On the sidelines of the Cop26 talks, Australia has refused to sign a pledge to cut emissions of potent greenhouse gas methane, dismissed calls to phase out coal, refused to improve its 2030 targets, but has promoted gas, carbon capture and storage and hydrogen as solutions.
The top five performing countries overall are Denmark, then Sweden, Norway, the UK and Morocco. The bottom five are Kazakhstan, followed by Saudi Arabia, Iran, Canada and Taiwan.
Overall, Australia slipped four places on the index from the previous year when it was 50th and it was the only country allocated a score of zero in the climate policy category, faring only slightly better in three other areas.
Suzanne Harter, a climate change and clean energy campaigner at the Australian Conservation Foundation, was one of seven experts who provided an evaluation for the climate policy category of the index that looked at national and international policy performance.
The index is produced by thinktanks Germanwatch, NewClimate Institute and Climate Action Network International, a coalition of climate campaign groups.
On Tuesday the Morrison government released an electric vehicles strategy that focused on increasing the number of charging stations but ignored calls from the industry for subsidies, tax exemptions and targets to promote greater range and uptake of EVs.
