Australia is well and truly grappling with the pressing challenges of the climate crisis.
The 2019-20 bushfire season is still a not-too-distant memory, a fresh wound. The last three La Niña summers have brought successive floods, not even giving communities enough time to clean up and rebuild before being struck again.
And though La Niña seems behind us, the future looks bleak, with an impending “super El Niño” promising droughts, heatwaves and bushfires. As the recent devastating report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has forecast, there is a 98% chance the world will face its hottest year on record before 2028.
It seems like we’re living through one long natural disaster.
Last year’s election of a Labor government saw widespread relief from environmental advocates. The change of the old guard was heralded as a new chapter for the country. It was a government that continuously promised leadership and decisive action, the end of the climate wars.
One year on, it’s clear that reality is riddled with double standards, contradictions and a disheartening lack of genuine resolve.
The government pledged its allegiance to the cause of combating climate change. They vowed in no uncertain terms to reduce emissions, promote renewable energy and protect our Pacific neighbours.
But their actions speak a different language — one that whispers of self-interest, short-term gains and policies that perpetuate the very problems they claim to address.
Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the government’s budget, which has delivered investments in electrification and energy efficiency. Household energy upgrades are good news for both the climate and households desperately in need of cost-of-living relief. Significant money has also been put towards establishing Australia’s very own renewable hydrogen industry, and a National Net Zero Authority will oversee a rapid transition to a carbon-neutral economy.
But Labor’s investments in climate action are undermined by its cosy relationship with the gas industry. The government is supporting the rapid expansion of gas export production by gas giants like Woodside with $41 billion of fossil fuel subsidies — substantially more than all climate initiatives combined.
When faith in democracy is falling rapidly, the government is making an active choice to let the gas industry undermine all advancements on climate change and the cost of living.
When the call from Pasifika communities to accelerate action on climate change is louder and more urgent than ever, the government’s budget is devastatingly quiet on international climate finance.
When young people are struggling to comprehend that we must construct our futures within a world characterised by frequent and severe natural disasters, a world where climate change is exacerbating food insecurity and impacting living standards, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has recently greenlit four new coal mines.
For a government that needs younger voters onside to secure a second term in Parliament, it’s failing to acknowledge that more Australians than ever are stating climate change as their central concern.
Labor’s climate policies are symbolic of its party’s system of governance as a whole. We see ambition to do marginally better than the past government, but not a bit more. No ambition to stand up to the fossil fuel donors that continue to overtly influence political behaviour, day in, day out.
It’s not enough to not be the Liberal-National coalition government. It’s not enough to acknowledge that climate change exists and requires action if any genuine action taken is offset by subsidies and fossil fuel approvals.
Because at the end of the day, we end up at net zero.
Net zero ambition.
Net zero benefit.
Net zero climate action.
Is Labor doing enough to protect future generations from the effects of climate change? Let us know by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
Well said, and all true. Unfortunately.
Labor does not fundamentally believe in tackling climate change any more than the Coalition does. Labor only wants to pick up support from voters who reject the Coalition’s full-bore denialism. Labor’s climate change stance is just a pose, a pretence, a calculated political manouevre to get ahead of the Coalition, because that’s all that matters in our politics.
Agree. I voted for them for the 1st time hoping to rid us of the corrupt stench of the previous government. Labor conned me once, they won’t get me again.
I didn’t vote Labor this time, because I knew this lot would do exactly what they are doing. Labor is a centre-right party controlled by people whose philosophies are very far different from those of Chifley, Curtin and Whitlam. I am an old man, so I’m not likely to be alive for another federal election, and therefore am unlikely to be too badly affected by what anyone who isn’t blind can see is inevitable catastrophe, given our current course. But the pity of it is that young people like Anjali Sharma are in imminent mortal danger and no-one seems to care about them.
SSR I think that is unfair and if you think any party has a short term solution you are mistaken. But all parties have to consider their base and the ALP has issues. The Greens would essentially close all fossil fuel projects tomorrow, in which case they will be very cold, very hot and likely very hungry. The solution is a very big picture and the ALP at least has some of it, the LNP says the issue is non existent or in some fairy land where technology will solve it all for us. I would take some fairly drastic actions if I were PM, but I would likely lose the next election and the replacement would undo it all.
To put it another way, you (like Labor) would make some timid gestures and do nothing effective to limit the coming catastrophe, because it is more important to cling to power. It is amazing that you think the consequences of taking real action now would be worse than the consequences of not taking action. Have you paid any attention to all the credible scientits?
The scientists only tell us what not to do. They don’t tell us how we can heat and cool and transport everything we want if we ban all fossil fuels tomorrow.
But if you know how to do it, please outline your plan.
All the supermarkets in Australia will be empty by day 7 of the fossil fuel ban.
What do we do then to feed our families?
How do we get to work?
Where can we expect to go for our holidays?
This is nuts. But believe the unbelievable even though it is unbelievable. Changing to renewables will take decades, obviously. But the slower we are at the change and the longer it is put off the worse will be the result. Seriously worse. And the more it will cost. Look at it this way, had we decided to ignore the war in 1939 we would now be speaking Japanese with German as a second language, and we would all be slaves. Climate change, ignored now, would be much worse than that, because it will be permanent along the lines of hundreds of thousands of years. We are fools not to take every possible step available to us (all of which are relatively easy and cheap) in order to leave as much fossil fuel in the ground as possible. And we certainly do NOT need to look for more of the stuff.
This is entirely a strawman argument. Nobody is saying we ban all fossil fuels tomorrow. Change will take time, you reject change based on unfounded fears.
I haven’t rejected any change, Stuart. I’m all for ending fossil fuel use.
But how? You say change will take time. OK, but how will that work? Can you outline what steps you think the Albanese government should be doing in the first year, 2nd year, 3rd year, 4th year and 5th year to get us there?
Please be specific. If it’s a sensible plan that doesn’t cause unreasonable disruption to too many people, I’m sure it will be popular with voters.
Timidity is not going to cut it. What is your definition of ‘unreasonable disruption’, and ‘sensible’ for that matter? One thing that Albanese and co. could do now is stop all new fossil fuel development, but they’re not even doing that, or even have a plan about when they’ll do that.
Start there with your sensible plan. Not one more cent to subsidise fossil fuels.
The scientists only tell us what not to do. They don’t tell us how we can heat and cool and transport everything we want if we ban all fossil fuels tomorrow.
This is false.
And I don’t believe anyone is seriously suggesting “ban all fossil fuels tomorrow”.
Perhaps there’s a clue there. When you say how can we have “everything we want”. Perhaps, heaven forbid, we could tighten our belts for the planet and future generations?
The Greens would obviously not shut down fossil fuels tomorrow. They would only shut them down much earlier than the other mobs would. The other mobs being criminally negligent.
I’m pretty sure you’d need to be in the very fringes of the radical Greens to find anyone who thinks this.
Certainly nobody anywhere remotely near power is suggesting it.
Agreed. GRN 2022 and continuing policy says no NEW fossil fuel projects (combined with a planned transition away).
The policies remain searchable online e.g. it is fairly easy to find https://greens.org.au/beyond-coal-gas (click on the plan and you’ll find things like AEMO grid interconnects on page 27 but note this is now roughly a year and a half old, and written before we saw evidence of large private capital driving change to renewables in vertically integrated energy generators and retailers).
It does seem that neither major party really understands the scale of the environmental problem, nor the daunting scale of technological change required.
Stop with the DISINFORMATION. The Greens have a policy of no NEW coal and gas mines. No-one is suggesting all mining stop tomorrow. There is general consensus (UN Secretary General, climate scientists, International Energy Agency etc) that this is the only way to limit our warming to a level that will not cause societal collapse. In other words the Greens are the only party with policy in line with science.
There are those in Labor who want more action. If you have a local Labor member, now is the time to go and speak to them and ask them to do what they can to push the agenda inside Labor. There are a number of seats only marginally being held which could go to the Greens in the next election. This, if nothing else, should serve as motivation for them.
Missing in this article is the word CORRUPTION.
Corruption is the thing we’re all sick of, and I’m fed up with it not being named. Or if mentioned, it’s called ‘soft corruption’ as if there’s anything soft about spaffing vast wads of public money at criminal scum, on the way to dooming us all.
…And then we have South Australian Labor, where the sensitive fossil fuel giants are comforted by being told they’re actually the good guys and just badly misunderstood, while environment protesters are potentially facing a three-month jail sentence for their activism.
2 years in NSW, plus a $50,000 fine, especially if you block traffic while you’re protesting, or lean on the wrong fence while you’re watching the passing parade. It’s OK to do both if you’re a Right-wing protesting about public health measures, or threatening minority groups, or whatever.
This kid stands for office, another Labor member loses their seat.
It galls me that Labor has turned into a mini Coalition party, the greed is good party so long as all the goodies cone to us party. The hooro is that the majority of them have children and thise children wellmay hate them, and let them know it before they die because thenpromise from tjis Labor government seems to be, ‘We are more concerned with keeping our currently large pay cheques and staying in government to keep the money rolling in ftom fossil fuel companies, than keeping our word to those who voted us in.’
Those that vote you, can also vote you out.
Hawke’s election successes have convinced them that the only way to win government is to be just like the Coalition, only slightly nicer.