It didn’t take long for the climate exemption disease to spread rapidly through politics.
Nationals MPs now want agriculture, mining and regional manufacturing carved out of the mythical 2050 target. The mining lobby — still mired in climate denial — wants emissions-intensive mining protected. Liberal MP Russell Broadbent wants steel production — one of Australia’s most cosseted industries, responsible for inflicting billions in unnecessary costs on the Australian construction industry through its predatory use of the anti-dumping rort — exempted as well.
We’ve seen all this before, when Kevin Rudd unveiled his Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and then watered it down, first to reflect the financial crisis, then in the face of relentless lobbying by emissions intensive industries.
Except that was an actual, real-life policy for an emissions trading scheme. This is for an imaginary emissions abatement target that exists only in the mind of Scott Morrison and journalists.
Forget about history repeating first as tragedy, then as farce. This is more the lame reboot of a rubbish show that should never have aired in the first place, with worse actors and a third-rate script.
Some performers are refusing to even say their lines: despite having helped sabotaged all climate action over the last decade, the Business Council now feels obliged to profess support for an economy-wide 2050 target (knowing full well exemptions for major sectors simply means a greater burden on other industries), as does the National Farmers Federation.
The blatant attacks on climate action that marked the Rudd-Gillard years are now unacceptable for major corporations courtesy of social media-driven campaigns and superannuation funds keen to display their climate-friendly credentials.
The reason we’re watching this rehash, this Dancing On Ice 2021, is because the same power structures exist in federal politics now as then: fossil fuel and resources companies wield remarkable influence courtesy of their political donations, their support from key trade unions that fund Labor, the presence of former resources industry figures in senior positions within government, and a dominant media company that supports climate denialism.
And what hasn’t changed, either, is the refusal of large sections of the media to accurately report on climate policy. If the challenge facing Labor when it was in government was an intransigent opposition and a mainstream media catastrophising climate action as economically disastrous, the problem now is the willingness of many in the press gallery to run a protection racket for Scott Morrison on climate, refusing to report on his pro-fossil fuel policies and their corrupt origin properly, obsessing over trivial changes in wording rather than the reality of a climate emergency and the climate denialism of the government.
As the now overworked saying goes, insanity is doing the same thing over and expecting different results. Rehashing 2009’s emissions trading debate will lead to the same end as it did last time. Only by breaking the power structures that force that result can change be effected. That means crushing the power and influence of fossil fuel companies and News Corp and heavily restricting donations.
Without that, we’ll be watching the same lame tragicomedy performed by ever more abysmal actors for years to come.
I wonder how these characters will respond when Australian exports get whacked with a carbon tax at the border by the rest of the world. Will that finally persuade those electorates still sending National Party representatives to Canberra to reconsider their options?
I wonder if China will do that, again? Kind of depends on how much steel they actually need.
PS, I like your ‘nym
Let’s take it to the ridiculous extreme and exempt everyone. It’s an aspirational imaginary plan anyway, as you pointed out.
The press galleries obsession with trying to pick up on Scotty’s minute change in language is pathetic. Meanwhile, we’re in a crisis and nothing is being done.
I just don’t get it. What’s the harm if they go hard on Morrison and call him out for his lack of clarity? Simply ask, is this policy or is it an actual change?
The only way I see things getting better here is other countries start to punish us with tariffs and restrictions for the cost of not being Green. Beyond that, the farcical nature of the “debate” in Australia is just so depressing that it seems better just to switch off the news altogether.
To improve the debate vote Green. And don’t give up. Get some desvenlafaxine from your GP. Have a day at the zoo, and ask yourself why one species would do this to the others, and what you think the future might hold for us, and does it really matter? Works for me. But my psychiatrist told me I’m the most cynical person he had ever met, then he left town, probably in despair. The only way to stop climate change in its tracks, I have come to see (given human nature being what it is), is for there to be a full-on nuclear war. Not pretty, as solutions go, but better than 5 or maybe 10 degrees of climate heat on top of what we’ve already got. Or more. So cheer up, Kel S! Cynicism demands it. This may not be the best of times but it’s sure as hell not the worst.
You may not have intended it but that is the most practical solution I’ve seen proffered.
Carbon reduction on any scale that matters will not happen for political reasons.
It is irrelevant because the globe has reached tip-over point with the release of methane by thawing permafrost.
Only adaptation to the catastrophic New will avail ought and I doubt that what currently passes for 21stC technology will survive that.
Two points drastic. First, we won’t see anything beyond 5 degrees, we’re all dead at around 4. Planet earth might see 10, but we won’t.
Second, you’re not even the most cynical person posting on Crikey. Erasmus has that title locked up.
Even if what has been envisaged was achieved the planet, or more accurately the higher vertebrates, would have a major problem – allowing for the rubbing out of Australia entirely.
Continue with the protesting. The small deli owners and hipster coffee shops need the walk-by traffic.
For the life of me I cannot understand what Australia thinks will happen when we pass the plus 2 degrees Celsius mark. Why aren’t people kicking down the doors of parliament and demanding action. Good lord, it’s yours and your childrens lives these idiots are playing games with, all so they can get a cushy job when they are kicked out of politics. Coal mining was stopped decades ago in England, not in the nicest way, but my God it has worked England has already had time running absolutely on renewables and i dustry didn’t collapse. Sixty years ago Scotland went from coal fires to electric heating, the whole thing was done quietly and efficiently, yet here now the government is still backing coal, why? Because they donate big time to the L/NP, and the Libs desperately need their donations because, when not using tax-payer money for their rorts, they keep running out of cash.
Wake up, Australia, you’re being taken for a ride by a bunch of duds.
The SE of Britain buys electricity from France – which generates it by force feeding cheeses into lactophobes – and imports the coal it burns, a LOT, from Poland.
And Colombia, go figure!