Does PM Morrison not see that we can see? Or are his instincts for today’s tribal politics spot on and he knows all that he needs is a fig leaf for followers to hide behind? The Crikey wrap is succinct:
Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s long-awaited climate plan, called “The Australian Way”, has no detail and no modelling (it’ll be released “eventually”, he says), Guardian Australia reports. Further to this, it includes no new policies, The Australian ($) adds. The “technology not taxes” motto is little more than sophistry, Michelle Grattan writes for The Conversation, as taxpayers will foot the plan’s $20 billion bill. Besides, economists told The Age this morning, a technology approach risks wasting public funds on technology that might not pan out into industry use.
Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese called the plan a “scam”, saying that there was “net zero modelling, net zero legislation and net zero unity”, Sky News reports, while Greens Leader Adam Bandt accused the government of “climate fraud”. Labor’s plan will be released in the coming weeks, shadow climate spokesperson Chris Bowen says, after they abandoned last election’s 45% reduction by 2030 promise following their shock loss, as The Guardian reported at the time. But times have changed, and perhaps so have the voters — The Age found about 51% of respondents to a poll said they’d be willing to fork out money to help cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Morrison leaves for Glasgow tomorrow with his mid-century commitment his only card, at a historic climate summit where, as the SMH’s David Crowe puts it, “net zero by 2050 could be seen as a minimum pledge for an advanced economy”. The UN has publicly called on nations to bring a 45% reduction target for 2030, but Morrison will show up the same old 26-28% reduction target, though says we are on track to beat that with about a 30-35% reduction, as ABC reports. Yet the UN says the world is on track to see a 2.7C rise in temperature this century under current commitments, the SMH says.
Classic Sly ScoMo. All marketing and nothing else.
