Australian Journal of Politics and History: Volume 59, Number 3, 2013, ... climate change policy in Australia threatens to descend below current (largely.
Australian Journal of Politics and History: Volume 59, Number 3, 2013, pp.449-456.
The Future of Australian Climate Politics MATT MCDONALD University of Queensland The preceding articles have shed light on the complex politics of climate change in Australia in a range of important ways. They have variously identified the obstacles to achieving and sustaining genuine public concern and willingness to support action; they have noted the importance of building partnerships with industry; they have pointed to the important function of the broader international context; and they have identified the pathologies of the Australian democratic political system and broader public debate that seem to militate against political consensus on the need to act on climate change. While applied generally to the dynamics of climate change since the mid-2000s to the present, a period of crashing public support and the fall of climate action proponents on both sides of Parliament, but also significant legislative breakthrough, these challenges will continue to animate the politics of climate change in Australia beyond. This concluding essay reflects on these challenges, with a particular focus on possible changes after the 2013 Federal Election, due at the time this Special Issue will go to print. With polls and analysts predicting a Coalition victory at the time of writing, and Coalition leader Tony Abbott promising an end to carbon pricing, the future for the climate change policy in Australia threatens to descend below current (largely inadequate) levels. We cannot predict the future, either the outcome of the election or the climate policy and politics that will follow it. What I can and will suggest here, however, is likely scenarios under different Governments, and domestic and international dynamics that might serve to enable or constrain the development of substantive climate change action in the Australian context. The 2013 Federal Election and the Fate of Climate Policy The scale and intensity of Opposition mobilization against the passage of the carbon tax in 2011 and 2012 suggested that the legislation’s long-term future was not secured with its entry into force in mid-2012. In October 2011, as the package of legislation passed the House of Representatives, Opposition leader Tony Abbott made “a pledge in blood” to repeal the carbon tax if voted into office.1 As the 2013 election loomed, this position did not soften. In March 2013, Opposition Climate Change spokesman Greg Hunt promised that the election would be “a referendum on the carbon tax”.2 Tony Abbott has consistently noted that the repeal
In Michelle Grattan and David Wroe, “Abbott’s blood oath to repeal carbon tax”, Age, 13 October 2011. 2 In Peter Hannam, “Coalition faces carbon tax contradiction, report finds”, Sydney Morning Herald, 27 March 2013. 1
© 2013 The Author. Australian Journal of Politics and History © 2013 School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics, School of Political Science and International Studies, The University of Queensland and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.
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of the carbon tax will be the “first priority of a Coalition Government”, even declaring an intention to pursue a double dissolution election in the event that the Coalition fails to gain control of the upper House and Labor and the Greens oppose the repeal: If Labor and the Greens continue to block the express will of the Australian people, a Coalition Government would seek dissolution of both Houses of Parliament. We would then introduce legislation to abolish the Carbon Tax at a subsequent Joint Sitting on the Parliament.3
While a double dissolution election may not take place even in those circumstances,4 the explicit nature of this promise to pursue the repeal of the carbon tax should leave us in little doubt as to the Coalition’s intentions if elected to office in 2013. And Rudd’s declaration on his return that the carbon tax would revert to an emissions trading scheme a year earlier than planned was still treated with disdain by the Opposition, with Abbott declaring that the scheme was “a so-called market in the non-delivery of an invisible substance to no one”.5 And yet this position, which enjoyed such strong support among the electorate in 2011 and 2012, carries with it political dangers for the Coalition. Firstly, most polling indicates a steady softening of public attitudes towards the carbon tax since it was first introduced by the Gillard government. By the end of 2012 opposition was still at 56 per cent but continuing to decline,6 while complaints to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission regarding the climate tax dropped off substantially after the first three months of its operation.7 Significantly, the majority of Australians believed the carbon tax had made no economic difference to their lives six months after being in place,8 with generous government compensation packages cancelling out price increases for many Australians. This was also in spite of dire warnings by Abbott and other members of the Coalition that the carbon tax would significantly raise the cost of living for average Australians and pose a long-term risk to the Australian economy. Opinion polling in 2013 has revealed a rise in public support for climate change action generally,9 while Kevin Rudd’s move to transition to an emissions trading scheme enjoys majority support in recent opinion polls. A World Wildlife Fund poll in July 2013 indicated that more people support Labor’s emissions trading scheme than opposed it, and most Australians felt a stronger emissions reduction target by 2020 was required.10 Secondly, the end to carbon pricing would raise inevitable questions for the Coalition about alternative climate policy, and would certainly challenge the realization of other stated policy goals. While the Coalition has retained a commitment to the 20 per cent renewable energy target (RET), for example, recent analyses have suggested
Tony Abbott, “The Coalition’s Plan to Abolish the Carbon Tax”. 29 June 2012 . 4 Antony Green, “Calls for a Double Dissolution election are Constitutionally Impossible”, ABC, 21 August 2011 5 Judith Ireland, “Emissions Scheme a Trade in the Invisible: Abbott”, Sydney Morning Herald, 15 July 2013. 6 Phillip Coorey, “Majority Oppose carbon tax, but say they are no worse off”, Age, 19 November 2012. 7 Lauren Wilson, “Tony Abbott won’t gain much bounce in carbon tax stance”, Australian, 12 January 2013. 8 Coorey, “Majority oppose carbon tax”. 9 Alex Oliver, The Lowy Institute Poll: 2013, 24 June 2013, available at . 10 Tom Arup, “Most support emissions trading”, Age, 22 July 2013. 3
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that without the carbon pricing, the incentive to invest in renewable energy will be vastly reduced, rendering the realization of this target almost impossible.11 Finally, the assault on carbon pricing will be undermined by early indications that it is indeed functioning to reduce Australia’s carbon emissions. Greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation in particular hit a ten-year low in early 2013, driven by increases in cost for wholesale electricity and an increase in demand for renewable sources associated with the effects of the carbon tax.12 This trend certainly makes it difficult to mount a case for the repeal of carbon pricing based on its ineffectiveness in reducing Australia’s emissions, which had featured as a justification for opposition to it in 2011 and 2012. The above dangers do not mean that the Coalition will back away from its promise to repeal carbon pricing. The Opposition leader will almost certainly continue to run this line because of the strength of his rhetoric to date, and in particular because he defined his willingness to follow through on this promise in opposition to the lack of integrity shown by Prime Minister Gillard in introducing the tax without declaring an intention to do so prior to the 2010 election. “Unlike the Prime Minister”, Abbott has declared, “I mean what I say: there will be no Carbon Tax under a government I lead.”13 Rudd’s return made the integrity argument more complicated for Abbott, but his commitment to removing any form of carbon pricing remains clear. Beyond the end to carbon pricing, the prospects for progressive climate policy under a Coalition government are not particularly promising. Abbott has vowed, for example, to close the Department of Climate Change (already merged with Industry and Innovation under Gillard in March 2013) and incorporate climate change within the Environment Department; to close the Australian Climate Commission (responsible for communicating climate science to the broader public) and sack its commissioner, former Australian of the Year, Tim Flannery;14 and has flagged the possibility of a biannual review of the renewable energy target, which would create significant investment uncertainty. Abbott has also appointed or promised to appoint prominent climate skeptics into key positions, including as an advisor on carbon emission reduction policy.15 If the prospects for progressive climate policy look bleak under an Abbott-led Coalition government, it is not altogether clear that a reelected Labor government represents the promised land for proponents of strong climate policy. Existing policy demonstrates as much commitment to expanding coal exports and mining, and the decision to reduce subsidies for renewables after 2015 will reduce investment in the technology. More generally, the Rudd government gives all appearances that it is keen to position itself as a small target on climate change, even looking to scale back on existing commitments rather than pursue a more robust response to climate change that would be consistent with the climate crisis Australia and the world confront.16
Hannam, “Coalition faces carbon tax contradiction”. Nick Perry, “Aust CO2 emissions hit 10-year low”, Australian, 11 April 2013. 13 Abbott, “The Coalition’s plan”. 14 Ben Cubby, “Abbott to ‘shoot messenger’ on climate”, Age, 4 April 2013. 15 Tristan Edis, “Abbott’s adviser hates wind farms, doubts climate change”, Crikey, 29 January 2013. 16 See Joe Kelly, “Greens slam merger as symbolic retreat on climate change”, Australian, 26 March 2013. 11 12
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The Broader Political Context Regardless of the outcome of the 2013 federal election, this event will not be the sole determinant of Australian climate policy: not even in the first two/three years of a new government, much less in the longer term. Of course, there is every possibility that climate policy action will be diffused to states and local governments, who have taken up the lead in the past in periods of federal government inaction on climate change. The New South Wales government, for example, developed a mandatory greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme in 2003, one of the first of its kind in the world. And given individual contributions to greenhouse gas emissions through everyday choices, albeit encouraged or limited in important ways by federal government legislation, we should recall that influences on individual choices go beyond legislation to a range of social, cultural and economic influences on individual behavior. This should serve to remind us of two things. Firstly, that the politics of climate change cannot and should not be restricted to discussions of federal government policy. The politics of climate change in any context, Australia or elsewhere, is the story of individual decisions mediated by a range of social, political, economic and cultural factors, and by the actions of their representatives at the local, state and federal level. For issues of space and focus we have made the decision in this special issue to address federal policy responses to climate change, but the way this has been addressed in the preceding papers and the special issue as a whole emphasizes a second key point. Namely, that national government responses to climate change do not occur in a vacuum, but are responses that are products of a complex array of domestic and international forces and dynamics of negotiation and contestation. We introduced this special issue through drawing on the age-old distinction between structure and agency to thematically group obstacles to and possibilities for progressive policy. In what remains of this conclusion I will briefly note the continued relevance of factors and dynamics identified there, while focusing on the potential role of civil society mobilization; international climate cooperation; and climate crises in potentially influencing Australian public opinion and compelling a meaningful response to climate change. Civil Society and NGOs Peter Christoff’s contribution to this special issue makes the important point that Australia’s environment movement has not always been effective in shifting public opinion towards climate change action or influencing government policy in that direction. In part, this reflects the traditional emphasis of Australian environmental NGOs on a conservation agenda rather than an environmental change agenda.17 But of course at times, these organizations were actively excluded from political participation, and threatened with the loss of government funding if engaging in public criticism of government policy.18 Recent civil society activism, however, has suggested new trends with promising bases for effectively shifting public opinion and pressuring governments. In many ways these developments build on the success of the Australian Greens, which has developed from being a marginal political party that grew out of the NGO movement to a major player in Australian parliamentary politics.
Drew Hutton and Libby Connors, A History of the Australian Environment Movement (Cambridge, 1999). 18 Clive Hamilton and Sarah Maddison, Silencing Dissent (Crows Nest, 2007). 17
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In particular, new forms of organization have emerged in the Australian context, and here I want to note three forms that have the potential to influence a new politics of climate change activism in Australia. First, broad-based participatory organizations such as GetUp! have embraced issues such as climate change, and have used new media platforms to mobilize a larger audience than traditional NGOs. These organizations have particularly attempted to communicate to a broad public audience as a basis for subsequently pressuring government action. Second, a range of NGOs in Australia have sought to combine research and advocacy in such a way as to ensure greater impact and understanding of climate research. Organizations such as Beyond Zero Emissions, for example, have been in a position to present new research on climate change to an audience broader than that of the scientific or academic community, and have produced high-profile research in a manner that attempts to directly target public debate. These forms of organization will be particularly important under a Coalition government if Abbott makes good his promise to wind up the Climate Commission: the agency responsible for communicating climate science to the broader public.19 Finally, movements around related issues such as coal seam gas (CSG) exploration in Australia have brought together new coalitions that suggest the possibility of a new politics of environmental activism in Australia. The Lock the Gate movement, for example, has been successful in finding support among traditional post-materialist inner-city environmentalists, while also gaining support from Australia’s rural communities involved in the agricultural sector. These relatively novel movements could ultimately find a wider audience, build new coalitions and develop public understanding of environmental change in a manner that challenges current political responses. There is already evidence, for example, of government responses to criticism associated with the approval process for CSG exploration and mining operations, even while such projects continue to be prioritized by local, state and federal governments.20 International Climate Politics Of course, another crucial dimension of the climate change story will be the question of international action (or inaction) and the associated pressures this places on Australian policy-makers. Crucial meetings on the UNFCCC loom in the near future, particularly in the likely attempt to negotiate a successor to the Kyoto Protocol — with binding emissions reduction targets — in 2015. A strong and wide-ranging international agreement would put pressure (both international and domestic) on the Australian Government to be part of a global solution, while also likely creating economic opportunities through participation in an expanded global emissions trading program. Conversely, a limited agreement, or no agreement, would make life considerably more difficult for any actor pushing for strong climate action. If re-elected, the ALP might hope to once again adopt a relatively prominent role in international climate negotiations, as Labor’s climate diplomacy has traditionally outpaced its domestic climate action. In that case, it would seem reasonable to expect that a Labor Government would push for a more robust international climate change agreement that allows the Government to at least neutralize opposition to existing
Its most recent report, at the time of writing, focused on extreme weather phenomena associated with global climate change, noting the importance of immediate mitigation action. Climate Commission, The Critical Decade: Extreme Weather (Canberra, 2013). 20 Matthew Carney and Connie Agius, “Gas Leak!”, ABC Four Corners, 3 April 2013. 19
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climate mitigation legislation in Australia. The experience of the Rudd Government in Copenhagen, however, also underscores the dangers of trying to build a case for strong domestic action at a time when key global actors and emitters are seen as indifferent or “free-riding” on the actions of others. If it is elected, the Coalition government might be willing to travel the road of Tony Abbott’s mentor, John Howard. It was his Government that, in 1997, ultimately held the Kyoto Protocol to ransom by demanding a series of concessions before signing on to the agreement, only to subsequently refuse to ratify the Protocol and ultimately dismiss it as irrelevant. Such a position was consistent with the skepticism of multilateralism generally and the UN in particular during the Howard years, evident too in key foreign policy statements of the conservative opposition.21 Yet whether this type of position can be sustained depends significantly on the position of Australia’s key ally. While Howard was obviously reluctant to sign on to Kyoto, it was only after the Bush Administration came to power in the United States and moved to dismiss the treaty that Howard felt able to do the same.22 President Obama’s recent moves to act on climate change might make a similar dismissal of the climate change regime a much more difficult prospect for an Abbott government. Once again, then, the international politics of climate change are far from straight-forward, and the capacity to reach agreement on the post-Kyoto global climate regime will be crucial to the political dynamics of climate change in Australia. The idea that Australia risked doing more and at more cost than other states was an argument that found support for Howard in justifying inaction on Kyoto, and for Abbott in opposing elements of the carbon tax. Yet the prospect of Australia standing outside an historical international agreement to act on climate change, if one were to be achieved, would be a far more difficult sell for Australia’s conservative politicians. Climate Crises? For some commentators, we need a genuine climate crisis to mobilize necessary political action on climate change. Proponents of this view might identify the role of Hurricane Sandy on the eve of the 2012 US election in bringing climate change (an issue noticeably absent from the Presidential debates) into the public consciousness. And a range of analysts have suggested the possibility of abrupt climate change scenarios (as depicted in the Hollywood blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow) triggering economic problems, mass displacement and even war, implying in the process that these nightmare scenarios should be enough to galvanise sustained political action.23 Certainly there is much that is intuitively appealing in this view: if climate change were conceived and approached as a genuine political crisis it might attract the funding and priority necessary for an effective political response to it.24 But we cannot expect that climate crises will precipitate sustained climate action at a level necessary for addressing the problem. This is especially given that alreadyoccurring climate change manifestations in the form of rapidly melting glaciers, sea
Graeme Dobell, “What Abbott will do: Foreign policy, aid”, Interpreter, 18 July 2012. Matt McDonald, “Australia and Global Climate Change” in Steve Smith, Amelia Hadfield and Tim Dunne eds., Foreign Policy: Theories, Actors, Cases, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 2012). 23 See, for example, David Spratt and Phillip Sutton, Climate Code Red (Melbourne, 2008); Jeffrey Mazo, Climate Conflict (London, 2010). 24 This (normative) argument is one that underpins much commentary on the relationship between climate change and security: that if treated as a security issue, climate change will be given the priority necessary for an effective response to it. See, for example, Matt McDonald, “Discourses of Climate Security”, Political Geography, Vol. 33 (2012), pp.43-51. 21 22
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level rises, increasing intensity and number of natural disasters and of course steadily increasing mean temperatures, in Australia and globally, could easily be interpreted as ‘canaries in the coal mine’. The scale of Australian drought alone, and its threat to agriculture and farming communities, should really be enough to compel the Australian public and its political leaders to act on climate change. Instead, the global carbon economy carries on, while in Australia the (economic) future of the nation is defined in terms of the extent to which we can feed this carbon economy through the extraction, export and use of our natural resources. Much like the global financial crisis before it, already dramatic manifestations of global climate change appear to have triggered a limited economic managerialism rather than wholesale reexamination of the assumptions and functions of the global economy. Given the scale of scientific certainty about climate change and the likely manifestations of it, we might reasonably ask what form a climate crisis would be required to drive the type of change necessary, in Australia or internationally? And if we wait until that scenario or set of scenarios arrive, it will almost certainly be too late to develop a meaningful response. Future Progressive Climate Politics in Australia? The vast majority of Australians, even if dwarfed by percentages in the scientific community, believe that climate change is happening and is related to human activity. A WWF poll conducted in March 2013 noted that 72% of Australians believed that climate change was happening and that humans were contributing to it.25 Long-term proponents of climate change action in Australia would be quick to point out, indeed as Bruce Tranter’s contribution to this special issue reminds us, that as recently as 2006 a similar percentage of Australians supported significant climate change action even if requiring economic sacrifice. This support, of course, was to collapse over the following five years, taking successive political leaders with it and threatening to become a key determinant of the 2013 Federal election. The key question, therefore, is how support for strong climate change is to be developed and sustained. Building on the above comments we might suggest that effective mobilization by civil society forces — challenging the traditional power of conservative media and some industry actors — movement towards effective international cooperation or personal experience of the dangers of global climate change might all serve the purpose of increasing public concern. But the history of climate concern in Australia suggests that while these forces can indeed serve to mobilize public concern, too often they cannot be sustained, proving themselves vulnerable to the passage of time and the effective campaigns of political opponents. Indeed the wild oscillation of Australian public opinion on climate change and climate change action is one of the dynamics that this special issue has attempted to come to grips with. I want to conclude here by suggesting that what is required for developing a robust social consensus around the need to act on climate change in Australia is ultimately leadership. For too long, Australia’s political leaders have retreated from genuine climate change action, made a show of climate diplomacy while continuing to expand coal exports and feed the national and global carbon economy, and have developed limited narratives for limited change around economic imperatives for action and the economic costs of inaction. Even former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who declared
World Wildlife Fund, “New poll: Extreme weather makes Australians more certain about climate change”, WWF Press Release, 3 April, 2013 . 25
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climate change a “great moral challenge” and rode a wave of public support for action in 2006 and 2007, overwhelmingly focused on the economic case for climate change action. More importantly, he proved himself unwilling to take the necessary steps for a meaningful response to climate change by failing to negotiate with the Greens on his Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, and proved himself unable to overturn declining public support, ultimately shelving the legislation (and thereby failing his own “great moral challenge”) in the face of growing opposition. What is required, instead, is a genuine commitment to climate change action in the face of vested interests in opposition, and strong narratives for climate change action that tie such action to Australian national values embedded in cosmopolitan principles. This has been lacking in attempts to enable or sell progressive climate policy, while even industry groups bemoan the lack of long-term vision of our political leaders. Australia needs a new politics of climate change. More importantly, the most vulnerable to manifestations of climate change within Australia and beyond (populations in threatened developing countries, future generations, other living beings), need countries like Australia to embrace a new politics of climate change that recognizes this issue as the unprecedented crisis that it is. That politics would move beyond short-term considerations of economic growth and develop robust social consensus for meaningful and sustained climate action.
