Breaking up is hard to do: Tony Abbotts struggle to dismantle Australias climate policy
Australia has a new Prime Minister. Tony Abbott is a straight talking, fast punching, lycra clad kind of chap who once called climate change “absolute crap”. Nonetheless, his Liberal-National coalition has a climate plan. We take a closer look at the future of climate policy under Abbott’s leadership.
Abbott on climate science
On Monday night, Abbott bundled the current incumbent, Kevin Rudd, off into the sunset as his Liberal-National coalition won 88 of the Australian parliament’s 150 seats.
Abbott’s anti-climate rhetoric was a leitmotif of the election campaign, with a number of commentators picking up on his climate skeptic rhetoric. For instance, in 2011, he told a Perth community forum,”whether carbon dioxide is quite the environmental villain that some people make it out to be is not yet proven”.
Confusingly, Abbot has elsewhere denied he’s a skeptic. He told an Adelaide radio station he believes “climate change is real” and “humanity is making a contribution”, yet he concedes he “once used some colourful language describing the so-called settled science of climate change”.
Indeed, Australian news website Crickey has a selection of Abbott’s quotes betraying his somewhat scatter-gun approach to communicating climate science and policy.
Whatever he thinks of climate science, he’s certainly not a fan of what he describes as the ”longest suicide note in Australian history”: the carbon tax.
Abbott’s climate policy
Abbott has made dismantling Australia’s carbon tax his government’s “first order of business”. The new Prime Minister believes the carbon tax is an inefficient way to reduce Australia’s emissions. He plans to replace it with a more business-friendly emissions cap.
Despite the heady rhetoric – he called his pledge a “blood oath” – it’s unlikely he’ll be able to end the carbon tax as quickly as he’d like. Abbott’s coalition does not control enough seats in the parliament’s upper house, the Senate, to rush through the legislation needed to stop the tax.
Abbott maintains his government now has a mandate to abolish the carbon tax which the Senate should respect. But he still has plenty of work to do to persuade politicians of all stripes that his alternative climate plan is better for Australia.
In place of the tax, Abbott wants the government to pay companies to reduce emissions. Prior to the election, Abbott’s party outlined plans to reduce Australia’s emissions as part of its manifesto, called the ‘Direct Action Plan‘. Under the plan, companies would ‘bid’ to reduce emissions by a certain amount. Abbott says this system would be better value, as the government would always choose the cheapest option. It would also be better for businesses as they would get a reward for reducing emissions, rather than paying the government to carrying on with their normal activities, he argues.
But it’s unclear if the amount of money Abbott’s government has set aside would be enough to meet a target to reduce Australia’s emissions by 5 per cent on 2000 levels. The government would either need to spend more money – anywhere between AUS$4 billion and AUS$15 billion to 2020 – or accept emissions would rise, according to NGO reports.
This could also be a problem if the Australian Climate Change Authority raises the emissions reduction target from 5 per cent to 15 per cent, as it has indicated it would like to. Abbott isn’t too worried about this, however – he plans to abolish the authority anyway.
The Direct Action Plan is also vague on other points. It’s unclear whether companies that don’t reduce emissions would be penalised, or how this would be calculated. The plan relies on companies cutting emissions below “business as usual” levels. It’s not clear whether the reductions would be judged based on carbon dioxide emissions per dollar of revenue (’emissions intensity’) or absolute emissions levels, however.
This is important, because a company could lower its emissions intensity while absolute emissions rise. If lots of Australia’s companies were to do this – in the case of an economic boom, for instance – than Australia’s emissions may not reduce at all.
Overall, Abbott’s plan seems like a neat way to persuade voters and the world Australia is committed to climate action while not actually committing to an awful lot.
Abbott on evidence
Abbott has remained largely relaxed about the criticism of his climate policies. He says he’d rather just get on with implementing the policies, and see how successful they are. After all – though he once wanted to be a monk – he’s a fighter, not an egghead.
Speaking at the Australian Nation Press Club before the election, he told reporters:
“The bottom line is we will spend as much as we have budgeted, no more and and no less. We will get as much environmental improvement, as much emission reduction as we can for the spending we have budgeted”.
While Abbott’s approach seems to have played well with voters, his disregard for evidence based policymaking probably doesn’t bode well for Australia’s chances of combatting climate change.