Australia Has Finally Woken Up to Climate Change

First came the drought. Then the bushfires. Then the floods.

And then, on May 21, 2022, came the federal election. After nearly four years as Australian prime minister—a term in office marked by repeated and record-breaking natural disasters—the conservative Scott Morrison was ousted following a contest that hinged on climate change. “It’s a very clear illustration of the concern that Australians have and their desire for climate action,” says Amanda McKenzie, CEO of the Climate Council, a nonprofit organization dedicated to climate change communication.

The hope is that the new Labor government will quickly improve Australia’s poor track record on carbon emissions. Australia certainly has a lot of catching up to do. Its efforts to mitigate climate change have been declared “highly insufficient” by the Climate Action Tracker, an independent project that assesses countries’ climate policies.

Despite ranking 55th in the world in population, Australia is the 14th-highest emitter of carbon dioxide—and the fifth highest if its large fossil fuel exports are factored in. It is the world’s second-largest exporter of coal. On a per capita basis, the country is one of the highest emitters of CO 2 in the world.

The election delivered a mixed result—but one that could help change this. New prime minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor Party gained the most seats in Parliament—far more than the incumbent coalition of the center-right Liberal Party and National Party, which took power in 2013. But it wasn’t a landslide, with Labor exceeding the number of seats needed to govern in its own right by just one.

The surprise twist was the election of five new “teal” independents —so-called because of their campaign color. These candidates all ran on a platform of substantially stronger action on climate change than Labor, which in turn promised far more action on climate change than the coalition. Many teal independents won in previously secure Liberal Party electorates.

The Australian Greens, who have the strongest climate policies of all the parties, also increased their electoral share from one to four seats in the lower house. Prior to the election, the Australian government had maintained a commitment to a 26 to 28 percent decrease in emissions by 2030 under the Paris Agreement, which was compatible with around 3 degrees Celsius of warming. Labor went into the election with a range of climate and energy promises, including a commitment to a 43 percent reduction in emissions, which McKenzie says is “certainly not enough.

” Analysis suggests this is still consistent with 2 degrees of warming. The teal candidates’ platforms aim for a 60 percent reduction, and the Greens’ for a 74 percent decrease. “Our analysis from a scientific perspective is it needs to be a 75 percent reduction this decade,” McKenzie says.

The hope is that the climate-focused independent and Green presence in Parliament will push Labor towards even greater climate action, says Frank Jotzo, director of the Centre for Climate and Energy Policy at Australian National University in Canberra. “For the government, this should mean a license to do more rather than less on climate change. ” One of Labor’s election promises on energy and emissions is to strengthen the existing cap-and-trade system for big carbon emitters, known as the Safeguard Mechanism.

Under this, big polluters are required to buy or surrender carbon credits to offset any direct emissions that exceed an agreed-to baseline. Labor’s plan is to reduce the emissions baselines for these emitters over time. “The government will then need to resist industry pressure to keep the ambition low,” Jotzo says, warning that industry will lobby hard for baselines to be eased.

This is exactly what happened under the coalition government after it set up this cap-and-trade scheme. Companies continually pushed for adjustments to their baselines, eventually resulting in a 32 percent increase in the emissions they were allowed to produce. Another pillar of Labor’s election platform was its National Electric Vehicle Strategy.

In 2020, less than 1. 4 percent of all light vehicles sold in Australia were EVs, compared to around three-quarters of all light vehicles sold that year in Norway. Overall just 0.

12 percent of all light vehicles in Australia are electric. Manufacturers such as Volkswagen have held off from entering the Australian market because of a lack of incentives for EVs. So going into the election, Labor promised to remove import tariffs and lower taxes on some EVs, and to accelerate the rollout of charging infrastructure.

But they haven’t gone far enough, Jotzo says. “They have not committed to do what in many countries is the single biggest driver of electric car uptake, and that is to introduce fleet-wide emission standards,” he says. Requiring all car manufacturers to meet emission targets across their entire range encourages massive investment in electric models to offset the emissions from petrol and diesel models.

But the biggest fly in Australia’s climate action ointment is its fossil fuel reserves—particularly coal and gas—and the question of how the country can safely and smoothly transition away from those both for domestic use and export. “Because it’s an extractive resource, the government owns it, it generates royalties for the government, and renewables don’t do that,” says Samantha Hepburn, a professor and expert on mining and energy law at Deakin University in Melbourne. In contrast, renewable projects will generate very little income for the government.

“When we talk about energy transition, I don’t think that phrase really captures it—it’s a revolution. ” Some progress on renewables was made during the coalition government. A long-running renewable energy target required large-scale energy producers to generate 33 terawatt-hours of renewable energy by 2020, and this was easily met in 2019.

But the absence of a new target created a climate of uncertainty in the renewables sector that then saw a drop in investment in new projects. Labor’s “Powering Australia” policy now promises to upgrade the grid to enable better integration of renewables, to invest in solar banks and community batteries across the country, and to deploy low-emission technologies. But the current global gas crisis, precipitated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, has plunged Australia into a world of energy misery largely of its own making.

There are no export controls on its extensive east-coast gas reserves, which are now being sold at incredible prices on the international market, with none set aside for domestic use. Domestic gas prices have therefore skyrocketed, and there is not yet enough renewable energy to pick up the slack. Meanwhile, Australia’s aging network of coal-fired power stations has been steadily winding down over the past decade.

“There is no more important time to be talking about energy and climate change in Australia than right now, and what we’re inheriting is a decade-long failure to tackle these issues of climate, energy, and security,” says Madeline Taylor, deputy director of the Centre for Energy and Natural Resources Innovation and Transformation at Macquarie University in Sydney. But Labor has long supported keeping at least some fossil fuels in Australia’s energy mix, even before the current gas crisis, and it has grappled with some in its ranks that opposed taking a stronger stance on climate action. Labor also previously backed the potential fracking of the enormous gas reserves of the Beetaloo Basin in the Northern Territory, and it says it will still allow new gas and even coal projects that meet environmental standards.

Taylor, and many others, argue that Australia’s wealth of renewable resources—in particular sun, wind, and waves—should instead see it become a global green-energy superpower. As well as servicing the domestic energy market with renewables, there has been a push for Australia to become an exporter of renewable energy in the form of green hydrogen . Labor has not made specific commitments to this vision, beyond a National Reconstruction Fund that covers investment in renewable and low-emission energy technologies, including the manufacture of wind turbines and hydrogen electrolyzers.

However the Greens are shooting for a complete phase-out of fossil fuels in Australia by 2030, and for the country to invest in green hydrogen as an export industry. With Labor’s razor-thin majority in Parliament, the hope is that the Greens and climate-focused independents will be a vocal and powerful climate conscience for the ruling party. “There are so many reasons why we need increased ambition on energy and climate change,” Taylor says.

“The community wants this. Industry wants it. It’s now time for the government to actually present some certainty.

” The recent climate-fueled devastation in Australia has shown how high the stakes are. .