GLASGOW: The Australian federal government’s environment policies have produced a standout bad result on the 2022 Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) from NGOs Germanwatch, NewClimate Institute and the Climate Action Network (CAN).

The three organisations analyse and compare the climate mitigation efforts of 60 countries plus the EU that collectively account for more than 90 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

This year Australia received “very low” ratings in every CCPI category: GHG Emissions (56th), Renewable Energy (52nd), Energy Use (54th) and Climate Policy - where it came 64th and last with ‘nul point’.

This contrasts with the country’s behaviour in the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest where it placed 9th out of 26 finalists with 284 points.

As a climate performer under economic fundamentalist prime minister Scott Morrison, it now joins Canada, Korea, Kazakhstan, the US, Russia and Saudi Arabia at the bottom of the overall CCPI.

No country received “very good” ratings so the top three places on the index remain empty and are followed by Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the United Kingdom and Morocco.

However CCPI author Niklas Höhne from NewClimate Institute cautioned: ‘The UK is only in the middle of the pack regarding renewable energy and lacks policies to reach its own targets. This shows that no country can sit back and relax. Every nation has some catching up to do.”

Of the G20 only the UK, India, Germany and France rank among the high performers on the index with The Netherlands (19th) one of the biggest climbers.

“The same countries that are among those with the worst climate performance are identical with the globally largest fossil fuel exporters and large fossil fuel users like [the] US, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Australia,” commented CAN Chief Advisor Stephan Singer.

“For CAN it is clear that a serious implementation of 2030 targets in line with a 1.5°C-strategy would break the backbone of the economic and politically bribing power of the fossil fuel industry," he added. "Only with fast and real progress towards deep emissions reductions in this decade and rapid expansion of renewables will it be possible to meet the 1.5C° survival objective.”