Diplomatic Gas

British environmental values continue robust in Oceania, where Australia is campaigning to host a major climate summit next year while expanding fossil fuel profiteering over the next four and a half decades. Disappointment has been expressed by representatives of several island nations which are expected to enjoy enhanced aquatic facilities thanks to the climate catastrophe; and the climate minister of Vanuatu expressed actual bewilderment, despite his country having been run by Britain and France for a century before independence. Apparently the source of the misunderstanding was a visit by Australia's foreign minister the week before her government approved the six billion tonnes of greenhouse emissions, when she remarked that Australia's "emission-intensive economy" had to be turned around. The climate minister of Vanuatu appears not to have realised that her words were intended as more British than pacific.