Whilst the global impact of climate disruption is rapidly accelerating, and the last, record-breaking year has been extraordinary, public concern in Australia about it is waning, and the government bears much of the responsibility.
Just two years ago, the Climate 200-sponsored Teals helped sweep a climate-denialist government from power, and the Greens had their best result ever. It was the climate election, but it doesn’t feel like that now.
Since coming to power, the Albanese Labor government has been working hard not to talk about climate warming impacts, not to lead the nation in a public conversation about how to face the greatest threat to our future, and it shows in recent public opinion research.
On 24 June, the Guardian reported on polling conducted for Veolia by the French research company Elabe across 26 countries representing 67% of global greenhouse gas emissions. It found that:
Polling by Lowy has shown a small fall since 2022. Concern was highest when Lowy started polling on the issue in 2006 (with 68% agreeing that “global warming is a serious and pressing problem. We should begin taking steps now even if this involves significant costs”). That figure fell sharply to 36% when Tony Abbott as opposition leader was in full cry, and peaked at 61% in 2019 (at the end of a multi-year El Nino) and in 2024 was at 57%.
The Elabe results are depressing, but there are material reasons. The standout is the unwillingness of the Albanese government to give any public focus to climate impacts. It is clear the Prime Minister’s Office decided that the way to handle the politics of climate was to talk a lot about wind and solar, hydrogen, batteries and Australia as an “energy superpower” and talk as little possible about the impacts — now and in the future — of a hotter and more disrupted world.
In the global arena, the government’s intent is clear: to justify AUKUS and comply with pressure from the US military industrial complex and the fossil fuel industry, China must always be presented as the big threat, despite climate change being a far greater, genuinely existential threat to all nations. In contrast,........