While much of the commentary about the Liberal Party’s abandonment of net zero has been on the political and electoral implications of their decision, it’s worth remembering that politics isn’t the whole story, and it certainly isn’t the whole reality.
The reality is we live on a fragile, self-contained planet which is warming because we continue to pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
This warming disrupts natural climate systems. It’s already driving more extreme weather events, melting ice caps and rising sea levels. It endangers ecosystems, threatens cities and farms, and undermines food and water security. Not to mention the impact on stability and security in the Pacific region.
The recently released National Climate Risk Assessment was clear and sobering. Left unchecked, climate change will likely lead to severe social, economic and environmental consequences for Australia and the world. In other words, it’s a global problem with shared risks and responsibilities.
The argument often used by bad faith actors is that Australia only contributes about 1 per cent to global emissions, so what we do doesn’t matter. But they leave out that we account for only about 0.3 per cent of global population and that we’ve been burning fossil fuels for a very long time.
Indeed a fairer accounting shows us that Australia still has among the highest per capita greenhouse gas emissions in the world. Add to that our role as one of the largest exporters of fossil fuels in the world and the picture becomes clear; our responsibility is real and substantial.
Australia has a moral obligation and, as the International Court of Justice recently ruled, a legal one, to do all we can to limit emissions and avert significant climate harm. It’s a responsibility Australia accepted when Kevin Rudd signed the Kyoto Protocol and reaffirmed by the Morrison government’s signing of the Paris Agreement.
But the reality of climate change isn’t just a burden. It brings enormous economic and environmental opportunities, as we invest in a complete overhaul of our ageing energy system. As with any investment it requires upfront costs, but the investment will pay off. The long-term return is cleaner air and water, cheaper and more abundant energy, and helping avoid the extraordinary costs of runaway climate change. The challenge, of course, is that the major political parties have found these long-term gains hard to sell in three-year electoral cycles.
Unfortunately, as we’ve learned again this week, the physical and economic realities of climate change are ones the modern Liberal and National parties just can’t seem to face. Instead they’ve chosen to abrogate responsibility and take the dangerous route of abandoning real action. They’re also talking out both sides of their mouths about Paris, and emissions reductions more broadly. And in a disturbingly Trumpian turn, they also decided to cast aspersions on the advice and modelling of authoritative institutions such as Australian Energy Market Operator, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and the International Energy Agency while making confident but hazy promises of a cheaper energy future under them.
Forget making policy based on the best scientific and economic evidence, they say. Ignore the glaring inconsistencies, the doublespeak and the complete absence of any genuine plan to ensure energy security and emissions reduction. Instead, it’s all about the Liberal and National parties’ feelings, shaped by the warped reality that only exists when politics is your lens for decisions, rather than the public good.
This might be tolerable if the Coalition was just a debating society. But they’re not. They claim to be the alternative government of Australia. And the danger of them abandoning facts and physics for feelings is that it risks reopening the climate wars, undermining energy investment and worsening the climate crisis.
Australians deserve better than this.
Because at the end of the day, net zero isn’t a left-right argument or a political branding exercise. It’s the difference between a stable, prosperous Australia which can grasp the nettle, and a dangerously volatile one with its head in the rapidly warming sand.
The choice before us is pretty simple. We can lead the transition and reap the benefits, or cling to denial and pay the price. I know which one most Australians would choose.