Australia's Recent Climate Change Policy: A Brief History Of Seven Killings

ABC News - Annabel Crabb

The Australian Parliament has proven itself unable to reach consensus on climate change, even where it exists. (AAP: Julian Smith)

The story starts in 1997, when the brand-new Howard government (sweating through a brief and cock-up-infested first term during which it lost a series of ministers and most of the margin with which it had wrested power from Paul Keating) sends its environment minister, Robert Hill, to Japan for the seminal Kyoto Climate Summit.

At the summit, Senator Hill negotiates generous terms for his country in the global deal; Australia emerged with large concessions for its agricultural activities and is one of only three countries permitted to increase its emissions under the deal.
Senator Hill is welcomed home as a conquering hero.
However, over the years enthusiasm for the compact is replaced within the government by scepticism.

First casualty
In April 2001, John Howard's Cabinet resolves not to ratify the Kyoto Treaty after all.
In 2004, Malcolm Turnbull enters the Parliament as the federal Member for Wentworth.
He spends a brisk period on the backbench, annoying treasurer Peter Costello by drafting ambitious new proposals for tax reform which are frigidly rejected by the relevant minister.
In January 2007, Mr Howard appoints him environment minister.
A punishing drought has blanketed the continent with dust. As Australians watch the climate seemingly change frighteningly around them, public support grows for climate abatement strategies and Mr Turnbull counsels Mr Howard to ratify Kyoto.

John Howard outlines his policy in 2007 alongside then treasurer Peter Costello. (AAP: Paul Miller)

Mr Howard enlists senior bureaucrat Peter Shergold to design an emissions trading scheme that would control and reduce the nation's carbon dioxide emissions.
This is the policy that Mr Howard takes to the 2007 election.

Second casualty
John Howard loses the 2007 election. The Shergold proposal is consigned to history.
Newly-elected Kevin Rudd, however, has campaigned on a promise to introduce a comprehensive emissions trading scheme.

Then climate change minister Penny Wong closed a deal with Malcolm Turnbull to legislate the CPRS. (Australian Science Media Centre)

Describing climate change as "the most urgent moral challenge of our generation", the new prime minister creates a biblical sense of urgency with impassioned rhetoric about the fate of polar bears, the Great Barrier Reef and the likely hordes of climate-driven refugees that would accompany a failure to grasp the challenge.
He assigns the task of designing a scheme to his climate minister Penny Wong, who — after the Greens declare themselves unsatisfied with the direction of the policy — then works intently on the task of reaching agreement with the Liberals, now led by climate action enthusiast Mr Turnbull.
In late 2009, she succeeds, closing a deal with Mr Turnbull to legislate the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS).
Tony Abbott, a backbencher, pens a newspaper column advocating a vote for the CPRS just to get the lingering issue out of the way.

Third casualty
Turnbull's shadow cabinet endorses the deal, but in a series of uproarious party meetings his party turns against him.
Senior shadow ministers quit in protest, and a leadership vote turns into an unwieldy three-way race between Mr Turnbull, moderate frontbencher Joe Hockey, and Mr Abbott.
Mr Abbott — running as a climate sceptic whose reported remark that "climate change is crap" is widely circulated — wins by a single vote on December 1, 2009. The CPRS loses bipartisan support.
When put to the Parliament, it is defeated, though Mr Turnbull crosses the floor to support the legislation.

Kevin Rudd chats candidly with climate change campaigner Al Gore in Sydney in 2009. (AAP: Dean Lewins)

The next global landmark for climate change strategy is the December 2009 UN Copenhagen climate summit, in which Mr Rudd takes a deep personal interest.
He and Senator Wong attend the summit, engaging in a frenetic and sleepless attempt to construct a global framework that will address developed countries as well as emerging and high-polluting economies like China and India. It fails.
Mr Rudd returns to Australia exhausted and disillusioned.

Fourth casualty
Mr Rudd and his cabinet privately decide in April 2010 that in view of the political risk and the hostility of the Parliament, they will not persist with the legislation to introduce the CPRS.
Newspaper reports of the reversal — a stunning one given the depth of Mr Rudd's previous commitment to carbon abatement — are followed by an immediate crash in Mr Rudd's popularity and within months, he is removed as Labor leader and prime minister by his own caucus.

A tearful Prime Minister Kevin Rudd speaks to reporters after he lost the ALP leadership to Julia Gillard in 2010. (Alan Porritt, file photo: AAP)

New Labor prime minister Julia Gillard insists that the party remains committed to climate change mitigation.
At the 2010 election she proposes a "citizens' assembly" on the matter and maintains support for emissions trading.
When pressed, she promises that there will be "no carbon tax under a government I lead".

Then Opposition leader Tony Abbott slams plans for a carbon tax in 2011. (ABC TV)

The election results in a hung parliament but Ms Gillard retains power when after weeks of negotiations she secures the support of conservative independents Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott.
She signs a deal with the Greens and commences negotiations on a new "carbon pricing scheme" which will begin with a fixed carbon price and graduate to a floating market price.
Ms Gillard acknowledges that this constitutes a temporary "carbon tax".
Opposition leader Mr Abbott's campaign to "axe the tax" is born. The scheme is legislated.

Fifth casualty
Ms Gillard — despite the significant amount of legislation passed by her minority Government — is besieged by internal strife, criticism of her emissions trading scheme and a high rate of refugee boat arrivals.
She is deposed in June 2013 by Mr Rudd, who leads the party to the 2013 federal election, only to be crushed by Opposition leader Mr Abbott.

Julia Gillard was deposed as PM by Kevin Rudd in June 2013. (AAP: Alan Porritt, file photo)

As promised, Mr Abbott "axes the tax" and the carbon pricing scheme is largely abolished in July 2014.
To replace the Gillard scheme, Mr Abbott proposes a policy called "Direct Action", which involves paying polluters directly to reduce their emissions.
A $2.5 billion fund called the Emissions Reduction Fund is to be established.
Mr Abbott insists that he believes climate change is real and that humanity contributes to the phenomenon.
At the Paris summit of 2015, the Abbott government commits Australia to reducing emissions by at least 26 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030.

Sixth casualty

Prime Minister Turnbull and Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg after ratifying the Paris Agreement in November 2016. (ABC News: Ross Nerdal)

Mr Turnbull wins the prime ministership. Direct Action is maintained in principle, but the PM does not much use the phrase and the Emissions Reduction Fund is not given any funding in the 2018 budget.
Mr Turnbull and his Energy Minister, Josh Frydenberg, turn their attention to reliability of energy supply.
Mr Frydenberg creates the National Energy Guarantee (NEG), which would oblige energy suppliers and retailers to guarantee a minimum amount of power at an average emissions level consistent with Australia's commitments under the Paris agreement.
A national energy mix between renewables and legacy generators is incorporated.
Mr Turnbull and Mr Frydenberg insist that the scheme will provide certainty for providers (who back the scheme) and lower prices for consumers.
The Coalition party room approves the scheme on August 14, 2018.

Seventh casualty
In the face of a gathering mutiny in his party room, Mr Turnbull announces that he won't legislate the NEG's stated emissions targets, drawn from the Paris agreement.
The possibility of gaining supporting votes from Labor on a revised NEG deal is not pursued, given the likely conflagration that such an exchange would ignite within the Coalition.

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What is the NEG?

Malcolm Turnbull unveils his shiny new energy policy, complete with its own three-letter acronym. Here's what it all means.

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The NEG remains unlegislated; Turnbull's future uncertain.

So what does it mean?
A review of these past two decades reveals not only that there has been a consistent national desire to establish some sort of regulation over carbon emissions, but also that there have been ample periods during which both major parties have wanted to do such a thing, AT THE SAME TIME.
In 2007 and in 2009 and again, now, in 2018, the two major parties are close enough to touch each other.
Between the four men nominally most influential in the Parliament in this matter — Malcolm Turnbull, Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and shadow energy minister Mark Butler — there is not a vast amount of distance.
But in 2018 — as it has done before — the Australian Parliament has proved itself unable to reach consensus, even where it exists.

Links

• The Turnbull Government is all but finished. The Liberals now need to work out who they are
• Turnbull makes another dramatic backdown on NEG targets
• 'Groundhog Day': Business leaders slam Turnbull Government's energy backflip
• The challenges of understanding impact of climate change in Antarctica
• Modelling predicts dire consequences for all wetlands within 80 years
• Heat waves getting hotter across Australia
• Humans driving climate change 170 times faster than natural forces
• Scientists frustrated as extreme weather becomes the new norm
• Impact of climate change on Indigenous communities
• Summer heat broke 205 records
• Climate change's 'canaries in the coal mine'
• Climate change 'threatens financial system'
• Rising seas will displace millions of people — and Australia must be ready