Two recent prospective policy announcements in Europe demonstrate how far Australia has lagged behind the rest of the world in environmental action, and how childish our political divide on these issues must look to international observers.
UK environmental secretary Michael Gove announced last week that the Conservative Party government planned to implement a ban on plastic straws, stirrers and earbuds by October 2020.
Meanwhile, the European parliament went one step further the next day by approving a directive to ban all single-use plastics in the near future.
While the implementation of progressive environmental reform by the European Union would come as little surprise to many in Australia, some may be taken aback by the green policy actions of Theresa May’s government.
The Tories have, in fact, been relatively proactive on the environmental policy front since former prime minister David Cameron announced in 2011 that his government would be the “greenest ever” UK administration.
The governing party has gone on to set a target of an 80% reduction in CO2 emissions between 1990 and 2050, plans to ban the sale of new petrol cars by 2040 and just weeks ago wrote to the Committee on Climate Change to seek advice on a realistic date for zero net emissions to become a reality.
In March, Gove announced an incentivised deposit return scheme for glass, metal and plastic, similar to others in Europe, would be implemented in England to increase the rate of recycling. These actions couldn’t be further from the continual environmental policy inertia and myopia endemic in Australia’s own Liberal Party and its agrarian ally.
Despite a senate report that advised a ban on single-use plastics by 2023 gaining cross-party support in June, there has been not a word uttered by Environment Minister Melissa Price, or her predecessor Josh Frydenberg, on implementing such a change. Meanwhile, there is no plan on a future ban of petrol car sales.
And how could we forget the National Energy Guarantee fiasco? Malcolm Turnbull’s attempt at passing a very moderate climate policy was so reviled by the pro-coal gang of the government that it forced him into retirement and left Australia without an overarching policy on climate change.
Australia’s greenest ever government these Tories ain’t.
In fact, when you examine international conservative party action on environmental issues, it appears the Liberal Party is somewhat of an anomaly among developed western democracies.
Germany has been regarded as a green leader under the gaze of the centre-right Christian Democrats, while former conservative Dutch prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende was a vocal supporter of the 2009 Copenhagen Accord and climate change action. Portugal’s right-wing government under Pedro Passos Coelho oversaw a country that produced 63% of its electricity from renewable energy in 2014.
The economic and social necessity of environmental legislative reform has become illuminated for political parties across the entire spectrum worldwide.
In Australia, we are stuck in the mud by thinking climate change and ecological disintegration is a left v right issue, while many of our friends in Europe have left this trope long behind. Instead of seeing environmental policy as a wedge issue and as a weapon with which to fight a culture war, international conservative parties are using environmental policy to win over voters, a strategy that statistics show could pay dividends for the Coalition government if it were to dare.
A Lowy Institute poll in June revealed that 59% of respondents agreed that climate change was a “serious and pressing problem” and that they wanted to see change “even if this involves significant costs”.
International consumer group SumOfUs recently found that 72% of Liberal voters believed that the Coalition government should be doing more to address plastic pollution.
However, such a pivot from the LNP seems unlikely while the likes of Eric Abetz, Tony Abbott, Kevin Andrews and Barnaby Joyce have sway within the ranks of the parliamentary Liberal and National parties.
The presence of these hard-right types, coupled with the toxic status quo forged by the last 11 years of climate wars, means the party of Menzies is likely to ignore environmental policy reform.
Follow Stefan on Twitter at @Stefan_Boscia.
Sadly, I think any number of members of our current Government would be pleased if we inspired other countries to follow our lead and do absolutely nothing.
Rather than comparing government policies of northern hemisphere large population countries, Australia should be compared to southern hemisphere countries and then the commentaries should be hemispheric standards than modes of government –
We’re all part of the same world. The article draws attention to the policies of conservative governments of other countries who can be truly called conservative. They want to conserve what we have even if new technology has to be adopted in order to do it. I suggest that climate action groups start a well-publicised flow of conservatively minded speakers from countries with better policies than ours. It would soon become difficult to present climate policy as a left versus right conflict.
That idea makes almost no sense at all but just as a matter of interest, why?
Because, um … because, er, perhaps we stack up well against Chile, or Tonga, or Antarctica, you know, places like them, and we can go easy on a government which hasn’t got a policy but will meet its Paris commitments in a canter? Something like that?
Of course it makes sense – should a large continental mass in the Southern Hemisphere Australia which has a population of 25,000,000 have the same policies in place and pay the same penalty as the population of about in the northern 37,070,700,000 in the northern hemisphere. When when 27,300,000,000 of those do not have to consider the problem . It is similar to asking the residents of Coober Pedy to pay for the health and defence budget of Australia when the rest of Australia couldn’t be bothered.
So if I understand your argument, if I’m in a leaking boat with five other people where we need to bail the water out to stay afloat, and four of them bail but it’s not enough, I should restrict the amount of bailing I do even though that will eventually sink the boat. I’m guessing you don’t have children or grandchildren Desmond.
If you are in leaking boat – i hope you wouldn’t ask the other other five people to cough up with money to plug the holes. But no doubt the solution would be that a meeting would be held the agreed policy would be to drill another hole in the bottom of the boat and label it Exit hole –
I think there might be more than excess zeros loose in the top paddock.
It’s 1000% solid gold.
Obviously you are not from the STEM stream 🙂
So ‘European conservatives’ aren’t a mob of “coal-for-brains”?
I think we need a Royal commission on this matter to find out the secrets behind the deluded selfish bastards support for the coal industry. Abbott we know is just a weather vane but the rest of his crew are either utterly stupid or corrupt. They are not conservatives because conservatives strongly believe in insurance and risk management.
If we create a beautiful.clean sustainable planet and it did turn out climate change was over egged or wrong, who loses?
I think we need a Royal commission on this matter to find out the secrets behind the deluded selfish bastards support for the coal industry. Abbott we know is just a weather vane but the rest of his crew are either utterly stupid or corrupt. They are not conservatives because conservatives strongly believe in insurance and risk management.
If we create a beautiful.clean sustainable planet and it did turn out climate change was over egged or wrong, who loses?
There are none so blind as those who cannot see further than the next handout from coal sponsors.
Besides, to admit they’ve been wrong about climate change all these years would not fit well with their own self-image.
And there’s the nub of “the problem” – being wrong for so long, being on the wrong road for so long : they shouldn’t be allowed near national policy for years, or til they get an electoral enema to flush out those turds that have been constipating OUR progress.
Despite worldwide scientific proof, the degradation of the Barrier Reef, amongst other natural icons, and a plethora of opinion polls, even blind Freddy can see that a proactive environmental friendly policy is essential.
In my opinion it can only be the backroom deals with lobbyists, and donations to political parties, which has infected the decision-making process of many of our local, old-school politicians. Time for a cohesive environmental policy and an election.