The planet is saved. Hooray:
Scott Morrison will attend next week’s climate change summit in Glasgow with a commitment to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 after the Nationals agreed to a deal they said would enable them to cushion regional and rural Australia against the effects of the economic transition.
Before he leaves on Thursday, the Prime Minister will also unveil a “substantially” upgraded projection for emissions cuts by 2030, but will not define this number as a target.
There is a reason I have offered net-zero coverage of the pantomime and it is this: there is nothing to cover. There is no policy discussion. We have no idea how Sly ScoMo will deliver the target. It’s all symbolism over substance. There is literally nothing to discuss.
Back in the olden days of a decade ago, before the rise of the fake world of social media, Millennial pretending to care and pollies to match, we used to discuss what the nation was actually going to do.
Every PM that has taken on climate change has done so on this basis:
- Howard had an ETS but got voted out.
- Rudd had an ETS and then nothing and got voted out.
- Gillard installed a carbon price and got voted out.
- Rudd had nothing and got voted out again.
- Abbott scrapped the carbon price in favour of direct action subsisides and then got voted out.
- Turnbull took a shot with the NEG and got voted out.
Of these losers, only Julia Gillard can hold her head up as actually achieving something that mitigated carbon. But, at least each of these governments had a policy platform. A mechanism by which to mitigate climate change. Even the ineptly designed NEG, which was always going to fail, was well-intentioned as actual policy.
But those days are long gone. Well…not really…”long gone”. Gone rather quickly, actually. As our world transforms at astonishing speed from one of action to one of fake digital inaction with no real-world consequences.
Enter Sly ScoMo. Slick marketing man, short-term tactician and nothing else, and we get today’s great “news” that his government has agreed to a deal with its troglodyte half that Australia will meet a 2050 net-zero target. Never mind that it has no policy mechanism to achieve its goal. Nor any discussion of one. This is a fake victory in a fake debate in a fake forum by professional fakes.
The only assured real-world outcome is more Nats pork.
Mind you, if you are concerned about species-ending climate catastrophes in the real world then you don’t have much choice elsewhere. Labor has no policies. The “Greens” have some for climate but come with the total annihilation of the local environment courtesy of suicidal population growth. The independents are so busy fighting to keep symbols alive that they’re useless.
And so, the Morrison Government pantomime of net-zero is the perfect metaphor for our times. It’s all furious debate signifying nothing and all the more intense for it.
Is it any wonder that the only party that is winning support at the moment is the coal-funded, coal-loving, anti-vaxxer, anti-lockdown, anti-science, pro-molestation Australian Unity Party?
Do you want to know why? Because when you protest on the streets for your right to die of COVID, when you asphyxiate the earth by digging up and burning ash-rocks, when you stick a stinking tongue into the shocked ear of a pneumatic intern, when you destroy your civilisation in broad daylight, these things actually happen.
And they have that to recommend them.
