The election revealed a shift in climate – but what will it mean for politics? | Australian election 2022

It will take some time to unravel all the threads that led to the extraordinary outcome on Saturday, but there is no doubt that these were the climate elections that Australians have long said are coming.

Splash Greens and Climate 200-backed Teal Independent liberals who were part of a government that claimed to be acting on emissions but was not, pumped billions of dollars into fossil fuels and were considered a global embarrassment.

Labor seems to have a small majority in the House of Representatives in part because coalition campaigns claiming that increased climate action is causing economic damage have not been strong this time in suburban and regional constituencies, including those with coal mines. .

Consider two examples. The ALP gained a small predominant bipartisan scope at Hunter’s mansion in New South Wales despite a local campaign fearing about the impact of climate policy. And LDL suffered about 7% fluctuations against it in Flynnfounded around Gladstone in Queensland, pushing it to marginal areas.

Perhaps this should not have come as a surprise. This is consistent with Fr. a major study by the Australian Conservation Fund in March, which found that most people in each electorate now believe that the long-term economic benefits of tackling the climate crisis outweigh the costs. This trend was particularly strong in Flynn, and places got tea and greens.

Social researcher Rebecca Huntley says this underscores the shift following the coalition’s shocking victory in the 2019 election. She says a campaign by parts of the environmental movement and some political candidates who see the fight against climate change as an opportunity has made a difference.

“It was not a campaign against Adani as we saw in 2019. It was a very local, multi-faceted campaign on the economy, which took place in tea places, in suburban and regional places, where resources play a role, ”says Huntley. “The shift I’ve seen over the last three years in places like Hunter and Flynn, from ‘we’re not going to change’ to ‘we know these changes are happening, we want change we can trust.’

Huntley says that extreme weather events usually play a smaller role in changing votes than some people might expect, although the disasters that led to the parliamentary term – black summer forest fires and recent catastrophic floods in the north of New South Wales and Brisbane were different. “We needed to take a group of people whose climate was number five or six on the list of problems, and it suddenly accelerated that for them,” Huntley says.

What does this transformation mean for Australia’s climate policy?

To begin with, Anthony Albanese will raise the national emission target to 43% reduction by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. It will probably be warmly welcomed by international allies – the end of the Morrison government will be a relief for many at the UN climate talks – and means that Australia will be one of the first countries to justify itself agreement in last year’s Glasgow Climate Pact that everyone should step up their commitments before the next major summit in Egypt.

Scientific evidence speaks to the target of the work does not go far enough. This leads Australia to about Canada and Japan, but is inferior to the promises of Britain, the US and the European Union.

Labor has achieved its goal from the bottom up, making up for what was expected of her policies. His policy is this deliberately modestdesigned to limit the company’s political risk of intimidation, while accelerating the spread of renewable energy, reducing taxes to reduce the cost of electric vehicles and gradually reducing emissions in key industries.

Legislation will be needed to reduce electricity taxes and possibly create a $ 20 billion Rewiring the Nation Corporation, which Labor says will lead to the construction of major power transmission links to new renewable energy units.

Other elements of her plan will not need to be passed in parliament. These include use The coalition’s “protective mechanism” policies begin to reduce industrial emissions by reviewing Australia’s controversial carbon offset system and bidding for a joint UN climate conference with the Pacific in 2024.

New climate change minister Chris Bowen says the ALP wants to legislate its 43% emissions target, but has made it clear that this is not necessary and will not negotiate with cross-conferences demanding an increase to 50% and 75 %.

The figures show that in the lower house this is not necessary. If Labor is the majority, as it seems likelythe influx of laborers who want more action may have little scope for directly shaping the Labor climate agenda, although independent Steggal Hall MP will continue to advocate its climatic account.

The exceptions are the Greens. The ALP will need their support in the Senate to pass any legislation not supported by the coalition. Adam Bandt says he will follow a joint approach, but there are many unknowns, including whether the second party will ask for more climate action in exchange for support for non-climate labor legislation.

The growth of the climate bench will be felt most of all behind the vote in parliament. As new treasurer Jim Chalmers admitted on Saturday night, the number of voters who demand more action cannot be ignored. Some coalition MPs have slowly embraced this and called for a shift in the opposite direction. Good luck with that. The center of the political climate debate can finally move away from the relentless and often misleading focus on the cost of action to talk about how much more Australia has to do.

It should be remembered that the goal of 43% is the floor, not the ceiling, and Albanese is expected to set a goal by 2035 before the next election.

Institutional investors, some business leaders and communities across the country support the call for a stronger legislative goal. People may be amazed at how fast some of them are moving now that the federal government is supporting the action and less likely to give them a hit if, to choose one examplethey want to close a non-operating coal station earlier than planned.

There are the following things Labor can do in the climate beyond their main commitments. These include resuming public service, including the Office of Climate Change’s advisory role, including climate as a priority in all government decision-making processes, and making much more efforts to build capacity to predict and address the imminent increase in emergency risk.

For the Greens the big challenge will be to fight for a a ban on new fossil fuel developments and the rapid abandonment of thermal coal while helping affected communities. This will be a key discussion in the next term. Bill Hare of Climate Analytics suggests that if all the proposed coal and gas projects listed on the state pipeline are implemented by 2030 add more than 8% to Australia’s emissionsand much more to global emissions after fossil fuels are sold and burned abroad.

Labor’s position is that it will move away from fossil fuels when the world operates, but if companies want to invest, they need to be able to as long as they meet environmental standards. This raises a bunch of questions, including why he rejects the opinion of the International Energy Agency no more oil and gas fields open when the world is serious about limiting heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius, and what it will do to strengthen the country’s environmental legislation, which virtually everyone agrees to fail.

Right now there is no one to ask about this last point – opposition ALP spokeswoman on Wednesday Terry Butler lost her seat in Brisbane’s Greenslide a day after she promised the Albanian government established an independent national environmental agency. Its replacement has not yet been announced.