London: The woman considered the biggest threat to Mathias Cormann's bid to run the OECD will push for a global rollout of Europe's plan to slap a carbon tax on high-emissions imports, warning climate change is an "urgent crisis for humanity".

Cecilia Malmstrom, the frontrunner in the race to become the next secretary-general of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, said the Paris-based body could help spearhead the new environmental and economic reform in the same way it was designing a landmark scheme for 137 countries to extract more tax from multinational tech giants.

The former European Union trade commissioner is one of 10 candidates vying for the crucial five-year post. The competition still has three months to run but observers believe the Swede may currently be ahead of standouts such as Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid and Cormann, who recently stepped down as Australia's longest-serving finance minister.

Cormann has flown to nearly 20 countries in Europe and South America over recent weeks to rally support but has faced claims that the government's climate change policies make him unsuitable for such a major economic role.

Read more:

https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/economy-and-ecology-cormann-s-top-oecd-rival-pledges-climate-reform-20201210-p56m75.html

World leaders deserve to know about Australia’s abysmal climate change policy, so I wrote to them

By BOB CARR | On 20 December 2020

Australia’s leaders are playing with climate policy, pitching a nationalist and populist message to their base.

Australia ends the year as one of the only developed countries not committed to net zero emissions by 2050.

To this, prime minister Scott Morrison is adding another distinction. Australia is about to become the only developed country with a parliamentary committee charged with persuading corporates not to move beyond carbon.

The work will be steady, not to say unrelenting. The committee may need to be in permanent session, like the National Assembly during the most exciting phases of the French Revolution.

With a flow of decisions from corporates this year, beginning with BlackRock’s in January, major global investors are signing up to net zero emissions by 2050 – or sooner. At last count 100 of the world’s reserve banks can be added to this list.

But Australia is now saying investors and regulators will be held to account in the parliament and forced to justify decisions on carbon exposure. This is a major statement of Australian climate policy and will have to be regarded as such by the world community.

Why on earth – and with what level of consideration – did the prime minister and treasurer sign up to Nationals MP George Christensen’s agenda? In a long career of opposing climate policy, Christensen has spoken at a Las Vegas conference of US climate deniers mocking climate science as comparable to disaster horror movies. He has just been licensed to have his way with banks and insurers, foreign and domestic alike.

This week I publicised Australia’s last-ditch stand to roll back private-sector climate initiatives. Writing to Pacific Island states, Western Europe and the UK, and advisers to the incoming Biden administration, I pointed out Australia will become the only developed country in which corporations cleaving to the international consensus on climate will be challenged to justify their actions in the national parliament.

They deserve to know that Australia’s leaders are playing with climate policy, pitching a nationalist and populist message to their base. I concluded my letter by inviting them to mark down our effort accordingly. We deserve it. If they mark us down they might educate us.

Our partners have moved beyond these political games. Boris Johnson is redesigning the UK’s international character around climate. Japan and South Korea announced two months back their commitment to net zero emissions by 2050. China in September committed to 2060, which would appear to mandate abandonment of plans for more coal-fired power when the 14th five-year plan comes out next March. India is wildly embracing renewables.

At midday on 20 January, the US gets a new president committed to reentering the Paris agreement on his first day in office, hitting the carbon sector with new regulations, no carbon at all in the power network by 2035 – phasing coal and gas out of the system rapidly – and net zero emissions by 2050.

What investor is going to hold out against a trend line as unambiguous? And because of pressure from climate sceptic MPs in the Australian parliament?

Any merchant bank is still going to be obliged to anticipate a post-carbon world – an Australian entity like Macquarie, for example, the wold’s biggest investor in renewables, committed two weeks ago to net zero emissions by 2040. A huge investor in the US, it might see itself moving in happy accordance, as it happens, with Biden’s policies.

So would the New York State Retirement Fund with funds of $260bn which also adopted the 2040 target two weeks ago, and which any Australian state might reasonably seek to recruit as an investor.

But not so fast! Their executives must now anticipate being summoned to explain themselves in Canberra before Queensland Nationals breathing hot indignation on behalf of mines in the Galilee Basin.

The heads of the big four banks might be marshalled to appear, huddled like the Hollywood 10 before the House Un-American Activities Committee, facing the quaking jowls of climate denialists. In vain might they plead that their policies have been shaped with reference to statements by the country’s own regulators – Apra, Asic, ASX and the Reserve Bank – about the desirability of weighing the financial risk of climate change. Or that their shareholders on sound commercial grounds insist on reduced exposure to thermal coal.

Expect their adversaries to be implacable and unmoved as they seek to dictate the tidal force of market flows.

BHP surely deserves a roughing up by Christensen for stating this year that the Paris trajectory is good for business because in a Paris-compliant world there are bigger profits in minerals other than coal. And while BHP is down in Canberra how could the committee not grill them on its decision to sell the biggest single coal mine in Australia, Mount Arthur at Muswellbrook?

If the Christensen committee goes after the Big Australian then Anglo American can’t be neglected, with a decision only three days ago to exit thermal coal by 2023 to concentrate on copper.

And Morrison can really lob a populist rocket at big investors by having his committee haul in the leadership of asset manager BlackRock.

Christensen can nag them for a morning at least about BlackRock becoming signatory to Climate Action 100+, an alliance of 545 investors with 52 trillion in assets under management.

BlackRock’s chair Laurence D Fink might soon notice the economic nationalism taking off in the Great South Land and let Wall Street colleagues know Australia seemed to be taking a curiously contrarian path, measured against the policies of Biden and Johnson, Brussels and Tokyo.

Weaponising a committee to pursue companies that embrace decarbonisation contradicts recent attempts by Morrison to soften the government’s opposition to a 2050 pledge. Morrison appeared to be taking account of the decision by Johnson not to award Australia a speaking slot at last weekend’s summit. He would also be conscious of the importance of climate policy in the campaign to have Mathias Cormann selected as secretary general of the OECD.

Obeying this spirit, Frydenberg might have talked the inquiry down and talked up the boldness with which Australian capitalism and the market system were generating jobs in new sectors. A prime minister Bob Hawke would have told insurance companies to quickly solve any unintended effects on small businesses of their climate policies, a Paul Keating would have blasted them into doing it – but in private calls or one-on-one chats.

Instead, Frydenberg publicly backed the inquiry, and without caveats.

It raises the question whether the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet is up to the job of policy traffic cop which is, after all, its fundamental function.

One part of the government seems to want to shift towards the consensus on climate of the developed world. I’m sure that Cormann wants that as he struggles to live down a 12-year history as whip for the Coalition’s most obdurate climate resistors.

But the bet our partners should make – the Pacific island states seeing their villages and reefs threatened or the Europeans embarked on green recoveries or the US organising summits to push beyond Paris – is that Canberra is doubling down, running a populist, nationalist agenda on climate aimed at central Queensland seats in an early election next year.

In Australia, domestic politics trumps all.

In my letter, I quoted Morrison saying, “Our policies won’t be set in the United Kingdom. They won’t be set in Brussels. They won’t be set in any part of the world other than here.”

Our partners deserve to have this contempt for the world’s opinion brought to their attention.

In the end, it’s their pressure that might save us from our government’s most retrograde and unworthy instincts.

This article has been republished from The Guardian 18 December 2020

Read more:

https://johnmenadue.com/world-leaders-deserve-to-know-about-australias-abysmal-climate-change-policy-so-i-wrote-to-them/

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Mathias Cormann’s bid to become next secretary-general of the OECD has gone into extra time with the contest too close to call just yet.

Australia’s former finance minister and former European Union trade commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom from Sweden are the final two left in the race.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Mr Cormann had great support in his quest for the job.

“It’s in extra time, it is into golden point,” he said in Sydney on Friday.

“It’s a very important role.

“The OECD brings together like-minded countries from all around the world.”

• Cormann insists he ‘always’ backed climate-change action
• Former finance minister defends climate-change record amid rising backlash

Mr Cormann this week said he would pursue an ambitious and “global” approach to help countries become carbon-neutral by 2050.

But about 30 Australian and global charities and research institutions recently signed a letter urging the Paris-based organisation to drop Mr Cormann from the race, saying he had a public record of “thwarting effective climate action”.

Ms Malmstrom would be the OECD’s first female head if successful.

As EU commissioner, she called on European countries to be more ambitious on issues such as climate change and pushed for greater environmental safeguards in trade agreements.

Read more:

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2021/03/12/mathias-cormann-oecd-boss/

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Australia's former finance minister Mathias Cormann has been elected as the new head of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

• Mr Cormann beat a former EU trade commissioner from Sweden, Cecilia Malmstrom
• Mr Cormann flew across Europe on an air force jet campaigning for the job while tens of thousand of Australians were stuck overseas
• He will take up the role in May

The 50-year-old will become the first person from Asia-Pacific to lead the Paris-based, 37-nation organisation, and takes the role in the middle of one of the worst global recessions on record.

The climate record of Australia's longest-serving finance minister grabbed headlines ahead of his appointment.

More than two dozen environmental groups said Mr Cormann shouldn't have been considered for the top OECD job, citing former statements they said questioned climate change.

But Mr Cormann defended his climate record, saying: "Action on climate change to be effective, requires an ambitious, globally coordinated approach".

A member of several Coalition governments, Mr Cormann quit parliament late last year to seek the top job.

He emerged as a surprise frontrunner, and beat out fellow top contender, Sweden's Cecilia Malmstrom, a former EU trade commissioner.

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-13/former-finance-minister-mathias-cormann-named-oecd-chief/13245072

As a non-believer bullshit artist myself, please let me say "may god help us"....

See also: munching on a sandwich...

Former Australian finance minister Mathias Cormann has pledged to do all he can to “promote global leadership to tackle climate change” as he takes over as secretary general of the OECD.

Mr Cormann, 50, is a native of German-speaking eastern Belgium and succeeds Mexico’s Angel Gurria, who led the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development for 15 years.

As of Wednesday (Australian time), he becomes the first man from the Asia-Pacific region to hold the position at the Paris-based organisation, which has a five-year term.

He was finance minister from 2013-2020 and a Western Australian senator for the Liberal Party from 2007-2020, before standing down to chase the top OECD job.

Mr Cormman’s campaign for the position sparked a backlash from environmental groups, who criticised his record in successive climate-sceptic Australian cabinets, notably under former prime minister Tony Abbott.

At a news conference after taking the reins, Mr Cormann said “we need to continue of course to promote global leadership to tackle climate change and achieve global net zero emissions by 2050”.

He singled out the OECD’s International Program for Action on Climate, a new tool to evaluate members’ efforts to reduce emissions, as a key part of the organisation’s contributions.

He promised the program would share key findings in time for the UN’s COP 26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, in November.

“We have got to explore every opportunity to maximise our emission reductions efforts,” he said.

Mr Cormann was also “quietly optimistic” about reaching an international deal on taxing multinational companies, calling US President Joe Biden’s recent proposal a “game changer”.

“Clearly there are a lot of conversations still on the way. You know, you don’t get too far ahead of yourself but I’m quietly optimistic,” he said.

More than 140 countries are involved in talks convened by the OECD that focus on a global minimum for corporate taxation to deter big companies from shifting their profits to low-tax jurisdictions, and on taxing multinationals that earn substantial revenue in countries where they have no physical presence, such as internet retailing and digital advertising companies.

The talks had stalled over issues such as whether companies could choose to opt in to any new system, a proposal put forward by the US under former president Donald Trump.

Mr Biden has proposed setting at least a 15 per cent minimum global corporate tax that would put a floor under tax rates and end what US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has called a “race to the bottom” in which tax havens use low rates to attract revenue.

The global rate, part of a tax proposal aimed at helping pay for Mr Biden’s infrastructure program, also would raise the US corporate tax rate from 21 per cent to 28 per cent.

“I think the approaches taken by the Biden administration in relation to this issue have been a game changer,” Mr Cormann said following a ministerial-level meeting of the OECD Council.

“I think that we are in a much better position than we were towards the end of last year,” he said.

The OECD, an international organisation with 38 member countries, estimates that governments lose up to $US240 billion ($A310 billion) a year to companies that shift earnings among countries to lower their tax bills.

-with AAP

Read more:

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/world/2021/06/02/mathias-cormann-oecd/

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assange2

The Australian government shelled out more than $11,000 a day on flights as the former finance minister Mathias Cormann spent a month crisscrossing Europe and South America to drum up support for his successful bid to lead the OECD.

The flights aboard a Royal Australian Air Force special purpose aircraft over the course of 34 days cost a total of $380,000, Guardian Australia can reveal after analysing the defence department’s quietly released flight records.

The records confirm that a Dassault Falcon 7X flew out of Canberra on 7 November and picked up Cormann the following day in Perth before heading towards Europe via the Maldives and Oman.

The RAAF plane flew to Turkey, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Slovenia, Luxembourg, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Hungary and France, the latter being the headquarters of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the place where formal interviews were done with candidates for secretary general.

By 3 December, the running tally of Cormann’s flight costs had reached $156,277.

The former minister then travelled from Geneva to Colombia via Sao Miguel, an island in the Atlantic Ocean. After meetings in Colombia and Chile, he flew briefly to Mexico before heading to Canberra via Hawaii.

The RAAF plane took Cormann from Canberra to his home city of Perth on 10 December, before the aircraft returned to Australia’s capital city the same day.

The total costs reported by the defence department associated with the above flights were $379,463 – or $11,160 a day of the 34-day journey.

The full cost to the Australian government of the lobbying effort is likely to have been much higher, given that these expenses relate only to the flights and not accommodation.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade also set up a campaign taskforce of 8.5 full-time-equivalent staff to support Cormann’s candidacy. The effort would have also involved diplomats at Australia’s embassies and high commissions.

The government had not previously answered direct questions about the cost of Cormann’s campaign.

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jul/20/mathias-cormanns-flights-to-win-oecd-job-cost-australia-11000-a-day

IF CORMANN MANAGES TO CONVINCE SCOMO and his IDIOTS TO THE CONCEPTS OF "NO MORE COAL" AND "PROTECTING THE REEF" AND "GLOBAL WARMING IS REAL", the expense might be worth it... and cheap in comparison to the size of Cormann's ego.

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FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW.....