Major climate change policies used to arrive with a little more fanfare.
The Rudd government’s carbon pollution reduction scheme (CPRS), the Gillard government’s carbon price, and the Abbott government’s direct action policy were all hugely contentious, agenda-setting, even government-defining policies.
The Albanese government has been quite open about wanting its climate policies to be effective and relatively uncontroversial.
Last week, the government put more meat on the bone of a critical element in its plan to cut emissions by 43 per cent by 2030.
The prime minister was absent as Energy Minister Chris Bowen released a position paper on the government’s plans for what’s known as the “safeguard mechanism”, which basically imposes a cap on the emissions of Australia’s heaviest-polluting companies.
It’s the tool the government will rely on to secure some of the hardest-won cuts to emissions, from the companies putting the most greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
And it’s a big policy to release in early January, with many politicians, pundits and punters still whiling away the last of their summer holidays.
The government is working to a tight timeline to get the changes in place by July 1 and meet the deadline it has set for itself.
Doing so will require negotiating at least some legislation through the parliament.
And despite the relatively low-key January announcement, the politics ahead could become interesting for the government, the opposition, and the ever-powerful crossbench.
Can the heat be taken out of climate politics?
Anthony Albanese was elected with an ambition to “end the climate wars”.
Given the history of climate politics in Australia, doing so would be a remarkable achievement.
The government chalked up legislating its climate targets last year as a strong step towards its goal, demonstrating Australia’s climate commitment by putting the targets in law.
The more challenging test will be actually reducing emissions at the pace those targets require, while maintaining the broad support the government’s policy currently holds.
Responses to the details of the safeguard mechanism indicated there were points of difference, but there is goodwill to find a working climate policy.
Business groups cautiously welcomed the policy, and conservation groups were concerned but willing to genuinely engage and try and secure changes to things like the rules around carbon credits.
The political response struck a different tone, with the Coalition condemning it as a new “carbon tax”, and the Greens suggesting the policy lets coal and gas “off the hook”.
Asked about the two competing views, the prime minister suggested that’s where the government wants to be.
“Sounds to me like we’ve got the balance right,” Anthony Albanese said at the weekend.
Mr Albanese was seated around the cabinet table from 2007 to 2013, as two Labor prime ministers grappled with the political difficulties of addressing climate change.
He is undoubtedly aware of the political dangers these policies present.
But it is not just the government that needs to dodge the traps ahead.
The climate challenge facing the Coalition
The Coalition’s response to the government’s emissions-reduction path was pretty unambiguous.
“The Labor Party is back, and so too is the carbon tax,” said Shadow Energy Minister Ted O’Brien as he opened a press conference last week.
“It’s a tax on businesses, it’s a tax on jobs, it’s a tax on families and it’s a tax on regional Australia.”
The Coalition lost 18 seats at the last election, and the Liberal’s post-election review described the result as posing a “significant and unique challenge”.
Six of those seats were the so-called teal seats of Mackellar, North Sydney and Wentworth in Sydney, Kooyong and Goldstein in Melbourne and Curtin in Perth.
The report found the campaigns waged against Liberal MPs in those seats sought to “exploit” the former government’s handling of issues like the concerns of women, integrity and climate change.
If the party is looking to re-shape perceptions of its stance on climate, and win back those lost voters, such a hardline stance on the safeguard mechanism policy might seem an unexpected move.
There are those around the Liberal Party who suggest it should support at least in-principle the idea of an emissions trading scheme, and see that as a path to rebuilding support in the teal seats.
But there is also a view that the teal seats will be hard to win back, and targeting aspirational voters in outer-suburban seats more concerned with the cost of living, traditionally Labor strongholds, would be the shortest path back to power.
The Greens want more, but will they settle for less?
Climate politics is in many ways the Greens’ safest space.
This is the issue that motivates their MPs and supporters.
But soon they will face a dilemma they’ve encountered before — deciding whether they can support a climate bill they argue lacks the ambition needed to address a climate crisis.
Less than six months ago, the Greens decided to back the government’s climate targets bill despite considering them too weak.
“The Greens have improved a weak climate bill and we will pass it, but the fight to stop Labor’s new coal and gas mines continues,” Greens leader Adam Bandt said at the time.
The party once before decided key climate legislation simply wasn’t good enough to pass — voting down the Rudd government’s CPRS in 2009.
They are still happy to defend that decision 13 years later, and continue to dedicate a page on the party’s website to arguing the case.
And the Greens seem willing to wage a CPRS-style fight once more when the time comes.
When announcing the Greens decision to back the climate target bill, Adam Bandt pointed to the safeguard mechanism as the platform needed to ban all new coal and gas projects.
The safeguard mechanism changes might not hinge on a vote in the Senate, as they can mostly be enacted without legislation.
There is one bill that needs to be passed, creating “safeguard mechanism credits” — a kind of internal emissions trading scheme between the 215 safeguard mechanism companies.
There’s plenty more discussion to be had internally about how the Greens will approach this climate policy, but the government is already being warned it would be “foolish” to presume unequivocal support.
The political climate is changing
Despite the political rhetoric, it is becoming clear that climate policy isn’t nearly as contentious as it once was.
Rather than lining up to oppose it, industry groups representing the companies who stand to bear the greatest cost under the reformed safeguard mechanism are generally supportive of it.
That’s largely borne out of a recognition that policies forcing down emissions are inevitable, and a desire for certainty as to what those policies are going to look like.
Companies would also face the growing prospect of tariffs or penalties placed on them by other countries if they didn’t reduce their emissions.
And voters have pretty clearly expressed a view that action on climate change is needed.
The Australian National University’s 2022 election study found 43 per cent of voters considered global warming “extremely important”, and another 33 per cent considered it “quite important”.
It is one of the issues that helped turn six once blue-ribbon Liberal seats teal at the election.
The Albanese government is undoubtedly treading carefully, looking to take the significant steps it needs to fulfil its climate promises, but wary of the fortunes of governments past who tried to do the same.
Big policy requires clever politics, and the government is betting it can achieve both.
