Latin America is investing too little in a green economic recovery from COVID-19, with only 2% of the region's stimulus funds being spent on projects that help fight climate change, new data from Oxford University showed on Thursday.
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This included $15.2bn and $28.5bn Australian dollars the federal government recently announced in infrastructure spending and tax measures.
â[The Australian infrastructure spending] is a lot. That is one-and-a-half times the normal level of investment in transport,â says the Grattan Instituteâs transport and cities program director Marion Terrill.
âThe budget took us back to transport megaprojects. And thatâs after a short break in the past budget where the biggest single contribution from the commonwealth was $750m. In this budget the commonwealth put in $2bn or more into three whopping great big projects.â
The budget included $2bn for an intermodal terminal in Melbourne, $2.6bn for the Anzac Highway in South Australia and $2bn for the Great Western Highway in NSW.
The government says priority countries for future international collaboration on investments in low-emissions technology include the US, UK, Germany, Japan, Korea, and Singapore, as well as India, Canada and New Zealand.
Priority technologies include hydrogen and carbon capture and storage, low- or zero-emissions steel production, low carbon alumina and aluminium production, and zero carbon liquefied natural gas production and shipping to Asian countries.
Australia is under acute pressure going into Biden’s summit about its comparative lack of ambition on climate action, and experts suggest the Morrison government will have to increase spending on technological development significantly if it is to keep pace with new energy economy investments happening in the US, Britain and Europe.