Climate wars are back with a nuclear twist for election

The climate wars are back and appear destined to play a starring role in the coming federal election. Anthony Albanese is digging in on Labor’s renewables-driven 2030 target, which is proving difficult to deliver, while Peter Dutton is calling for a pause and refresh. He wants to reset ambition back to the bipartisan target of net carbon neutral by 2050 and use nuclear energy to do the heavy lifting currently done by coal. The Coalition is reasserting longstanding principles, shared by Paul Keating and John Howard when they were prime ministers, that Australia should not make promises it can’t keep, not move ahead of action being taken by other nations, and should build our ambition as technology improves to meet the challenge.

This time the difference is the Coalition is offering a low-emissions technology alternative in nuclear. It has reached the same conclusion as many other nations – including the US, China, India, Japan, countries within the EU and across the Middle East and Asia – that nuclear energy will play a role in decarbonisation alongside renewables. Polls show a new generation concerned about climate change is prepared to give nuclear a fresh look. The Opposition Leader is tapping into the difficulties being experienced by Labor in delivering its renewables-only model and the public resentment it is causing. As Dennis Shanahan reports on Saturday, Mr Dutton will go to the next election opposing Labor’s 43 per cent carbon emissions reduction target by 2030 but keeping to zero emissions by 2050. He is proposing the use of more gas in the short term and nuclear in the long term. He says the Coalition in government will not destroy agriculture, manufacturing and investment or create sovereign risk with trading partners by agreeing to unachievable climate change targets.

Labor says it relishes the nuclear fight, which will focus on the cost of nuclear technology and be modelled on previous campaigns that relied on a scare strategy over where nuclear reactors would be located. In his keynote address at the Australia’s Economic Outlook lunch on Friday, hosted by The Australian and Sky News, the Prime Minister defended the pace of rolling out large-scale solar and wind projects and said there was time to catch up. He said the green transition was “not a passing economic shock” but a “lasting economic shift”. The government is building an industry policy around delivering the commodities and goods the transition will demand. Ironically, this will include uranium, of which Australia holds a big share of the world’s known reserves.

Labor is playing a double game on nuclear. As Mr Albanese was talking down Coalition plans as a “nuclear fantasy”, Trade Minister Don Farrell signed new agreements under the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity, which includes a co-operative work program supporting the take-up of small modular reactors, as he should. The politics of nuclear is shifting. The old divide still exists between inner-city sophisticates who maintain a luxury belief in renewables and those in rural areas facing a wave of industrialisation of natural landscapes, as well as suburban households worried about their power bills. This divide lost the Morrison government blue-ribbon seats to the Climate 200-sponsored teals. A repeat may deliver Labor a hung parliament with the Greens at the election. Whatever happens, Labor remains hostage to the Greens on energy and must maintain faith with the UN on near-term emissions targets if it wants to succeed in its bid to host a conference of the parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change with Pacific Islands states. To keep voter support, however, it must demonstrate the renewables-heavy transition is both achievable and affordable. The Coalition is buying time with a pragmatic policy that uses gas to backstop nuclear as a long-term solution to meeting the 2050 target. The more Labor fails on delivery, the more voters will be prepared to listen to what Mr Dutton has to offer come election time.