Barnaby Joyce, leader of the Nationals, Deputy Prime Minister of Australia and alleged human man, reckons that the Nationals couldn’t have possibly agreed to net zero emissions by 2050 on Sunday, since they only had “four hours.” Big if true, Barnaby.
In case you missed it, BJ and the Nationals entered a meeting for over four hours on Sunday to discuss the PM’s proposed climate policy on net zero emissions by 2050, but couldn’t come to an agreement at all.
So that means they didn’t disagree to it, but they didn’t quite agree either. Without their approval, the policy won’t come into action at all.
To make things worse, our travel influencer Prime Minister Scott Morrison has made plans to hit up the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow. So yeah, it’s gonna be pretty embarrassing if other countries have made plans for net zero emissions and we’re still trailing behind thanks to the Nationals.
In an interview with ABC News Breakfast host Michael Rowland, Joyce spoke about the failure to come to an agreement, using the excuse of having “four hours” to process the changes, despite being in his role for around six years and knowing this was coming.
You can watch the full thing below:
The Nationals failed to agree on a target of net zero by 2050 after four hours of negotiations yesterday.@Barnaby_Joyce says the party won’t be rushed into making a decision.
“We’re not chained to a script. We have our own party and our own party room for a distinct purpose.” pic.twitter.com/GbB97bCsze
— News Breakfast (@BreakfastNews) October 17, 2021
“See, we’re a party which we affiliate at state levels. We affiliate at a federal level. We don’t have a federal party that binds all the states. So, the states can make their decision,” Joyce said.
“And the LNP in Queensland, which also is a large part of the National party, have passed unanimous resolutions not supporting 2030.
“So, there you have a dilemma. You have two decidedly different positions for which people will come into the room with decidedly different outcomes.
“And Victoria has another view of their outcomes. So, that’s politics and that’s the cryptic art of trying to come to a consensus position. And you don’t do that in four hours on a Sunday night.”
Ahh yes, because getting everyone to be on the same page couldn’t have been done in the last couple of years? Truly a cryptic art indeed.
The only thing challenging about it would be convincing Queensland LNP senator Matt Canavan, who famously opposes the whole thing, reportedly saying that the climate policy is “gambling people’s jobs on a prayer.”
https://twitter.com/AmyRemeikis/status/1449839391996669953?s=20
So, with a 2050 net zero emissions plan being completely in the hands of the Nationals, we’ll have to see how this turns out.
Hopefully, they’ve had a few more hours to process the policy, and can come to an agreement, for all of our sakes.
