Sydney Morning Herald - Steven Hamilton
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Author
Steven Hamilton
is chief economist at Blueprint Institute and assistant professor of
economics at George Washington University in Washington, DC.
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Biden campaigned unabashedly to rejoin the Paris climate agreement, to pledge net-zero emissions by 2050, and to spend AU$2.4 trillion on new climate initiatives.
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| President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to act on climate change. Credit: AP |
Of all the big changes the election will bring, Biden’s commitment to climate action is by far the most consequential for Australia. Four years of Trump’s climate denialism – his withdrawal from the Paris agreement, his gutting of the Environmental Protection Agency, his green-lighting of oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge – has given Australia ample cover for its own climate inaction.
Alongside Canada, the US and Australia round out the world’s trio of big, advanced, high-per-capita emitters. But Canada already has a nationwide carbon price, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau committed to emissions reductions by 2030 that exceed Australia’s Paris commitment – one we’re planning to shirk via carryover credits that enable us to avoid two-thirds of our emissions-reduction task this decade.
And while Biden may not control the US Senate – to be determined by run-off elections for two seats in Georgia – President Obama showed the strides that can be made via executive action. So far this century, America’s per-capita emissions reduction is already more than four times Australia’s. And in the years ahead, the US will now take even more significant action.
In a statement congratulating Joe Biden, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said: “We also look forward to working with President-elect Biden to ... develop new technologies to reduce global emissions as we practically confront the challenge of climate change.”
An uncharitable observer might see this as code for continued inaction – “technologies” as a distraction from tangible action today, and “practically” as an allusion to the government’s refusal to rely on taxes or regulation, which virtually all economists agree are the only “practical” ways to get us to net zero.
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Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been defiant in the face of
the rising sea change on climate action. Credit: Edwina Pickles |
Morrison has to date been defiant in the face of a rising global sea change on climate. The EU and UK have been committed to net zero by 2050 for some time. And in the past six weeks, that sea change has become a tsunami. China, the world’s largest emitter, has committed to net zero by 2060, while Japan and South Korea have committed by 2050.
Now with Biden’s election, all of Australia’s top-five trading partners – collectively buying more than half of our exports – have signed up to net zero. Morrison might not countenance being dictated to by Brussels, but how about Beijing, Tokyo, Seoul, London, and Washington – all together, all at once?
In the face of this near-consensus, any continued belief that intransigence is in our economic interests would be a spectacular display of naivety. How should we expect our trading partners to treat a climate shirker in the years ahead?
The EU is already planning carbon tariffs to punish free-riders. Biden plans to spearhead a new trans-Pacific partnership – one can expect climate action to play a key role, especially given how imperiled so many of our Pacific neighbours will be under unmitigated climate change. Australia’s continued success in forging free-trade agreements will be put at risk by any continued unwillingness to step up to the plate.
But the Prime Minister still has an opportunity to turn the ship. Biden is still more than 70 days from giving his oath of office. Morrison is set to invite a President Biden to visit Australia next year to commemorate 70 years of the ANZUS treaty. That visit will be the perfect opportunity to formalise our commitment to the new climate world order a Biden administration will seek to lead.
It’s past time for Australia to commit to net zero by 2050. And to start that transition by meeting our 2030 Paris commitment without relying on our carryover credits. A global decarbonisation is inevitable; we must not be dragged kicking and screaming into that inevitable future. We should start the transition on our own terms rather than on the less favourable terms our trading partners may foist upon us.
Rather than an impost, we should see the transition as the economic opportunity that it is. Yet again, Australia finds itself the lucky country. As a big, flat, empty continent that abounds in plentiful sunshine and wind, we’re better placed than just about any country to become a green energy superpower.
Instead of keeping our heads in the sand, clinging to the fossil fuels of the past, let’s finally step up and do our bit as the leading global citizens we are.
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