The Extinction Rebellion protests are targeting the wrong country

In 2007, then-Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd labelled climate change ‘the great moral challenge of our generation’. Rudd is right: if no action is taken on rising CO2 emissions then the world is in trouble. That’s why it is so disappointing that my country, Australia, has failed to tackle the problem and remains one of the highest emitters per capita of greenhouse gasses.

However, the same is not true of the United Kingdom. Thanks to sensible and far-reaching climate change policies, Britain has significantly reduced its level of CO2 emissions and has almost entirely abandoned coal as an energy source. The UK has made some of the largest reductions in emissions in the OECD and has recorded a 38 per cent decrease in CO2 output since 1990. Emissions in the UK are now at their lowest point since the 19^th century, and the government announced in October it was consulting with the Committee on Climate Change on how to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.