294: Beyond the ‘Climate Wars’?: Australia heads to the polls

Full Transcript

Tom : [00:00:02] Hello and welcome to Outrage and Optimism. I'm Tom Rivett-Carnac

Christiana: [00:00:04] I'm Christiana Figueres.

Paul: [00:00:06] And I'm Paul Dickinson.

Tom : [00:00:07] This week, with the elections coming up, we do a deep dive into Australia and its role in global climate leadership. Plus, we speak to our good friend Dean Bialek. Thanks for being here. Okay, friends. So I know we are time constrained this week as sometimes happens, but we're going to make up what we can do in quantity with more quality. So let's dive straight in. We're going to go to Australia. There's a very consequential election coming up that's going to determine so much in this critical year, where we need to get momentum from wherever we can find it in the run up to Belem. And we're a bit short of momentum and truth be told, in many places. But just before we do that, anything pressing that we need to cover off and share with our listeners at the top of the episode.

Paul: [00:00:46] I can offer a tiny little bit of fun from the trouble Harvard University's been having. I don't know if you know, but there was this very tricky demand sent to Harvard in April, and it said that someone described it as prepared to be boarded from the Trump administration, but it was an executive order that said that the university shall commission an external party, which shall satisfy the federal government as to its competence and good faith, to audit the student body, faculty, staff and leadership for viewpoint diversity such that each department, field or teaching unit must be individually viewpoint diverse.

Tom : [00:01:21] A viewpoint diversity audit. I can't quite imagine how that works, but okay.

Christiana: [00:01:25] What is that?

Paul: [00:01:26] Well, on the 18th of March, the white House issued a different executive order saying that it was going to restore the values of individual dignity, hard work, and excellent. And today, President Donald Trump signed a memorandum removing radical diversity, equity and inclusion from the Foreign Service. So diversity is both forbidden and mandatory. And this is my little Orwellian thought for the day. It's compulsory now that and it's illegal in the Foreign Service.

Tom : [00:01:52] Because they're saying that diversity has become an order.

Paul: [00:01:54] Completely opposite things because they're bonkers. That's what I'm saying

Tom : [00:01:59] Christiana  looks very confused.

Christiana: [00:02:01] I'm. I mean, taking off from that Paul. Didn't we also see a whole bunch of executive orders about education, like discipline for children, higher education? Who has the capacity to author? I mean, honestly, I'm having a hard time even keeping track of what is happening. But the way that I interpreted what I saw about reforming accreditation for higher education, does a country not need education? That's the question that I am sitting with. Do we not need education and is part of education not actually free speech and diversity of opinions and the capacity to do research and bring in all different viewpoints into anything that we are considering. I'm just bowled over.

Tom : [00:03:03] Yeah. It's bonkers. It's absolutely bonkers. I mean, another example of that this week, of course, has been the International Energy Agency, a group we've talked about many times on this podcast, including having the executive director, Fatih Birol, on a number of times. Listeners will remember that this is the group that provides advice to governments on energy projections. It's incredibly consequential and important for the production of policy in many countries around the world, because this analysis is pooled by this group of countries that comes together and looks at energy projections. The Trump administration has really worked itself into a bit of a lather about the idea that the IEA pursues policies that disincentivize fossil fuels. This has been a bit of a journey. The IEA has been on to actually realize that fossil fuels are not part of the future, and to use its advice based on underlying empirical data to help countries make the transition. But the attitude now of the US is weaken or disable. So that's basically the strategy unless they're working on Trumpian values weaken or disable, which is the same approach they've taken in other international organizations. There being very clear and open about that. This could have a massive impact on the ability of the IEA to provide balanced policy advice to countries all around the world.

Christiana: [00:04:11] And how is that connected to the US contribution to the IEA?

Paul: [00:04:15] Well, they'll be threatening to withdraw funding. I would have thought, or at least sort of saying, yeah, as a funder, significant funder, we have a big voice and it's extraordinary. Once again, you know, they're never making any kind of argument that climate change isn't the problem. They're simply not talking about it and relentlessly asking other people not to talk about climate change as if they're sort of peculiar. Cult had some. What's the word I'm looking for? Acceptability? Yeah. The economist has an amazing cover this month, April 30th. It has a picture of an American Eagle looking. It's lost lots of feathers. It has a broken wing. It has a leg in plaster. It has bandages across its head and across its body. And the headline says only 1361 days to go.

Tom : [00:04:56] All right. Anything else we should talk about before we turn to Australia?

Paul: [00:05:00] Christina, can I just pick up on one thing that you shared, actually, which is an amazing article in the New York Times, 22nd of April from Philip Levin, who's the director of United for nature and a professor of practice in the College of Environment at University of Washington. And you pointed out that he's doing this amazing research for over two years, nearly 200 scientists and I had been working on the first full accounting of nature in America, an extensive report on its role in our health, economy and wellbeing economy. And that funding was cut, although he's carrying on to do the report, I wanted to use this excellent work and pioneering spirit to point out that we do run our countries with a profit and loss account called GDP, but not a balance sheet. So I salute Professor Levin for keeping the US balance sheet project going, because we'll never be able to understand the cost of our activities until we have some sense of the injury we do to nature in fiscal terms.

Tom : [00:05:52] Now we're recording this on the 28th of April, which is the day that Canada goes to the polls. So, you know, the election result we don't. That will be out later today. One other thing that happened this week that we won't go into now is the UN secretary general hosted a roundtable with a series of world leaders, including President Lula. They started talking about the pathway to Cop 30, where the pledges are the nationally determined commitments, what the Brazilian government's plan is. We'll do a deep dive on that at some point in the future. But there's so much going on all around the world at the moment that it's difficult to cover these things on a weekly basis. Now, on May 3rd, Australia will be going to the polls. This is a critical country for climate leadership. There is obviously a parliamentary system in Australia, labor and the coalition, the alliance of the liberals and the nationals, labor, the government of Anthony Albanese, the existing prime minister, which has been pretty progressive on climate and positioned to be a global leader going into next year and potentially hosting the upcoming Cop 31.

Tom : [00:06:47] And the coalition, which is led by Peter Dutton, famously said recently I'm not a scientist. I can't comment on climate. Lots of evidence to suggest that if they get in, they will roll back the progressive policies. The electoral landscape in Australia. Australian listeners will know much better than me. It's pretty complicated with independents and the greens and the teals. Whoever wins this election, whether it is the Coalition or Labor, is likely to have to enter into alliance with other parties if they haven't won an outright majority of MPs. So we will have to see how that lands and what kinds of partnerships and alliances can be formed to enable them to actually create a government. Today, the 28th of April. Labor has a narrow lead, but there's a lot left to go. So we're going to dig into this. Either of you want to make opening comments? Cristiana, you have had a lot to do with Australia over the years. Do you want to say anything before we kick off and then maybe phone a friend, which is one of the interventions we're going to make this week?

Christiana: [00:07:41] Well, listeners will will remember that Australia has been the stage for what they call the climate wars, in which every time that there is a new administration. It's either for climate or against climate or climate or against. And how many prime ministers have lost their position because the wind changed either pro climate or against climate? And honestly, we actually thought that maybe the climate wars were over in Australia and that there was much more realization about the fact that Australia just sits on all of the potential factors that are necessary for a very marked leap away from the fossil fuels which they have been using, because they're such an important coal miner and exporter into the renewables, because there's such an important solar power, global solar power, and have all the bare minerals necessary. So we actually thought that the climate wars were over. But now this election is threatening to open the climate wars again. And it is very interesting how each of these elections puts us back in the moment where climate diplomacy or climate electoral wins meets climate economics, because it's either that you argue from an ideological point of view, whatever that is, climate doesn't exist, or if it does, it's not good for us or whatever. Or you argue from the very evident evidence that Australia has, because it's just such an incredible potential leader of the new clean economy for itself and for the entire Pacific and Asian region. And it's so fascinating to me how every time that we have an election, these two arguments just sit there face to face, face to face. And for voters, how difficult it is to actually know, yeah, which way should they go? Unless they have actually had an experience themselves and they can determine fact from fiction.

Tom : [00:10:18] Yeah, you're so right, Cristiana. And I do think and although you you covered this in what you just said. But I do think we see that change. There's been some fascinating reporting recently looking at things like the Saltbush Club, which is this group of sort of a leaders coming together in Australia, once famous for questioning climate science. They now avoid the climate debate and instead focus on attacking renewables at some of their meetings, folks like mining magnate Gina Rinehart have basically said, we're now going to pivot away and focus on power prices and energy security because they believe that's an easier and softer target than public opinion on climate science, because the electorate has moved forward. I mean, my God, that's been a painful and it's taken a long time to achieve that win. But things have evolved forward. But the trouble is the opposition that wants to slow us down evolves with that and just picks the next battle and keeps slowing us down. I think what we should do is Dean Bialek has often been with us, our good friend from back in the Paris days, independent diplomat and advisor to Small island Developing States. We should maybe give him a quick call and just bring him into this. He's an Australian national and a deep expert on the politics of Australia, and so maybe we should just give him a ring now and ask him a couple of questions and see if that can move us forward.

Paul: [00:11:31] Sounds good. 

Christiana: [00:11:32] Let's do.

Paul: [00:11:37] Dean, thank you so much for spending a little bit of time informing us about an extraordinarily important election. I mean, all elections are important, but this one does feel important. Can I kick off by just asking you? I mean, obviously, we're speculating about the election, which is very close. But what are the General Dynamics kind of informing the election?

Dean Bialek: [00:11:56] So I think it's fair to say that the kind of number one top tier issue for the election is the cost of living. So if you take a kind of general basket of goods over the last five years or so, there's been around a 25% increase in the cost of things. And that's having an impact on families and kind of middle class households. And so that's a really big focus of the electoral debate. But what was quite interesting is going back kind of 5 or 6 weeks ago, just as the two major parties got into their stride preparing for the campaign proper, there just was an attempt, I thought, to keep climate and energy policy a little bit under the radar, given that there was such a big climate and energy outcome at the last election in 2022, which really saw the reinforcement in the establishment of a whole set of very foundational climate policies. And I suppose the government just wants to get ahead of that and not return to the climate wars that we've seen over 15 years prior. And just as the campaign was about to get off on the right foot, we had a cyclone come in on the east coast and hit Australia somewhere between northern New South Wales and Brisbane, and that really forced climate back onto the agenda.

Dean Bialek: [00:13:22] It made the Prime Minister delay the announcement of the beginning of the election campaign, but also then brought back to the centre. What's going to happen next on the climate front? And we saw very quickly an outing of the opposition conservative right, kind of doubts about whether they can continue with the current trajectory. And we can talk a bit about what that looks like in a moment, And but also even to the point of casting some doubt about whether Australia would stay in the Paris Agreement. Would it have a 2035 NDC? Would it maintain its current 82% renewable energy target for 2030? So all of it really up in the air again, and that started to generate a debate over the recent weeks about, you know, is this a kind of fork in the road moment? I would prefer not to call it a fork in the road. I think we had the fork in the road back in 2022. Now we're talking about, do we put the foot on the accelerator to lock in and quicken the current trajectory, or do we just put the whole car back in reverse? And that's the real danger we're looking at at the moment.

Paul: [00:14:35] It was a real shock to see Dutton say that, you know, I'm not a scientist. And it reminded me of that Hungry Beast video from 2011. Do you remember? And we'll put a link in the show notes. I'm a climate scientist, which was an extremely one of the funniest things I think I've ever seen in climate change. But yeah, I mean, we should be past all of that. And yet it seemed just looking at the coverage, that climate change was a significantly lower issue than in 2022. And I guess cost of living is the key there. So look, the impact of the election, whoever wins, you know, whether it's Albanese or whether it's Dutton. How is that going to fundamentally impact climate in Australia?

Dean Bialek: [00:15:09] So a few things. I think it's important to recognize that the current government over the last three years has been relatively successful in laying the foundational pieces for climate and energy policy after 15 years of complete drift. So we now have a Climate Change Act, which sets Australia on a pathway to net zero by 2050. It's got the five year cycles of the Paris Agreement for establishing your NDCs. It established the first 2030 NDC with a 43% reduction. The previous government had 26 to 28% on the table. So a significant increase in ambition and a requirement that the setting of each NDC needed to be on the basis of scientific input and a recommendation from an independent arm's length climate change authority. And so that's still in play. And indeed, if the government is re-elected, you'll see very quickly the Climate Change Authority come up with its recommendation for the 2035 NDC, and the government will need to make a quick decision on that basis. In the event that the centre right opposition is elected. I think you will see an attempt to unravel that framework piece of legislation and then everything's up in the air again. So we will see really a move back to a very kind of regressive, backward looking policy platform.

Dean Bialek: [00:16:38] And there are other bits and pieces that have hung off this broad attempt to decarbonize what is, admittedly, a very fossil fuel reliant economy, both domestically and in terms of the trade balance sheet. So some things the current government has introduced include a thing called the Future Made in Australia Act. And that is a whole policy platform intended to drive new green industry, green manufacture, things like green hydrogen, green ammonia, critical minerals processing using renewable energy, big investment in the transmission of power, particularly on the eastern seaboard grid, and massive investment in storage, including pumped hydro and utility scale battery. So all of that will again come into question in the event that the government loses control of Parliament. But I think with the polls being very close, we might end up with Labour not getting a majority in its own right, in which case it will need to join in coalition with the teals that were the a big outcome from the last election and potentially the Greens as well. And what that will mean is a kind of relatively progressive climate actor, having then to form a coalition with even more progressive climate actors, which could drive a really effective outcome.

Paul: [00:18:00] And just I've got to ask you about the narrative, because I was fascinated, again, watching a little bit of the media to see people sort of saying, well, you know, well, we can't afford decarbonisation, we can't afford getting to net zero. And then, I mean, you yourself have been involved in gigantic projects to, you know, make a lot of money out of decarbonised energy. And, you know, we think of the incredible fortunes created around electric car companies. Is there a single narrative that, you know, the climate costs, or is there a dual narrative that climate could make a lot of money, or how is that showing up in the sort of public debate?

Dean Bialek: [00:18:33] Yeah. So, so one of the things, as part of the election campaign that the opposition leader has said is that the government said, well, let's put in all this renewables and that will reduce the cost of powering households. That reduction in the cost of power. Despite the successful really ramping up of renewables on the main power grid has not really come to pass. And so that's been used as a kind of tactic to try to demonstrate the renewables cost more than the fossil fuels based power system that Australia has relied upon for a very long time. Of course, that completely leaves aside that there are many external factors that have played into the increased cost of power, including just that. The retailers and the generators have been much too slow to do away with very unreliable coal power plants. And we're seeing now a kind of consideration of on the on the conservative side of politics, subsidies to keep coal going longer than its kind of natural life.

Paul: [00:19:38] Just rewind subsidies to keep coal going longer.

Dean Bialek: [00:19:41] Well, exactly. And in addition to that, a nuclear power policy, which has got some very major difficulties with it. One, there's currently a legislated ban on nuclear in Australia that was legislated in the early 1980s, and so there's no real social licence for triggering a new nuclear energy sector here in Australia. Secondly, the proposal is that, okay, let's trigger this new nuclear industry on day one after the opposition gets elected. That would then take 15 years for those seven nuclear power plants to be built, meaning that essentially they're saying we're going to do nothing on climate for 15 years. We'll basically just leave the current settings in place and not continue to drive the uptake of renewables. That's been very successful over the last 3 or 5 years. And thirdly, it would see the delay again in in the retirement of the old fossil fuel power generation capacity. So pushing it out to the late 2030s, 2040s and keeping it going in the interim. So one study that was done by the Climate Change Authority I mentioned before show that this would essentially bring on a 2 billion tons of carbon bomb on the Australian energy landscape. So it's a very significant change in direction policy wise, that would have significant implications going forward.

Paul: [00:21:06] And if I'm not mistaken, you've probably got more sunshine and densely populated land than any other country in the world. So I wouldn't I wouldn't rush to anything but solar.

Dean Bialek: [00:21:15] Well, just on that, I mean, that's one of the things that Christiana  has always mentioned in her visits and materials that she's put out in the public in Australia is that Australia continues despite the big transition we're seeing in the global energy system, to have all the kind of golden eggs in its basket. It started with all of the fossil fuels, all of the critical minerals, all of that stuff. That was really important for the industrialization Process. But now it has all of the resources of the new renewable economy. It's got the best sun in the world, the best wind in the world or amongst it, and all of the critical minerals necessary to do storage. So there's a lot to play for here. It just depends on whether you see the future as a prosperous green economy or something that looks much more like the industrial revolution of the past.

Tom : [00:22:06] In that little clip there, Paul focused very much on asking Dean about the domestic landscape in Australia. So let's cover that first. Then we'll go back to a bit later in the program and talk about the international side. So interesting, the universality of so many issues focusing on the cost of living crisis, I suppose. No surprise. What did you both take from that conversation?

Paul: [00:22:23] Just one thing about the cost of living crisis. I mean, the previous election, three years ago, the bushfires had played a big part in politicising people to climate change, and we had this incredible move forward by the teals. So I think that there is, you know, a little bit further from that kind of extreme weather injury. Climate change has become more of a secondary issue. I think it's absolutely wonderful news that the net zero 2050 target is now kind of enshrined in in law in Australia, and neither party are arguing with that. And actually it's more nuanced about, for example, the speed with which decarbonisation happens and a big spat over the role of nuclear energy. But it's a pity it's less high on the agenda. But I mean, it is what it is.

Christiana: [00:23:06] Well, but he did point out that the recent cyclone event actually pushed climate back to the forefront and reminded people, I'm always constantly struck by this cost of living. Totally understandable that people are concerned about their immediate short term cost of living. Not to deny that, not to minimise it, but we also have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. So yes, cost of living now, but hello, how about cost of life In the mid and long term, and the problem is that we always pit them against each other, as opposed to being able to say they are both really necessary. We have to pay attention to both. So I'm just always stunned by the fact that we continue to be in this binary thinking binary acting, as opposed to being able to embrace both realities at the same time.

Paul: [00:24:07] Just a tiny point there, Christiana . As Mark pointed out, it's really about investment in the short term. It's often the case that or usually the case. I would say that renewables, for example, are cheaper than fossil fuels, but there does require some investment upfront. Now that would ideally be met by government borrowing. But if you're asking citizens who are feeling a cost of living crisis to pay it, then you get into that awful bifurcation between one or the other.