From Down to Earth, the email newsletter, The Guardian sent to their subscribers on March 2, 2023
By Adam Morton
Sometimes, the further you are removed from an argument the less sense it makes.
I suspect for many Down to Earth readers this may be the case with the debate over climate politics currently playing out in Australia. It is the latest flashpoint in what are known locally as the “climate wars” – essentially, a decade-plus battle over whether to do anything over the country’s fossil fuel addiction.
Australia is the third biggest exporter of fossil fuels which, as we know, are the primary cause of the climate crisis. Its coal exports – traditionally to large Asian economies, but increasingly to smaller developing countries – have been world-leading for decades. More recently it has opened the world’s largest liquified natural gas (LNG) export industry across the north of the continent.
At the heart of the current debate is whether the country can continue to expand these industries while claiming to be serious about addressing the climate crisis.
Last year Australians elected a Labor government for the first time in nine years and removed a conservative administration that had subsidised fossil fuels and was grouped alongside Saudi Arabia and Russia as a roadblock at climate talks. They also installed a load of new Greens MPs and climate-focused independents.
It has led to changes that polls indicate a majority of the country has wanted for years, but hadn’t voted for. The national emissions reduction target was significantly increased – though not to the level that scientists say is needed – and work began on a suite of policies centred on renewable energy, electric vehicles and improved corporate behaviour.
The most contentious of its changes is now before the national parliament. It is called, for no apparent good reason, the “safeguard mechanism”. Hardly anybody understands what it does. But it is at the centre of a political fight.
The safeguard is meant to put a limit on emissions at the country’s 215 biggest polluting facilities – coalmines, gas production sites, steelmakers and other manufacturers – which are responsible for about 30% of national emissions. The government wants most of them to cut the rate of their emissions by about 5% a year.
So far, so good. But there is a sticking point. Anthony Albanese’s government says it will let massive new fossil fuel developments continue to open. Critics point out, not unreasonably, that they will add to the country’s industrial emissions while others are being told to cut them.
This would not be an issue if the new plants were industries that will be needed long into the future, and need some encouragement and support to clean up their act. Steel, aluminium and cement will obviously be required in a net zero emissions world. But the big new entrants that are planned are basically all new fossil fuel developments – new and expanded coalmines, and giant new gas projects that are expected to run until late in the century.
A spreadsheet published by a government department lists more than 100 fossil fuel developments that are “in the pipeline”. Many are at an early stage in planning and probably won’t prove economically viable. But the government expects a significant number of them will. They would lead to billions of tonnes of CO2 being added to the atmosphere once the coal and gas are shipped and burned overseas.
You don’t have to be a climate wonk to be left scratching your head about how this squares with Australia’s newfound commitment to help drive a transition to a global clean economy.
The government’s position is that the country can continue to reap the benefits of fossil fuel exports as long as there is someone prepared to buy them. It made a political decision not to oppose fossil fuels before the election and isn’t going to break it. The result is the kind of a political standoff over climate that Australians have become used to.
To implement its changes the government needs the support of Green senators and a couple of independents. The Greens’ position is that they don’t much like the policy, but will support it if the government agrees to ban new fossil fuel developments. On that, Albanese won’t budge.
Locally, it sets the scene for frantic weeks of negotiation in search of middle ground. Globally, it raises the question of how Australia’s friends will judge a wealthy liberal democracy that says it is committed to limiting global heating to 1.5C, and wants to host a UN climate summit in 2026, while still enthusiastically cracking open untapped gas reservoirs and coal seams.
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