People trying to change Australia’s climate policies face a huge challenge. A fundamental problem is that in a democracy such as Australia’s, governments don’t make policy changes if they think this will damage them politically. The Albanese government will do everything it possibly can to tackle the climate crisis, except address the core problem, the burning of fossil fuels, the root cause of climate change!
The power of the fossil fuel industry influences government policy, and clearly the government thinks it is in its political interests to continue supporting gas and coal extraction. Unfortunately, in the current circumstances the government might be right. Current policies indicate the government sees promoting renewable energy domestically, whilst continuing to support gas and coal exports, including new projects, as a good political balance. It is prepared to live with the fact that supporting ongoing gas and coal extraction is in total conflict with the science.
The power of the fossil fuel industry wouldn’t be a problem if there was bipartisan political support for strong climate action. There should be bipartisan support because climate change is not an ideological issue. The world is facing a threat to life on earth, and all the politicians have to do is accept and act on the science and the evidence. Unfortunately, this isn’t going to happen any time soon and we have to deal with the problem the politicians have created. This said, it is quite shocking when politics prevents essential action to mitigate something as serious as climate change.
The government will have to........