Antinuclear

Amost every group with a financial, intellectual or ethical interest in salvaging a workable climate policy is now deep in an urgent debate about how Australia can break a decade of policy paralysis. Everyone except the Turnbull government, that is.

The debate, involving big business, small business, investors, the government’s own independent climate advisers, academics, environmentalists, the welfare lobby and the unions, is predicated on the obvious conclusion that our policy – as it stands – cannot deliver the cuts to greenhouse emissions that are domestically necessary and which Australia has promised internationally.

But like the emperor with no clothes, continuing with the grand parade even after the whole crowd has finally declared him naked, the new environment and energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, still insists Australia is “transitioning successfully with the policies we already have in place”.

Every stakeholder is hoping – based on plenty of nudges and winks from Frydenberg’s predecessor Greg Hunt – that a review scheduled for next year will turn the existing Direct Action policy into a workable policy, probably a type of emissions trading scheme. Labor’s election policy edged closer to what the Coalition’s policy could eventually become, offering, according to the Business Council of Australia, a “bridge to bipartisanship”.

But Frydenberg has now described the 2017 review as a “sit rep” (situation report), insisting no major changes are under consideration. His language is stuck back in the “climate wars”, like the late night rerun of a particularly bad movie. This week he revived the long-discredited claim that Labor’s proposed higher greenhouse gas reduction target would increase electricity prices by 78%. The supposed authors have described that calculation as “incorrect” and “weird and misleading”.

It was just another example of the gaping chasm between the government’s lines and the argument everyone else is having.

The government’s own independent advisory body, the Climate Change Authority, released a report on Thursday, which was also based on the premise that policy will have to change very significantly, and it has recommended a version of emissions trading for the electricity sector and a much more rigorous “Direct Action” style policy for high-polluting industry.

This was not the musing of what conservative warriors like to deride as the “green left” but rather the first report from the authority since Tony Abbott made several appointments to its board, including John Sharp, a former Nationals minister; Wendy Craik, a former National Farmers Federation executive director; Kate Carnell, a former chief executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry; and Danny Price, the economist who modelled Malcolm Turnbull’s old climate policy and was on Greg Hunt’s advisory panel.

In the real world, the report sparked a furious discussion about whether the recommendations were aiming for sufficiently ambitious targets. The Business Council of Australia (BCA) and other business groups welcomed it, but as Guardian Australia revealed two CCA board members, Clive Hamilton and David Karoly, will release a dissenting report arguing that its recommendations were inadequate to meet Australia’s international obligations. Many other respected analysts and some environment groups made similar criticisms.……

as with so many policy areas flummoxing this government, the real impediment to reaching what Turnbull calls the “sensible centre” is the rightwing of his own party………

With 2017 approaching and nothing obvious changing, the assumptions that have resulted in so many lobbyists giving the government the benefit of the doubt and calculating that it is better to work behind the scenes, is being sorely tested. In the fairytale, the emperor never did admit he was starkers. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/03/gaping-chasm-between-coalitions-climate-mantra-and-the-real-debate