Scott Morrison went to the election with no meaningful plan to curb Australia’s rising emissions, despite the nation being gripped by floods, droughts and koalas becoming freakin’ extinct like never before.
He’s never given any impression of taking the matter seriously, and the assumption following his election was that useful action on climate is now off the agenda for another three years.
Weirdly, though, he might end up being the prime minister who oversees Australia’s transition away from coal power and into clean energy. And there are three reasons to feel hopeful.
1. The economics of coal don’t add up anymore. While the federal and Queensland governments both seem set on seeing Adani begin operation within weeks, there’s a good chance that the company will quietly delay things simply because the price of coal means that even a heavily-subsidised operation would be making a loss on every tonne of coal they ship.
Plans for a nearby China Stone mine have just been abandoned for these exact reasons and it’s unlikely that Australian-mined thermal coal can be justified any more (although metallurgical coal – the stuff from which steel is made – is still economically viable).
At the same time reenable energy, even with battery storage, has become a far cheaper option than coal plants. That’s where investment is going to go for reasons of economics, not ideology,
2. Climate is still a big issue for Australians, especially in the cities. There’s a reason why candidates like Dave Sharma and Tim Wilson left off the Liberal branding on their electoral material and pitched themselves as “modern liberals”: the term promised economic conservatism minus the science-denying rhetoric of hardline Coalition members.
Voters in safe Liberal seats expect something to happen, and that makes them vulnerable to pro-climate action independents as Tony Abbott learned. And speaking of which…
3. The Liberals’ climate battles were mainly about two people, neither of whom are still there. We’ve had ten years of climate inaction in Australia and it was all because Tony Abbott sought to depose Malcolm Turnbull as federal leader of the Liberals.
When he successfully did so in 2009 the matter was forever politicised as being a conservative-vs-moderate issue within the Liberals as factions wrestled for the soul of the party.
Now with both men out of parliament there’s a chance for the matter to be dealt with as a policy issue rather than an article of faith.
Sure, there are still plenty of climate denialists in the government, but who honestly cares what Craig Kelly thinks about anything at all? No-one outside of Sky After Dark, that’s who.
So will history look back on Morrison as the PM that led Australia into a clean, green future? Also, who imagined they’d even be asking that question?