Australia joins G7-backed ‘climate club’ and promises to drive down greenhouse gas emissions #Australia #joins #G7backed #climate #club #promises #drive #greenhouse #gas #emissions

BERLIN (AP) — Australia is joining the “climate club” backed by the Group of Seven major economies to take more ambitious action in tackling global warming, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Monday.

The club was first proposed by Nobel Prize winner William Nordhaus as a way of getting countries to voluntarily set high targets for curbing climate change and then require trading partners to meet those same standards. Such moves are opposed by major emerging economies like China, the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gas.

“We’re very pleased to join the climate club because we are ambitious and we also see that this isn’t just the right thing to do by the environment, but this is also the right thing to do by jobs and by our economy,” Albanese said at a news conference in Berlin after meeting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who made the idea a key pillar of his G7 presidency last year.

Fire crews work to put out an early morning fire that ripped through the brick building of the Broad Street Market in Harrisburg, Pa., Monday, July 10, 2023. (Sean Simmers/The Patriot-News via AP)

A fast-moving fire has severely damaged an historic market building in Pennsylvania’s capital city. But no injuries were reported in the blaze.

Montenegro's President Jakov Milatovic, left, shakes hands with his Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic at the Serbia Palace in Belgrade, Serbia, Monday, July 10, 2023. Milatovic is on a two-day official visit to Serbia. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

The presidents of Serbia and Montenegro have agreed to try to patch up strained relations between the historic Balkan allies.

Swedish Minister for International Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade Johan Forssell addresses a media conference on the EU-New Zealand free trade agreement at the European Council building in Brussels, Tuesday, June 27, 2023. The EU is New Zealand's third-biggest trade partner. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

The European Union has signed a free trade agreement with New Zealand that the two sides expect will increase bilateral trade by up to 30% within a decade.

Vehicles come to a standstill near a washed-out and flooded portion of the Palisades Parkway just beyond the traffic circle off the Bear Mountain Bridge, Sunday, July 9, 2023, in Orange County, N.Y. Heavy rain spawned extreme flooding in New York’s Hudson Valley that killed at least one person, swamped roadways and forced road closures on Sunday night, as much of the rest of the Northeast U.S. geared up for a major storm. (AP Photo/David Bauder)

Heavy rain has washed out roads and forced evacuations in the Northeast as more downpours were forecast throughout the day.

“One thing we can do is to cooperate and learn off each other, because you can’t address climate change as just a national issue. It has to be by definition, a global response,” Albanese said.

Albanese’s government committed last year to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 43% by the end of the decade — almost double the previous target. In March, Parliament passed a law requiring Australia’s biggest greenhouse gas polluters reduce their emissions or pay for carbon credits.

Other countries that have joined the climate club include Argentina, Chile, Denmark, Indonesia, Colombia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Singapore and Uruguay.

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