Almost
every group with a financial, intellectual or ethical interest in
salvaging a workable climate policy is now deep in an urgent debate
about how Australia can break a decade of policy paralysis. Everyone
except the Turnbull government, that is.
The debate, involving big business, small business, investors, the
government’s own independent climate advisers, academics,
environmentalists, the welfare lobby and the unions, is predicated on
the obvious conclusion that our policy – as it stands – cannot deliver
the cuts to greenhouse emissions that are domestically necessary and
which Australia has promised internationally.
But like the emperor with no clothes, continuing with the grand
parade even after the whole crowd has finally declared him naked, the
new
environment and energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, still insists
Australia is “transitioning successfully with the policies we already
have in place”.
Every stakeholder is hoping –
based on plenty of nudges and winks from Frydenberg’s predecessor Greg Hunt
– that a review scheduled for next year will turn the existing Direct
Action policy into a workable policy, probably a type of emissions
trading scheme. Labor’s election policy edged closer to what the
Coalition’s policy could eventually become, offering, according to the
Business Council of Australia, a “bridge to bipartisanship”.
But Frydenberg has now described the 2017 review as a “sit rep”
(situation report), insisting no major changes are under consideration.
His language is stuck back in the “climate wars”, like the late night
rerun of a particularly bad movie. This week he revived the
long-discredited claim that Labor’s proposed higher greenhouse gas
reduction target would increase electricity prices by 78%.
The supposed authors have described that calculation as “incorrect” and “weird and misleading”.
It was just another example of the gaping chasm between the government’s lines and the argument everyone else is having.
The
government’s own independent advisory body, the Climate Change
Authority, released a report on Thursday, which was also based on the
premise that policy will have to change very significantly, and it has
recommended a version of emissions trading for the electricity sector
and a much more rigorous “Direct Action” style policy for high-polluting
industry.
This was not the musing of what conservative warriors like to deride
as the “green left” but rather the first report from the authority since
Tony Abbott
made several appointments to its board, including John Sharp, a former
Nationals minister; Wendy Craik, a former National Farmers Federation
executive director; Kate Carnell, a former chief executive of the
Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry; and Danny Price, the
economist who modelled Malcolm Turnbull’s old climate policy and was on
Greg Hunt’s advisory panel.
In the real world, the report sparked a furious discussion about
whether the recommendations were aiming for sufficiently ambitious
targets. The Business Council of Australia (BCA) and other business
groups welcomed it, but as Guardian Australia revealed
two CCA board members, Clive Hamilton and David Karoly, will release a dissenting report arguing that its recommendations were inadequate to meet Australia’s international obligations.
Many other respected analysts and some environment groups made similar criticisms.
But while this argument raged, Frydenberg implied there was no need
for any change at all, insisting the report was just something the
government had been forced to commission to get the votes of the Palmer
United party for its “Direct Action”, a policy that was working just
swimmingly.
Meanwhile, the “climate roundtable” –
an unprecedented alliance of business, welfare and environmental groups, and trade unions, which began secret meetings in 2014 to
try to break the political impasse over climate policy and emerged
publicly in 2015 – is again actively lobbying both major parties.
The group, which includes the BCA, the AI group, the Australian
Aluminium Council, the Climate Institute, the Australian Council on
Social Service, the Investor Group on Climate Change, the Australian
Conservation Foundation, WWF, the Australian Energy Council and the
ACTU, has recently written to
Malcolm Turnbull
and Bill Shorten, reminding the leaders that a bipartisan workable
policy is more urgent than ever, and that they will not give up their
efforts.
That line-up would provide pretty useful backing (and cover)
for both big parties if they wanted to reach a compromise – if, of
course, the impediment to that compromise was actually public opinion.
But, as with so many policy areas flummoxing this government, the
real impediment to reaching what Turnbull calls the “sensible centre” is
the rightwing of his own party.
With so many voices telling them, Turnbull and Frydenberg obviously
know that Direct Action in its current form is no longer even passable
as a fig leaf.
But on this, above all other issues, Turnbull also understands the threat from the conservative right.
And in case the horrors of 2009 were fading in his memory, Tony Abbott
emerged last week with a speech reminding Turnbull what was expected.
“I’m sure the government will strongly support the coal industry
which will provide base load power here and abroad for decades to come –
and continue to employ tens of thousands of Australians. I’m sure it
will work hard on the Queensland government to ensure that green
sabotage and law-fare doesn’t stop the Adani mine: a $20bn investment to
create 10,000 jobs here and power the lives of tens of millions in
India,” he said.
The former minister Eric Abetz has attacked Turnbull’s election
strategy for not “going harder” on Labor’s proposed carbon tax (that
would be the policy that was actually very similar to the one the
experts are hoping will emerge as a bipartisan consensus).
The Queensland senator Ian MacDonald, who famously addressed the Senate wearing an “Australians for Coal” boiler suit, berated
154 scientists who signed an open letter calling for urgent climate policy action in muddle-headed fashion.
“I … wonder how many of those 150 scientists rely on government
research grants for their ongoing livelihoods? And those who do should
be declaring any grants they receive directly or indirectly. Both these
scientists, and the media who happily report their predictions, need to
take a dose of reality. I keep asking and keep waiting for an answer to
the question: why it is that Australia which emits less than 1.2% of the
world’s carbon emissions, can possibly do anything to limit the
emissions from the rest of the world,” he asked in a press statement,
demanding that the scientists “get real”.
In the real world, in which business, financial, environment,
welfare, academic and union leaders argue about exactly how radically
Coalition
policy needs to change to start Australia’s economic transition, the
implicit assumption is that Turnbull and Frydenberg will soon be forced
to face their inevitable day of reckoning with the right, and that the
wisest lobbying stance is to give them as much backing and room to win
it.
But the climate-change denying right resides somewhere else altogether.
With 2017 approaching and nothing obvious changing, the assumptions
that have resulted in so many lobbyists giving the government the
benefit of the doubt and calculating that it is better to work behind
the scenes, is being sorely tested. In the fairytale, the emperor never
did admit he was starkers.
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