The government’s emission reduction reform to beef up the safeguard mechanism is expected to pass the Senate this week.
The Gillard government won Greens’ support for a carbon price in 2012,but became the focus of the following election campaign and was repealed in 2014 as an election commitment of the Abbott government.
But the drumbeat of global warming rings louder with every new natural disaster and the need to cut carbon emissions created a dilemma for the Greens.
Climate scientists say the need to boost emissions reduction is desperate,which means sticking to their principles on coal and gas would have delayed the near-term results promised under Bowen’s scheme.
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With the federal opposition committed to rejecting the safeguard mechanism the Greens have reversed their previous approach to climate policy,which will no doubt disappoint some policy purists,but banked a win that was a decade in the making.
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