Taking the long view
Next week will see the closing days of debate on the CPRS legislation for this year and our last chance to secure an emissions trading scheme before the COP15 conference in Copenhagen in a weeks time.
However, the media is largely focused on Turnbull’s future as the leader of the Liberal party. He thinks that the Liberal party must have a policy on climate change and that it should support the introduction of an emissions trading scheme. This was their policy going into the last election and they have already endorsed the reduction target commitment of between 5% to 25% that Australia will be taking to Copenhagen. Without an emissions trading scheme in place, Australia will have no mechanism to achieve these cuts.
Turnbull’s position has put him on a collision course with the arch-conservatives within the party led by Nick Minchin. This group have taken the in-fighting into the open with a mass resignation late last week and calls for a second leadership spill. Turnbull is not seeking any appeasement with the climate change denialists within his party and is continuing to fight both for leadership and for the passage of the CPRS legislation. Here he is commenting on Nick Minchin in an interview with Laurie Oakes yesterday:
“[T]hey do not believe that climate change is real, they do not believe that humans are causing it and they do not want to do anything about it. Nick Minchin made that very clear in the Four Corners programme as did a number of his acolytes. What he is trying, what he is is a climate change denier. He stands for doing nothing on climate change. He said a majority of our party room do not believe that humans have any impact on climate change. Now that is a view contrary to the opinion of the vast majority of Australians, contrary to the opinion of every government in the world, and every major political party in the world. Now, if Nick Minchin wins, if he wins this battle, he condemns our party to irrelevance, because what he is saying on one of the greatest issues and challenges of our time, one that will affect the future of the planet and the future of our children and their children, Nick Minchin is saying ‘do nothing’. He wants us to be the ‘do nothing on climate change’ party and he has been, he’s on the record about that, and when he talks about a delay or a deferral, what that means is denial.”
Even if Turnbull can retain the support of most of his party and hold-off the attacks from the ‘Minchin-ites’ the chances of the legislation successfully passing through the Senate tomorrow seem slim. Debate on the bill was very slow on Thursday and there are a large number of amendments still to be debated. Both the far-left and the far-right within Parliament are opposed to the legislation. The Greens because they see it as too generous to industry and the Nationals and elements of the Liberals because they don’t believe in climate change. Here is Penny Wong trying to call out the far-right for filibustering on Friday:
“What is perverse is the unacceptable risk that this generation of right wing politicians are seeking to impose on future generations of Australians. What is perverse is the blatant and wilful disregard of the scientific evidence. Perhaps most perverse is the way in which Senator Joyce and others in this chamber will do and say anything to avoid action on climate change and have played procedural games and filibustered over the time that this debate has been on in this Senate, from back in June until now—simply demonstrating yet again that they are so extreme that, even when they believe there is a risk that the majority of this chamber will support action on climate change, they will not accept it. They will do anything in order to avoid taking action on climate change. I do believe that is perverse.”
What those seeking to delay the legislation are hoping to achieve is unclear. If you are on the far-right and you doubt the science of climate change — perhaps believing the ridiculous views of some skeptics that there is a vast scientific conspiracy on the subject — then you are missing the point that this is now beyond the science. Every major country in the world — from the US to China — is trying to reduce the carbon-intensity of their economies.
While our dependence on coal — both for export-earnings and domestic electricity generation — will make this transformation difficult for us, delaying the transformation is simply delaying the inevitable and is putting our future long-term prosperity at risk. What’s more, for the far-right of politics and the industry groups they support, the current bill before Parliament may be the most generous offer they get.
The far-left’s opposition to the current bill is more understandable, but probably just as silly. The CPRS does appear to reward polluters and it does lock-in — for the time being — a national reduction target as low as 5%. The Green’s advocacy for action on climate change is welcome. For example here is Christine Milne arguing for a larger reduction target on Friday:
“The fact is that the atmosphere does not really care. We are not talking here about what is politically achievable but about what the science—the chemistry and physics—deliver for us: what the earth can bear.”
However, the Greens, in voting against the CPRS legislation, have taken an idealistic and uncompromising position which provides no politically acceptable alternative. It might be have been the case that with their support the original CPRS legislation — perhaps with some of the amendments they are now seeking such as increased support for developing countries — might have been passed earlier this year. As it is now we have a bill further away from their policy ideal, with more support for the coal industry, and Australia no closer to meeting any reduction targets at all.
In any case, the Greens are mostly irrelevant to the current debate and we should be watching for the position that the majority in the Liberal party take tomorrow morning — and perhaps Joe Hockey in particular — for any insight into how tomorrow’s debate will proceed.
But this is all politics and this will all be a distant memory very soon. Australia will soon have an emissions trading scheme, the economy will soon begin a massive transformation in earnest, climate change will grind inexorably forward, the environment will change, and we will do our best to adapt. Our 20th-century fossil-fuel driven society will one day be a distant memory.
These changes, that the conservatives on the far-right fear so much, will not see complete social or economic collapse, but nor will they bring about an eco-utopia that those on the far-left might wish for. The challenge for our political leaders is to take the long-view and to chart a course that we can start today and that will sustain us in the future.
I have my fingers crossed. I hope that we take a step forward tomorrow with the passage of the CPRS legislation and that we take great strides forward next week in Copenhagen.
