We’ve learned a number of new terms over the course of the pandemic: R number, variants, herd immunity, mRNA and so on. These concepts are often foreign and complicated, but theyhelp both policymakers and the person on the street make sense of the crisis. When faced with an existential challenge, we all learned a little bit of scientific jargon.That’s something we’ll have to do as we tackle climate change, too. Consider the claim Prime Minister Scott Morrison made in April that Australia had reduced its emissions by 19% in 2019compared with 2005 levels. It was an attempt to burnish his country’s coal-stained image at a climate summit convened by U.S. President Joe Biden.Turns out, it was a neat accounting trick. “Australia has made minimal progress towards net zero and its emissions trends are among the worst in the developed world,” a new study fromthe Australia Institute concluded. It found that the reduction claim is only possible if you include the land-use sector, which involves forests, agriculture and other related emissions.Without it, Australia’s emissions from fossil-fuel use and industry increased by 6% in 2018, relative to 2005.
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