IPCC report: Australia, this polluting country which refuses to do something for the planet

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on Monday issued an alarming report on the progress of global warming.

It warns about our greenhouse gas emissions and calls for them to be reduced considerably, very quickly.

But some countries do not intend to follow the advice of UN experts.

Starting with Australia.

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The conclusions of the new IPCC report are final: we must drastically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible to avoid a major disaster in the coming years.

The figures and the five scenarios unveiled by international experts are chilling.

Yet some top executives have already announced that they don't really plan to pay attention.

In Australia, for example, the Prime Minister, regularly accused of climate skepticism by his opponents, clearly has no intention of setting targets to fight climate change.

"We are doing our part"

"Australia is part of the solution. We are doing our part."

These are the first words of Scott Morrison, just hours after the publication of the IPCC report on Monday.

Australia's Conservative Prime Minister on Tuesday refused to set more ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets.

"In the absence of projects, I will not sign a blank check in the name of the Australians in order to achieve these objectives", he ruled a few months before the COP26 in Glasgow.

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Yet the country of Oceania is one of the biggest exporters of fossil fuels in the world.

Its economic growth has been driven by coal mining for nearly 50 years.

Its resources are exported to Asian countries, to which the Prime Minister now returns the responsibility.

"We cannot ignore the fact that China's emissions are higher than those of all OECD countries combined," defends Scott Morrison.

"Our leaders are not listening to the people of this country"

The country's position is still contradictory: Australia is one of the countries on the front line in the face of natural disasters.

"Australians have suffered terrible fires which have destroyed the country. They are witnessing the disappearance of the Great Barrier Reef ... But our leaders are not listening to the people of this country", laments David Ritter, spokesperson for Greenpeace in the country.

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In order to fight against climate change, Scott Morrison still presents a solution: technological innovations.

"We need to take a different approach. We need to focus on the technological advances needed to change the world and the way we operate," said the Prime Minister of Australia.

For his opponents, this is a distraction to preserve the country's economic interests, including the close ties that some members of the government have with the coal industry.