Chris White Online

WILL THE NEW PM ACT ON CLIMATE CHANGE?
by Geoff Lazarus

With the ascension of Julia Gillard to PM many Australians will be asking themselves whether Labor will finally deliver on the ‘great moral challenge of our times’ that Kevin Rudd and his Ministers postured over time and again in the last two years.

It may be unwise to get our hopes up for decisive and effective initiatives to combat climate change. While Gillard will no doubt attempt through political spin to create the impression of an intention to do so, her track record on environmental issues and that of her Party suggests there may not be significant movement either before or after the Federal Election.

One major concern is that our new Prime Minister has been a party to all of the major decisions by Labor on climate change.

This includes the adoption of a target of 450parts per million of Co2 in the atmosphere after having campaigned strongly for effective policies to combat global warming in 2007.

Climate scientists and environment groups consider this to be a highly dangerous level of Co2 with a 50% chance of catastrophic runaway global warming within a few decades.

Unfortunately, Labor came up with the deeply flawed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme that would see emissions actually increase till 2035 and provide billions of dollars to the coal industry.

The Labor supported Grattan Institute found the assistance package under the Government’s proposed carbon trading legislation for emissions intensive industries was a $20 billion waste of taxpayers’ money.

Worse still, analysts believed that even the dangerous target of ‘limiting’ Co2 to 450ppm embedded in the CPRS was unachievable and carbon levels would be considerably higher under the proposed policy regime.

It was met by howls of protest by Climate Scientists, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, State and Territory Conservation Councils, and 150 Climate Action Groups around the country. Fortunately, the Australian Greens rejected the Government’s policy and the CPRS ultimately failed to progress through the Senate.

Labor then gave up any intention to act after the Copenhagen debacle which Australia, along with other major polluting countries, was partially responsible for its unsatisfactory outcome.

At the beginning of the year the Greens proposed Ross Garnaut’s sensible carbon tax idea as an interim means of putting a price on carbon. This was rejected by Labor.

Another concern is that in all her years in student and Labor politics she never embraced or acted on any environmental issue. She has no track record whatsoever of having any passion for environmental causes.

Throughout her political career she’s been a close friend and political partner of Michael O’Connor of the Forestry Division of the CMFEU that has been hell bent on maintaining the bad practice of clearing old growth forests that seriously contributes to our carbon emissions.

The PM is also a prominent member of the Ferguson Labor Party faction and hence a supporter of Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson.

He along with Stephen Conroy who she also has a factional association with in Victoria were probably the two strongest opponents within the Rudd Government to taking action to combat carbon emissions.

Stephen Conroy’s Victorian Labor Unity faction and the Ferguson group at a national ALP level played major roles in installing her as Prime Minister.

The PM when questioned after taking the top job seemed to suggest Labor won’t act in the immediate future but could put forward a policy for the election that places a price on carbon. But on the weekend she seemed to retreat from that position when she said,

‘I believe that if we are to have a price on carbon and do all the things necessary for our economy and our society to adjust, we need a deep and lasting community consensus about that. We don’t have it now’.

With around 25% of Australians as well as powerful vested interests opposing action to combat climate change this may amount to an intention to take no significant and effective action.

It could also amount to continuing with the practice of taking more notice of News Limited and the Australian Industry Group, as well as climate skeptics within in her own Government.

For Gillard and most of her Ministers climate change is just another issue, subject to the same pragmatism and compromises as everything else in politics.

They think they can negotiate with the laws of physics and chemistry that are the climate system, seemingly oblivious to the dire warnings coming from NASA and thousands of climate scientists around the world.

Already Labor failed its first test under the new PM. On Friday the Government announced a program to export brown coal from Latrobe Valley to Japan. With brown coal being the worst carbon-emitting of all commercialised fossil fuels, it wasn’t exactly the greatest start to addressing climate change.

What it means for the country is fairly obvious. The many Australians concerned about climate change need to be wary of Labor’s disposition to use political spin as a means of deflecting their desire for concrete and appropriate steps to avert global warming.

Nevertheless one has to be hopeful of a more positive approach by Labor. There is now an opportunity for a fresh start with policy settings that truly do meet the immediate need of responding to our climate crisis.

The climate movement wants to see the Gillard Government embrace a 40% carbon reduction target over the next ten years as a minimum starting point.

This can be partially achieved by the shutting down the worst carbon-polluting power station in the southern hemisphere, Victoria’s Hazelwood, as well ALCOA’s Portland aluminum plant. These actions would reduce Australia’s carbon emissions by 9%.

The Victorian Government‘s consideration of closing Hazlewood’s would be more likely to happen if Federal Labor was prepared provide financial assistance.

Better forestry and land management practices are also an important part of the required policy mix.

These measures must be coupled with massive public investment in renewable energy industries and can easily be achieved by the Labor changing its spending priorities.

An agreement with Telstra over National Broadband infrastructure now seems fairly likely and a future Labor Government could come up with the $13billion dollar price tag placed on de-carbonising our economy.

In doing so it would create hundreds of thousands of jobs and in the long term protect our tourism and agricultural industries that are particularly vulnerable to the impact of global warming.

There are opportunities for our new PM to make a positive and historic impact on Australia’s future.

The question is, will she provide concrete and visionary solutions or just talk the talk.

Only time will tell.

GEOFF LAZARUS on behalf of CLIMATE ACTION CANBERRA
geofflazarus@iinet.net.au This appeared in the Canberra Times.

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