The Labor Party has finally announced the climate change policy it will take to the next election and it is a very cautious compromise between electoral reality and saving the planet.
Labor’s plan will legislate a target of reducing emissions to 43 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030,compared to the Coalition’s target of 28 per cent.
While the ALP’s target is clearly more ambitious,some critics in the environmental movement are already pointing out that the plan is fairly limp:European countries have pledged a reduction by 2030 of 51 per cent.
Labor is probably not doing enough to keep the rise in world temperatures under 1.5 degrees by the end of the century or to save the Great Barrier Reef for future generations or prevent more frequent droughts,bushfires and floods.
While ALP leader Anthony Albanese’s lack of ambition might lose him some votes in inner-city seats to the Greens,he says he is not worried. “We don’t pretend this is a radical policy,” he said.
He has adopted a small target strategy because the ALP wants to win the middle ground in suburbia along with some traditional working-class seats in Queensland where voters are worried about the economic costs of cutting emissions. Labor has struggled for the past decade to find a climate policy that reconciles progressives and battlers.
Even before Labor announced its policy,Prime Minister Scott Morrison launched a scare campaign,that will no doubt run for the next six months until the election,warning of dire economic consequences. “A 43 per cent target isn’t safe for the Hunter,not safer Gladstone,not safer for Belgrave,not safer for our manufacturers,not for safer jobs,” he said on Friday morning.
That line has worked in the past but there are good reasons people who voted against the ALP because of climate policy in 2019 should reconsider.
This time,business groups such as the Business Council of Australia and Australian Industry Group have welcomed Labor’s plan which they say will bring much needed certainty after a decade in which the Coalition has chopped and changed climate policies almost every year without following through on any of them. The BCA’s Jennifer Westacott said the ALP’s plan was “sensible and workable”.
Unlike three years ago,it is now clear that new renewable energy backed up by batteries and some gas plants is a cheaper way of supplying electricity than prolonging the life of coal-fired power plants. The ALP argues that its plan,including a $20 billion investment in rewiring the grid to accommodate more renewables,will pay for itself and drive down power prices for households by 26 per cent by 2030.