Labor’s inability to resolve internal tensions over climate policy looks starker than ever in light of the Climate Target Panel’s report on just how badly adrift Australia is of meeting its Paris Agreement commitments.
The report cuts through the persistent and routine lying of Scott Morrison and his ministers that Australia is on track for anything other than a trivial reduction in its overall emissions (primarily driven by renewable energy investment the government has tried its best to deter).
To be consistent with the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to well below two degrees, the report concludes: “Australia’s 2030 emissions reduction target must be 50% below 2005 levels. A 2035 target would need to be 67% below 2005 levels. Net-zero emissions would need to be reached by 2045.”
But to meet a 1.5-degree target, our 2030 target must be 74% below 2005 levels, with net-zero by 2035. The 2050 net zero target popular with business — which Morrison refuses to commit to — isn’t going to cut it.
In fact Morrison is committed to investing taxpayer money to increase fossil fuel energy production, with scandal-plagued minister Angus Taylor promising the Commonwealth will fund a gas-fired power station as part of the government’s “gas-led recovery” plan drafted by its gas company donors.
Labor remains all at sea on the issue, with open conflict between figures like Joel Fitzgibbon, who continues to support coal mining companies even as they abandon thermal coal, the AWU and the mining division of the CFMMEU which oppose serious climate action, and Mark Butler who is committed to stronger climate policies.
Labor’s 2019 target of a 45% reduction in emissions by 2030 remains in abeyance. According to media reports, Butler is to be moved from the climate portfolio in the forthcoming reshuffle by Labor leader Anthony Albanese.
From within Labor ranks the motivations are clear. The government incurs little political penalty for its climate denialism — the press gallery obstinately refuses to treat the climate emergency with appropriate seriousness. And in any event, News Corp is a self-avowed propaganda arm for the Coalition, Seven and Nine and their newspapers are both Liberal-aligned, and ABC News is hopelessly cowed and compliant.
When there has been failure by the entire governing class, the temptation is to stick with that class rather than break away, when doing so will make you a target.
But while Labor believes itself torn on how to balance demands for stronger climate action with the need to win seats in areas reliant on fossil fuel production, the NSW Liberals have got on with addressing the dilemma. They face a similar challenge of responding to community pressure for real climate policies while keeping a rump of opponents of climate action — the NSW Nationals — happy.
NSW Environment Minister Matt Kean resolved the tension: facilitate a surge in renewables and storage investment and the infrastructure required to handle it that will create hundreds of jobs in regional communities, while establishing a framework to reduce prices as the cost of renewable energy comes down.
Climate action goes from being a potential economic cost (always wildly overstated by denialists) to being an economic stimulus and job-creator; the fear of what damage might ensue is replaced with fear of missing out on the opportunities created by a world moving more rapidly to decarbonisation — with the United States under Joe Biden now on board.
There are political dangers for Kean. By showing up the denialism of his federal colleagues — and the collaboration in denial of so-called Liberal moderates — he has painted a target on his back for the likes of Taylor and News Corp. But as a lesson in how to win the climate wars he’s demonstrated a path forwards that Labor has been unable to take — so far.
It’s a sad commentary on the role of some of the more dominant sections of the media, when telling the truth about climate change and making sensible plans to limit emissions, is seen as a political liability. Whereas endless spin and obfuscation, is never really punished.
The media is only reflecting the views of its key advertisers, just as politicians reflect the views and policy priorities of key industry donors. Unfortunately the advertisers and donors are the same – the big banks, the mining/energy resource companies etc. The really sad and bad news – which is rarely admitted – is most electors tend to shoot the messengers/blame the media and politicians when the system isn’t working for them.
“Punished”?
It’s a necessary KPI for promotion.
There should be very good negotiators in Labor with the Union training behind them. But ego maniac people like Fitzgibbons who is stuck back quarter of a century ago get in the way
My prediction for Fitzgibbon, is that in a few years time, he will have left parliament and will be earning a living providing so-called balance on commercial media political discussions. In the same way that Latham and Richardson provided balance, that coincidentally largely agreed with the LNP talking heads and the hosts.
If only there were a way for local ALP branches to select candidates.
That was abolished by the Right during the Frazer years.
What is so bloody hard – for Labor – about copying the good things that Kean is doing, from a clear and reasoned narrative to action?
Transitioning miners from what they know are dying jobs shouldn’t prove that hard a sell.
The major parties are taking us all ‘down the shaft’ with them – not all of are happy to go, including their kids I’d wager.
Indeed – propose Kean’s policies be applied nationally, thus showing commitment to bipartisanship in a critical global issue, and wedging both the NSW Division of the Liberal Party and its members, ie Morrison and Taylor. Or let’s see Morrison repeating his line of last year when he asked who was Matt Kean and said nobody in the Cabinet had heard of him.
…. A wedge made in NSW.
klewso…as has been said below, Kean is IN government. The federal ALP isn’t, so they can’t DO anything anyway.
Surely the major question for the latter, is how do they get into government without frightening the horses? It certainly isn’t going to happen by following the demands of that Labor traitor, Fitzgibbon, or by removing Mark Butler from the portfolio. Butler is a walking encyclopedia on climate change and what to do about it. South Australian Labor has led the country on climate change for many years now.
Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face…crazy stuff by the ALP!!
They could annunciate/adopt those policies……
The problem with that is that the LNP will run a scare campaign, aided by commercial media.
And the problem with not doing anything, running dead ….?
The only problem I can see is that it would, of course, have to be a well thought out and articulated policy, to counter that inevitable avalanche of BS ….. Is Labor up to that?
It is unable to “…have well thought out and articulated policy…” in the first instance.
The reason why it cannot is perfectly demonstrated by today’s reshuffle.
When/if there is something worthwhile on offer then worry about dealing with Moloch et al.
As Mrs Beeton said of making rabbit stew, “first catch a rabbit”.
Kean is on the government benches, which does give him a big advantage.
Nothing like being in Government snd having the capacity to make good decisions and show action as Kean has done. The only worthwhile Liberal in the whole lot
Why does the ALP elevate the jobs of miners in dying industries above the jobs of low-wage workers, mostly women, in service industries like tourism and hospitality whose livelihoods are threatened by climate change?
They need to stop seeing climate action as a threat and embrace it as an opportunity to invest in new skills, infrastructure and jobs, while setting up the economy for the coming century.
And the ALP cheer squad need to stop telling the rest of us to shut up. They won’t win by rolling themselves up into a little ball and being the Coalition Lite. Progressives and the left need to keep pushing them, as they did with Biden in the US.
Seems Labor get sucked into or agree with LNP, NewsCorp etc. and libertarian agitprop and patriarchal nostalgia (for ageing electorates) promoting the myth of ‘white unskilled workers’ for ‘Australians’.
Further, like elsewhere they demand (often subsidised foreign subsidiaries to prove) low value added assembly line jobs versus growing service sectors in sophisticated manufacturing (e.g. CSL, Cochlear, solar etc.), hospitality, logistsics, health care etc.; the latter don’t fit the image promoted to older voters….