Timmermans was among those who joined the fight to hold together the accord.

“For heaven’s sake, don’t kill this moment by asking for more text, different text, deleting this, deleting that. I implore you. Please embrace this text so we can bring hope to the hearts of our children and grandchildren. They are waiting for us. They will not forgive us if we fail them today.”

Australia’s speech was different.

The address by Australia’s Ambassador for the Environment Jamie Isbister was oddly flat in a room heated with passion. Sharma was not the only official brought to tears that day, and many delegates and ministers struggled with emotion as they voiced their reservations in backing what they saw as a flawed agreement.

Isbister, observers noted at the time, looked as though he was going through the motions as he said Australia “recognised the strong focus” on climate finance “heard the call” for loss and damage funding and “can accept the text” of the final document”.

Within hours though both the energy and foreign ministers said Australia would not revisit its 2030 targets, as called for by the agreement their government had just endorsed in Glasgow.

What is striking since the COP finished and the comments were reported, is not how frank condemnation of Australia has been, but how reserved it has been. At least from official sources.

Whitehall immediately registered the comments, and the UK government was not impressed, especially given how much political effort and capital both Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Sharma had spent seeking a strong outcome at the talks. The UK is of the view that Australia was at once happy for the Indian pushback at COP26, and happy not to be forced to publicly support it.

But as both governments continue to hammer out a free trade agreement, there has been no official response.

Asked to comment, one senior EU official who was present at COP simply said it was striking that he had “not heard ‘Australia’ mentioned much if at all during the negotiations or by journalists”.

Al Gore has commented on Australia’s stance, noting that, without improving its 2030 target, its 2050 pledge has “little meaning”, but there has been no public word from the White House or the US delegation.

On Twitter Tina Stege, a moral force at COP26 in her dual roles as climate envoy for the Marshall Islands and the leading voice of the voting bloc of nations, the High Ambition Coalition, wondered if the “ink was even dry” on the Glasgow Pact when Australia declared it would not reconsider its targets.

In Australia prominent government critics of the Paris process piled on.

Barnaby Joyce snickered at the emotion Sharma displayed in the final moments of the Glasgow negotiations and Matt Canavan celebrated the COP26 result as a “green light” for building new Australian coal mines.

This is not what the Glasgow Pact says in spirit or word, and Australia’s political response has been noted, says Dr Wesley Morgan, a specialist on Pacific affairs climate diplomacy with the Climate Council.

He notes that a mechanism to increase pressure on Australia is built into the Glasgow Pact, which calls on signatories to revisit their reductions targets annually to bring them into line with Paris goals.

In failing to do so, says Morgan, would not just be thumbing its nose at the Paris process and the Glasgow Pact, but at the global rules-based order Australia professes to support.

Climate change is now woven into the fabric of diplomacy. It was central to this year’s G7 and G20 talks this year and in our Pacific region it was built into the Boe Declaration on Regional Security.

Australia, says Morgan, risks not only fracturing relationships over climate, but by not being engaged it is rendering itself mute in the debate of “the how” the order should be shaped.

“Collectively agreed rules negotiated through multilateral diplomacy are essential to the international order. More than 190 countries just signed the Glasgow Pact and ignoring it is frankly disgraceful, it undermines our commitment to the rules based order,” Morgan says.

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And this recalls Julie Bishop and the government’s efforts to secure that seat on the UN Security Council almost a decade ago.

Bishop, now Australian National University Chancellor, championed the argument that the effort and cost was worth it. Australia, as a middle power, had more to benefit than most nations not only from the world abiding by the rules, but by being at the table while the rules were being written.

On Friday she told the Herald and The Age that the gap between Australia’s international commitment and its domestic political rhetoric opened the door to charges of hypocrisy.

“When you play a spoiler role your reputation can be tarnished,” says Bishop.

“We are an open export-oriented trading nation, we rely heavily on access to markets around the world and our diplomatic weight should reflect our status and our interests. I don’t believe that’s currently the case.

“Our diplomatic effort, and that includes our commitment to multilateral agreements and institutions, has to be backed by critical domestic policy actions. Otherwise, we are seen as hypocrites or unreliable. Our word can’t be relied upon and can’t be trusted. And our reputation is absolutely vital for broader national interest.

“Australia’s diplomatic effort on the international stage is not matched by what is said at home and that gives rise to a lack of trust in our diplomatic efforts.”

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Climate change, she says, is one of a small handful of disruptive forces shifting the global order, along with increasing competition between China and the US and a digital technology revolution.

In her view to protect its interests in a changing world Australia must increase funding for DFAT and foreign aid and demonstrate itself to be a reliable and effective player in climate.

Because you never know when you are going to need a friend.

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