Scott Morrison To Be Accosted By Billboards About Australia’s Climate Record At Glasgow Climate Summit

Scott Morrison To Be Accosted By Billboards About Australia’s Climate Record At Glasgow Climate Summit
B&T Magazine
Edited by B&T Magazine



With the UN COP26 summit in Glasgow – one of the most significant climate change conferences since the 2015 Paris Agreement – approaching in November, one comedian has taken it upon himself to shame the PM over Australia’s climate record.

Dan Ilic, host of A Rational Fear and self-proclaimed ‘investigative humourist’, has spearheaded the ‘Truthful Billboard Project’ which aims to “fix Australia’s lies” at the Glasgow talks.

Ilic’s goal was to raise $12,500 to pay for three billboards in Glasgow decrying Australia’s climate record. He has already raised $62,900 – 503 per cent of his original goal.

In a video accompanying the fundraiser, Ilic pointed out that at climate talks, “the number one enemy has traditionally been Australia.”

“We are famous at these talks for cheating, lying, and giving fake commitments.”

He also describes the government’s track record on climate emmissions, renewable projects and coal power.

The goal of the three billboards, according to Ilic, is to make it clear that the poeople representing Australia at the climate talks “don’t necessarily represent Australians”.

Two of the billboards have already been created: one takes the form of an illustrated Australian tourism postcard with the caption ‘Cuddle A Koala! Before we make them extinct’ by artist James Hillier.

The second is a classic rip off of a Tourism Australia ad (cheekily taking a leaf from the book of Scotty from Marketing himself), featuring a bush landscape, beautiful sunset and a kangaroo with its tail on fire.

Its slogan? ‘Australia: Net Zero by 2300!’.

The design of the third billboard will be decided by whoever donates more than $4000 to the project.

Since hitting the fundraising goal on Monday, Ilic tweeted, “Don’t worry you can still donate – it means we can buy a bigger billboard!”.

In an announcement on the fundraiser posted Tuesday morning, Ilic revealed that they had raised enough money to animate the billboards, which could now appear in the very building the COP26 conference is being held in.

On Wednesday, Ilic announced that they were now also raising money for a project called ‘JokeKeeper’, a $1,000,000 fund to “pay comedians, satirists, filmmakers, producers and data scientists to create a season of digital sh**stirring from November up until the election.”

“This full time team will create satirical content in any medium to undermine incumbent coalition politicians who continue support continue to support fossil fuel extraction and are also strategically most vulnerable to climate action centric candidates.”

Ilic’s project comes as it was revealed that Morrison may not even be attending the climate summit.

The PM’s office said it had not yet made a decision about whether Morrison would be representing Australia at Glasgow.

As reported by the ABC, Marisa Payne, foreign minister, said “it is a significant undertaking, as you know it involves the two-week domestic quarantine as well, so no final decisions have been made.”

Earlier this year, Morrison flew to the UK to attend the G7 summit in Cornwall. He also recently returned from the US, where he met with Boris Johnson, UK Prime Minister, and Joe Biden, US President.

The fact that Morrison has not confirmed his appearance at the summit has received criticism.

Scott Ludlam, former Greens senator, tweeted: “go to glasgow you massive coward”.

Others, including Greens leader Adam Bandt and Labor senator Nita Green, have responded similarly.

On the other side, however, far-right politician Pauline Hanson is calling for a step further: she thinks Australia should boycott the conference all together.




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    1. Australia is a spec of fly shit on the global emissions map……get a grip. Why we even attend some of these global talk fests as if we have some sort of real clout amuses me. Every time an aussie PM goes OS its akin to a grade 3 kid wanting to play footy with the grade 8 kids.

billboards climate change COP26 summit Glasgow Climate Summit satire Scott Morrison

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