from the Australien Government with a big announcement
We’re finally ready to look like we’re taking stronger climate action
That’s right, while other nations are announcing bigger cuts to their emissions
We’re announcing that we’ll no longer use our Kyoto Carryover Credits to meet our targets
And we’d appreciate everyone patting us on the dick for that
What’s that? You don’t know the story of our Kyoto Credits?
Thank fuck for that
Coz if you knew how much we’ve been cheating to shirk our responsibilities on the world stage,
you’d literally die in the arse of shame
A bit like how you felt when we cheated in the cricket...
Except the ball we’ve been tampering with and rubbing our nuts all over is the planet
Introducing: CRINGE
A collaboration between Scotty from Marketing, Johnny from Accounting and Tony from Cunting
CRINGE has been our policy at climate summits for the past two decades
Which is why to understand how this is just the latest chapter of CRINGE,
we need to take a trip back in time
So lets go...
Doolululu doolululu doolululu
Hi I’m from the Australien Government, it’s 1997 and the world is coming together
in Kyoto for the first time to agree on targets to lower greenshouse emissions
Well, everyone except us. We’re here to bitch and whinge about
how we need special treatment, because: STRAYA
CRINGE
So whilst basically every other wealthy nation committed to LOWERING emissions
over the next decade, we got permission to INCREASE ours
But we didn’t stop there, oh no. We then refused to sign the treaty unless the world
agreed to let us start counting our emissions from a much higher baseline than we deserved
A bit like being the only kid that gets to start a race halfway down the track
Or playing a test match with half the balls already tampered with
This bullshit was known as the “Australia Clause” and we demanded its inclusion at 2 AM
on the last night of summit, threatening to scuttle the whole thing unless we got our way
And the final kick in the balls?
Even after the world agreed to all our bullshit demands
Johnny still refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol anyway LOL
CRINGE
Hi I’m from the Australien Government
It’s 2012 and the world is meeting in Doha to see how we all went with our Kyoto commitments
Most countries have worked hard to reduce their emissions
But not us. Ours have gone up a cubic shitton
But since we started with that artificially high baseline
We got to keep polluting and we STILL met our target
In fact, we came in under our bullshit target, which meant we had a bullshit SURPLUS
And that’s how our bullshit Kyoto credits were born
But don’t worry: at least this time when it came to setting our target for our next goal,
We actually agreed to reduce our emissions
By approximately...
fuck-all
Sure, fuck-all isn’t much, but don’t forget how we “over-achieved” and got those credits!
CRINGE
You’re probably thinking this shit couldn’t possibly get more embarrassing
Hold my stubby
Hi I’m from the Australien Government
it’s 2015 and the world is meeting in Paris to address the worsening climate crisis
Other rich countries are pledging bigger emission cuts for their 2030 goal
And voluntarily sacrificing their Kyoto credits saying
they go against the spirit of the Paris Accord
Fools
Meanwhile, Tony announced a pissweak 2030 target
not even half of what our own experts said was needed if we want to keep the reef
And we demanded to hang onto our bullshit Kyoto credits
Even though it’s not even LEGAL under the Paris Accord to carryover credits from the Kyoto era
A bit like tryng to claim expired Ansett points with Qantas
You have to wonder how we don’t get punched in the fucking face
everytime we show up at these Climate Summits
CRINGE
Doolululu doolululu doolululu
Hi I’m from the Australien Government
We’re back in the present and the world’s on fire
And because we’ve done squat to reduce actual emissions for the past two decades
Not only do we have the highest per-capita emissions in the developed world
We’ve also managed to piss everyone off with all our bullshit
But dont worry: Scotty’s working hard to find ways of marketing CRINGE to the world as climate-action
By increasing our 2030 emission cuts, like the UK just did?
No
By Setting a net-zero target like most nations and all our State Governments have?
Yeah-Nah
By cancelling our Gas-led Recovery and investing massively in Renewables instead?
Fuck no. We’re just promising not to use our Kyoto Credits
Credits we didn’t deserve in the first place...
Which no other nation in the world is trying to claim...
And which aren’t even legally valid anymore….
But which for years we tried to use anyway because FUCK YOU
And now that you know the story of our bullshit Credits, you can fully appreciate the pure
shitfuckery of saying that our contribution to global climate action will be to not use them
A bit like our cricket team getting a medal for promising not to tamper with their balls anymore
Coz really what we’re saying by pledging not to use our bullshit Credits, is that
instead of working harder, like the rest of the world, we just promise to stop cheating
Which in a way, when you think about it...
Is still a way of using those bullshit Credits
*Snorts*
CRINGE
Authorised by the Department of Marketing and Accunting Tricks