VALUES TO VALUE: As we head to the next election the scariest thing is that it could be decided on issues other than a dumbed-down climate contest. All it will take is for inflation to stay sticky at higher levels, and the Reserve Bank to raise mortgage interest rates again and Labor could be swept from power on cost of living grounds alone.
A nightmare election scenario has emerged. It will keep climate action progressives having sleepless nights right through until the next federal election is decided.
That could be nearly a year off, with Australia required to go to the polls by May 2025, so it’s likely to be a hard fought and bitter campaign. Think the Voice referendum crossed with the Russian-Ukraine war, with political trench warfare, offensives, counter-offensives, truth an early casualty with rampant misinformation and disinformation, and a constantly swirling mix of allies and opponents.
To combat the Liberal-National Coalition’s Trump-like transparently pro fossil fuel coal and gas political strategy, it has to be clearly called out for what it is – a politically motivated pre-emptive strike, backed by a motley band of ideological influencers and vested interests.
In Trumpian mode , they are attacking the core institutions that guide Australia’s energy and climate policy future. Organisations like the Australian Energy Market Operator, our premier science agency the CSIRO, and the emissions target-modelling Climate Change Authority).
Which is trying to declare Australia’s clean energy transition a failure six years ahead of when its mid-term success or otherwise can be properly accounted for, at the end of 2030, against the current official targets of 43 per cent emissions reductions based on 2005 levels, and 82 per cent renewables in the energy system.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and his team have constructed a parallel universe energy and climate policy offensive that will sound plausible and attractive to an Australian electorate beset by potent cost of living pressures.
In the Trumpian mode of populist, simplistic solutions for complex problems, they are attacking the core institutions that guide Australia’s energy and climate policy future. Organisations like the Australian Energy Market Operator, our premier science agency the CSIRO, and the emissions target-modelling Climate Change Authority).
The Coalition is targeting consumers and voters in the suburbs and the regions who may well care little for these institutions. They may care even less for the intricacies of the United Nations Paris Agreement and may regard net zero by 2050 as too far off to worry about now, desperate as they may be for relief on their mortgage payments and daily living costs – right here, right now.
Emboldened and empowered by the success of its wrecking campaign in the Voice Referendum, the Coalition is back in the game politically, whether we like it or not. The Voice analogy is especially relevant, because the Yes camp for a renewables-led energy transition comes with its own deep divisions, especially in the context of an election.
The Albanese Labor government is doing a solid job of getting Australia on track for a clean energy transition, in stark contrast to the do-little and policy reversing
decade when the Coalition was last in power, in 2013-2022.
But Labor is legitimately criticised by many in the Yes camp for remaining too close to coal and gas, and still going too slow on clean energy action in the face of catastrophic climate crisis impacts heat waves, fire, floods and more – in Australia and internationally.
It’s assailed by the Greens on its left flank, the teals and other climate independents in the so-called “sensible centre”, and by high-expectation progressive commentators, while being damned for pushing “reckless renewables” in the Murdoch media, Sky News and its ilk, and radio shock jocks.
All the time Dutton’s No camp is pitching its superficially attractive, substance-free alternative proposition. That is, that Australia can abandon any near and medium term carbon emissions-reduction targets, use a far-off promise of nuclear power to replace coal, with gas filling the gap for a couple of decades, and then somehow fall over the line of net zero by 2050.
This is reckless in all kinds of ways. A few examples suffice to show why.
The Pacific needs Australia to be a leader
The Pacific region, our critical national security zone, is looking to Australia for climate leadership, including the live bid to co-host the UN COP31 world climate summit in 2026.
Investment in the energy transition is being imperilled by Coalition threats to abandon our national emissions targets and rip up contracts if it regains power.
The trade blocs
The world, and our region, is moving towards climate action trade blocs, underpinned by the European Commission’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, coming into force in 2026 – another critical factor that might remain highly abstract for voters in the suburbs and regions.
The inflation beast
The scariest thing for progressives is that the next election could be decided on other issues than a dumbed-down climate contest. All it will take is for inflation to stay sticky at higher levels, and the Reserve Bank to raise mortgage interest rates again instead of starting to cut them before polling day, and Labor could be swept from power on cost of living grounds alone.
Whatever the truth, an incoming Coalition government would claim a mandate for its energy and climate policy, however economically and technically flawed, loosely defined and disingenuous it may be.
The US presidential election in November this year is another wild card and could bring Donald Trump back into play on the global stage. This has potentially deep implications, and highly unpredictable consequences, for geopolitical stability and climate action, including the extreme likelihood that Trump would immediately pull the US out of any cooperation under the UN Paris Agreement.
The climate wars were never over
Lots of people in the media like to talk about how the climate wars were ended by the last federal election in May 2022 and are now being reignited. That’s self-serving rubbish. The climate wars never ended, whatever journalists want to declare. There wasn’t even a truce, much less a ceasefire. Peter Dutton and the opposition certainly never got the memo about hostilities being over.
