Australian politics is deeply fractured on climate change, the defining environmental issue of our age. We are more divided on this now than a decade ago, and much more divided than when the issue first emerged 30 years ago.

Central to this is energy policy where the left frames climate change as a cause, symbolised by aspirational emission targets and the iconography of renewables. Conservatives see energy as a service, prioritising cost and reliability, with emissions reduction acknowledged but subordinate to these primary functions.