Scott Morrison and Angus Taylor are moving methodically and sensibly to neutralise the carbon wars and keep the Coalition party room unharmed as they go.
They have also shrewdly woven the issue into the post COVID-19 sovereignty debate by resisting global and activist pressure to commit to a 2050 target.
As one Liberal MP had said: “You can’t claim sovereignty in a trade dispute with China and accept being beaten around the head by woke governments on climate change”.
This was a reference to the UK’s decision to deny Morrison a speaking spot this weekend at the climate change conference which, unsurprisingly, is being framed as an embarrassment.
It seems an announcement on meeting our 2030 targets without the need to use Kyoto carry-over credits — delivered in large part by farmers — wasn’t big enough news to warrant a speaking spot.
But Morrison continues to chart the right political course, globally and domestically and today’s emissions projections confirm the government has also landed the right policy mix to achieve it.
Critics like to forget that the underlying principle that has guided the Coalition’s climate change policy since 2015 when Greg Hunt was minister, is that no Coalition government would ever sign up to a target without a plan on how to get there.
Hunt succeeded in getting the 2030 emissions reduction target through the party room largely on the basis that it could be done on the existing policy path and without a carbon tax or de-industrialising the nation.
It’s a similar approach to policy taken by Mathias Cormann as the former finance minister took to budget projections. Under promise and over deliver. And this is why Australia will emerge through all the hand-wringing in a position of political strength.
The appetite in the global community to over-promise, sign up to targets and worry about how to deliver it later is a recipe for disaster.
If you don’t have a plan, you will end up being handed one by activists and it will ultimately be one that Australians won’t like. Labor was handed the carbon tax.
New Zealand is rapidly discovering the folly of signing up to a target 30 years on the horizon with a gaping hole and only a vague plan to fill it.
It is also worth noting that Australia is one of the most transparent countries in the world when it comes to reporting of emissions.
The UN requires countries to report updates every two years. Australia updates every quarter. Very few countries meet this level of accountability.
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