But this isn’t about China. It’s about climate change.
Climate change is the world’s third superpower. It is casting the future of our planet, steadily conquering small island states, opening new trade routes, reshaping economies, paralysing domestic politics, influencing voting patterns, shifting coastlines and sculpting Australia’s fundamental strategic outlook.
Debating whether climate change is real is akin to arguing whether the Earth is round: reality and its consequences exist regardless. Debating whether Australia is too small to have a global effect is also redundant: Australian coal exports are set to contribute to 17 per cent of global emissions by 2030. That’s the strategic equivalent of selling uranium to North Korea. It’s the line from HBO’s Chernobyl: the willingness to ignore facts incurs a debt to the truth that must one day be paid.
The government is willing to spend $200 billion in the largest recapitalisation of Australia’s defence industry since WW2, fuelled by valid concerns about the rise of China. Indeed, if China or any other foreign power had inflicted the damage wrought on Australia these last few months, the government would be willing to put the economy on a war footing to fight and win.
Yet it is unwilling to spend more than $3.5 billion on equally valid concerns about the rise of climate change. That’s roughly the cost of a single Attack class submarine. Remember, we’re buying 12.
Chamberlain spoke of ‘peace for our time’ less than a year before the outbreak of war with Germany. PM Scott Morrison spoke of ‘needless anxiety’ just three months before unprecedented bushfires fuelled by a drier, warmer climate killed dozens of Australians, destroyed thousands of homes and turned an area the size of England into ash.
Our policy of appeasement towards the planet’s third superpower has built a debt to the truth. How much are we willing to pay?
https://www.australiandefence.com.au/news/superpower-launches-direct-attack-on-australia
