Paris UN Climate Conference 2015: The Australian Politics Climate Change

Fairfax - Jennifer Hewett

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, left, with John Key: Australia will not follow New Zealand's fossil fuels lead. AP

Malcolm Turnbull describes Bill Shorten's promise to reduce Australia's carbon emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 as a political statement rather than an environmental one. Well, of course it is. No details necessary, thank you. That is all to come after further "consultation" with industry. That makes it similar to Labor's plan for a 50 per cent renewables target by 2030. How this is supposed to happen will, conveniently, all be worked out later.
Why it's necessary to talk about this right now is much more obvious. Labor wants to make as much noise as it can about its differences with the Turnbull government in one area where it might have a political edge, at least among some sections of the public. The catch is that, so far, Labor's promise is more likely to attract voters from potential Green supporters than Liberal supporters. As the polls consistently demonstrate, most Australians are still ready to give Turnbull a lot of room to manoeuvre.
Labor is desperately waiting for that sentiment to turn but it's clearly much harder to fight Turnbull on this than Tony "Denier" Abbott.
So every ALP frontbencher tries to emphasise Turnbull was really just taking Abbott's baggage on targets to Paris with him. Every government minister is just as determined to point out that, once again, Labor is willing to risk the economy with ill-considered, radical gestures that will achieve nothing for the climate except national self-harm.
That makes the argument over the economic cost a modest variation of the carbon tax fight – though with much more rounded edges under Turnbull than under the Abbott full-scale attack mode.
The difference is partly personal style and partly the altered nature of the argument. Climate change is now back to being a hot topic in mainstream politics despite the tough competition, especially in Europe, from terrorism to refugees to lack of economic growth.
Underneath all the figures and pledges and commitments, it is still clear the international tone is very different to the last attempt to forge a global agreement faltered in Copenhagen six years ago. China is not the only country to have reassessed what it needs to do – and what it is willing to sign up to – for its own domestic purposes. Pollution levels in Beijing alone ensure the Chinese authorities have little choice but to confirm the economy will become less dependent on fossil fuels over time and "peak" emissions by 2030.
But China is also now playing a leading role in building momentum among developing countries rather than leading the opposition. India remains more recalcitrant given the hundreds of millions of its population with no access to electricity. The pollution and health effects of relying on dung patties for fuel tend to make political leaders less concerned about the impact of coal.

Who should pay and how much?
So there will still be plenty of arguments about who should pay more – and how much. And despite the emotive rhetoric and campaigns against investment in the coal industry, coal is nowhere near the end of its life as a crucial and substantial source of global power. But the direction towards much greater carbon emissions reductions and energy efficiency overall – even given growing demand for power – is clearly an unstoppable trend.
Kevin Rudd, who naturally just happens to be in Paris this time around too, may always regret the implosion in Copenhagen and the subsequent impact on his prime ministership, Mark I.
Yet that same period has also given the formerly battered Turnbull far more time to finesse his own position after he lost the opposition leadership to Abbott over his support for an emissions trading scheme. There will be no more fights to the political death with the Nationals or his own Liberal colleagues over such issues despite the simmering conservative angst.
He has returned as a moderate prime minister in line with the times and as a true believer in the power of technology and innovation (what else?) to help find the solution. Turnbull's faith in research and technology is very much part of the international zeitgeist too, reflected in the new multi billion research fund with contribution by billionaires like Bill Gates.
Not that this avoids Australia spending billions more on subsidies for renewables and on a direct action scheme designed to curb emissions over the next several years at least. Even under Abbott, the Coalition and Labor did a deal on the renewable energy target which should mean renewables will account for around 23.5 per cent of energy sources by 2020.
What happens over the following decade will depend more on what happens internationally over that period, along with developments in technology such as battery storage or, perhaps, carbon capture and storage despite disappointing results thus far. No one can really predict this in 2015 – no matter what pledges are made now. That is also precisely what makes so much of the talk in Paris so political – and why Bill Shorten can happily afford to talk up Labor's promises, given the national bill can be put on hold way past the next election.
Like every other leader, Turnbull had only three minutes for his statement of good intent before leaving it to the officials to nut out the terms of a likely agreement over the next ten days.
This will not be legally binding given the impossibility of having major powers agree. It's more the climate change version of show and tell, with regular updates on how each country is going. The key will remain moral suasion and transparency on results, kept afloat by an unfathomable sea of subsidies for renewables, transitional assistance and, yes, technology. Paris is just one more stop along the way.