Antinuclear

Turnbull’s ‘climate of confusion’

Turnbull’s election ‘trickery’ simply creates a climate of confusion Canberra Times   March 26 2016 Richard Denniss  “…….And then there’s climate change. No policy issue has generated more heat and less light than how best to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Australia. Tony Abbott transformed a technocratic debate about the best way to design a carbon price into a culture war. It put him into The Lodge, but put Australia back a decade.

Climate change will provide the clearest test of whether Turnbull is running on Abbott’s platform or on his own. “Direct action” is very much Abbott’s policy. Indeed, Turnbull once said the best thing about it was that it was easy to repeal. But while unwinding the direct action policy might be administratively simple, it will not be politically simple. Abbott will make sure of that. So what is Turnbull to do?

Luckily for Turnbull, the Climate Change Authority was set up by the Gillard government to help advise the Parliament on both Australia’s emission-reduction targets and the best policy mechanisms to achieve them………

So two days before the date Turnbull says any double-dissolution election will be held, the Climate Change Authority must report on the most efficient ways for Australia to meet it emission-reduction goals. Given that everyone is more committed to climate action than Abbott, one would imagine that any new direction on climate policy could only be an improvement for Turnbull and Australia.

The false choice between a carbon tax and direct action delivered good politics for Abbott but a poor policy debate for Australia……..

Last year, federal Labor committed itself to a 50 per cent renewable energy target. Here in Canberra, the ACT Labor government has committed itself to a 100 per cent renewable energy target. Neither policy requires a carbon price to drive significant change. Both are popular in the electorate.

Turnbull has committed himself to “driving innovation” but, to date, he’s had to tiptoe around the link between supporting new renewable energy, electric cars and battery technologies for fear of enraging backbenchers like Abbott and Cory Bernardi. A carbon price, or a “penalty price” for firms who don’t undertake enough “direct action”, would allow him to fund a lot more innovation.

New energy-efficiency standards for cars and houses can just as easily be framed as solutions to declining air quality and rising energy costs as they can be called climate policy. Are policies to encourage energy efficiency “direct action” or are they “wasteful climate policy”? The answer is not just in the eye of the beholder, but in the tone of the salesperson.

While the timing of the election and the climate authority’s next report are now beyond Turnbull’s control, the shape and tone of his government’s climate policy is not. The Prime Minister has stumbled badly on tax policy and has abandoned control over the timing of his first election. He can’t afford to be pushed around by Abbott on climate policy if he is to retain the public’s respect. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/turnbulls-election-trickery-simply-creates-a-climate-of-confusion-20160325-gnr23y.html

March 26, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | General News