First posted on Crikey’s Rooted blog
It seems as though Malcolm Turnbull has finally managed to align the coalition on climate change at least enough for them to stop kicking own goals and bridge their credibility gap with the ALP. With the coalition and ALP now supporting the same conditional emissions reduction target, the public will be hard pressed to distinguish who has the best policy. Of course, the Greens have the best policy – by a long shot. And both of the major parties continue to treat climate change as a political football.
The oft-quoted reality of climate change targets is that you can’t negotiate with the science. And we can’t half solve climate change – its like trying to removing half a cancer. We need to cut emissions based on what the science indicates is necessary to avoid runaway climate change – and 25% for Australia won’t cut it.
Having forgone any moral or scientific credibility, 25% is the absolute bare minimum for Australia to maintain any political credibility in the international negotiations. The European Union are calling for Australia to commit to closer to 40% cuts based on their analysis of equitable contributions. China is similarly calling on Australia and other developed nations to adopt targets of 40% or more.
A rich country like Australia should be committing to 50% cuts in the next decade – and using this opportunity to re-energise our economy for the low carbon future that is coming whether we like it or not.
It is arguably a good thing that the coalition will delay voting for the CPRS until after the Copenhagen meeting. It means that we won’t lock in low targets before the meeting so it leaves some space for a strong global deal to drag Australia upwards. And importantly, it gives time for the poorly designed CPRS to go back to the drawing board. The CPRS is a terrible piece of legislation, designed primarily to entrench the right of the biggest polluters to carry on with business as usual whilst giving the illusion of action.
