It was a brazen move to reposition Murdoch’s company,News Corp Australia,on an issue where its strongest voices have warned against action for years. And it came just as Prime Minister Scott Morrison tries to reposition as well.
“Greenwash,” fumed Kevin Rudd. The former Labor prime minister saw the campaign as cover for Morrison and the Liberals to finally adopt a net zero emissions target for 2050. He called it hypocrisy,too,for suddenly celebrating what the papers had railed against when Labor was in charge.
These aren’t the only somersaults ahead of the United Nations summit on climate change in Glasgow next month. TheBusiness Council of Australia just called for a cut to greenhouse gas emissions of at least 45 per cent by 2030 – the same target it said would wreck the economy when Labor suggested it at the 2019 election.
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No wonder this ignites fury. Australia lost more than a decade on climate change after the Coalition and the Greens combined to block an emissions trading scheme in the Senate in 2009. The country needed a steady policy on a long-term problem and got deadlocks and turmoil instead.
But this is why the shift at News Corp is so significant. It is not a provocation – it is a vindication. One of the most experienced people in the Australian debate,John Connor of the Carbon Market Institute,calls it a tectonic shift. The sceptics have woken up to reality. Connor does not say it,but he and others have won. They have forced that awakening.
News had to change. So did Morrison. So did the BCA.