Scott Morrison adopts a ‘softly, softly’ hard line on net-zero emissions

Scott Morrison and Barnaby Joyce confer during question time in Parliament House, Canberra, on Monday. Picture: Gary Ramage

There seems little doubt the ­Coalition will be committed to a target of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 before Scott Morrison jets off to Glasgow and yet another global climate change conference threatened with failure before it begins.

Even Anthony Albanese has no doubt the government will “land net zero by 2050”, although the Prime Minister remains more circumspect and Barnaby Joyce is downright uncertain.

The Opposition Leader’s confidence is evident from his emerging political strategy that assumes Morrison will be in a position to say Australia has adopted a 2050 target: Labor is already changing the test for success.

If Morrison fails to get agreement to a net zero target, he will have failed and Albanese can claim a victory.

If, as expected, Morrison gets a cabinet nod to the 2050 target to take to Glasgow, despite Nationals holdouts, he’s succeeded with the headline achievement and set non-negotiable 2030 interim targets as the political difference between the Coalition and Labor at the election.

Despite silly suggestions from some Liberal MPs that Morrison should just set a bigger 2030 target than reductions of between 26 to 28 per cent because it’s a “free kick”, he will try to give the Nat­ionals some leeway on 2030 and force Albanese to lift the interim target, making him as big a target on climate as Bill Shorten was at the last poll.

Albanese is already changing the threshold for Morrison, saying the 2050 target must be “legislated”, knowing Nationals would vote against it, and calling for higher cuts by 2030 than those required under the Paris agreement.

As Labor leader, Albanese has always banked on Morrison being a failure: unable to deliver a budget surplus, not providing commonwealth quarantine in the pandemic, being too slow to deliver vaccines, not paying enough employment support through JobKeeper, removing employment support too soon, not restoring employment or delivering the economic recovery and not delivering a climate change target of net zero emissions by 2050.

Morrison has a real reason to be circumspect about landing net zero and the Deputy Prime Minister and Nationals’ leader, who faces broader opposition within his partyroom because of progressive Liberal sniping and a less than prompt full disclosure on the “plan” to reach the 2050 target.

With patience and forbearance, he will at least avoid the fatal traps that caught his predecessors by neutralising the issue and being able to talk about a post-pandemic economic recovery at the election.