There is a core truth in Tony Abbott’s incendiary climate change speech that is sure to infuriate polite society.
That truth is Australia would never have signed up to the Paris Agreement had the United States not been a party to it. A foundation stone of Australia’s commitment to climate action has always been to measure its response to that of other nations and to be mindful not to commit economic self-harm. With the US out, coal use back on the rise and major emitters China and India not constrained for decades, Abbott has asked the inconvenient question: What are we still doing there?
Abbott’s latest intervention is an attempt to bell the cat — that we have lost sight of the real issue and lost perspective on the consequences. High electricity prices and the stress they pose to households and industry are cited as evidence of economic delusion. His summation of climate science will no doubt produce howls of derision but Abbott’s views are widely shared. In a direct attack on the key climate change narrative, Abbott says storms are not more severe, droughts are not more prolonged, floods are not greater, and fires are not more intense than a century ago. As a moral challenge, he says, climate change pales against man’s inhumanity to man. He rates degraded bushland and waterways, particulate pollution, water quality in the Third World, deforestation and urban overcrowding as higher-order priorities.
The issue, however, is whether there is a cost benefit to acting on climate as it is currently framed. Abbott repeats the reality, acknowledged by Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg and Chief Scientist Alan Finkel, that nothing Australia does to reduce emissions will make any difference to climate on a global scale. He says that of the four biggest emitters, China and India have made no Paris commitment to reduce their total emissions and the US has now pulled out.
The irony is that, even out of the global compact, the US is performing well in its shift to lower emissions thanks to the extraordinary boom in shale gas production. Europe is finding the going increasingly tough.
Abbott’s speech comes at a key time both for the Paris Agreement and Australian policy. The federal government is bogged down in the details of a national energy guarantee that is supposed to marry electricity prices, energy security and climate concerns.
This year in Poland the world must put some meat on the Paris Agreement bones. What once was considered the greater ambition target of 1.5C temperature rise is now routinely cited as the benchmark. Abbott argues the price of participation for Australia is too high and the potential global benefit marginal at best. It is political mischief but not beyond the pale.
