Victoria Can, And Should, Lead The Country On Climate Change

Fairfax - Jonathan La Nauze*

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has spent much of the past few weeks trying to repair the Coalition’s terrible reputation on climate change.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the government's climate package at a function in Melbourne.
Credit: AAP

It appears he has finally heard the sustained and unequivocal demand from Australians to step up on this issue – though after a summer of record high temperatures, crippling drought, mass fish deaths and more bushfires, there should be no prizes for noticing.
But a big part of what has caught Morrison’s attention is the voters of Victoria, who sent the Coalition a clear signal last November and appear willing to do so again at the impending federal election.
The signs Victoria was ready to lead the country were evident back in August. Malcolm Turnbull chose appeasement on the National Energy Guarantee and ultimately lost his prime ministership. That same week, Premier Dan Andrews confidently announced his first big election commitment – half-price solar for 650,000 homes.
It was a startling contrast. The federal Coalition couldn’t stomach the most modest of climate policies, while state Labor plastered theirs on the side of their campaign bus. Support for rooftop solar became Victorian Labor’s most visible election commitment and biggest contrast with the Liberal opposition, which had pledged to scrap the renewable energy target and build a new gas or coal power station instead.
After the thumping win for Labor, Victorian Liberals conceded they’d misread the public mood on clean energy and cutting pollution. Having lost his blue-ribbon seat of Hawthorn, shadow attorney-general John Pesutto acknowledged many conservative people “just want our party to do something” about climate change. His own daughter joined the student climate strike rallies.

Julian Burnside will run as the Greens candidate in the seat of Kooyong.
Credit: Jason South

If replicated at the federal election, November’s swing would see Liberals lose safe seats across Melbourne. This has inspired several prominent independent candidates – plus, last week, lawyer Julian Burnside for the Greens – to run against the Coalition in Victoria, with action on climate change central to their pitch. It’s hard to imagine this happening if the Victorian election hadn’t proven voters will dramatically shift loyalties, given a credible climate alternative.
But at the federal level, neither Labor nor the Coalition is offering a serious plan to get us off coal and gas in a meaningful timeframe.
Two days before the Victorian election, Bill Shorten announced a plan for cleaning up Australia’s energy system. Perhaps he was emboldened by polling showing Andrews’ apparent conversion of support for renewable energy into electoral reward. But Shorten’s plan still lacks urgency and would keep pollution at catastrophic levels for decades.
Morrison’s recent policy offerings would be even more damaging to our climate. Some have merit but overall they fail to do the obvious and most important thing needed to stop global warming – limit pollution from coal and gas power stations.
This is the gaping hole in the two major parties’ response to the climate crisis and it presents a unique opportunity for Victoria to step up once more.
Why? Because Victoria’s Environment Protection Authority is currently reviewing the licences of our state’s three coal-burning power stations, which are among the dirtiest in the world, and Victoria’s biggest source of climate pollution.
The EPA already licenses and regulates other types of air pollution, such as toxic particles and sulphur dioxide, but hasn’t yet imposed any constraint on the carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming.
Victoria could be the first Australian state to put limits on this pollution from coal-burning power stations and the decision would come smack-bang in the middle of a federal election campaign fought on climate change.
We know it would be popular. People hate the big energy companies and want the government to pull them into line. Polling shows overwhelming demand for government action on climate change, including intervening in the electricity market. And imposing a legal limit on pollution is a simple proposition to put to the public.
The conditions today are similar to the debate over renewable energy last August. The federal government is in chaos and the public is crying out for real action, not fudging half-measures.
Many people see climate change as a federal domain, but actually the states are responsible for energy supply and have most of the regulatory levers – like the EPA – to cut pollution across all sectors of the economy. Plus Andrews has already done the hard yards cranking up the renewables we will need as we phase out Victoria’s ageing coal power stations.
All of which means Victoria can, and should, lead the entire country on the issue.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that human civilisation has just 12 years to avert an ecological and humanitarian catastrophe. We live in an extraordinary time and it calls for extraordinary leadership, not merely sound management. The Andrews government has just won an election with a massive mandate on climate change and renewable energy and here is the perfect political moment to act. Will they seize it?

*Jonathan La Nauze is CEO of Environment Victoria.

Links

• Scott Morrison pledges $2 billion, 10-year boost to Direct Action fund in election climate pitch
• 'Serious questions' over whether Australia's emissions cuts are real
• Annual emissions keep rising as gas jump counters power sector drop
• Pro-coal Nationals hold electorates most at risk from climate change
• 'Cantering off a cliff': Investor group warns on weak emissions goals
• Living in fairyland': Nats leader links emissions to night sport
• Morrison government hit by new internal dispute over coal
• 'Underhanded': States baulk at Labor's reluctance to nix Kyoto credits
• The one thing we have to fear is fear itself
• Tony Abbott performs major backflip on withdrawing from Paris climate agreement