EndemicEarthlingNov 13

On 26th Oct 2021, Australian PM Scott "don't-be-scared-of-coal" Morrison announced the Coalition's #NetZero2050 #ClimateTarget.

That same day, I read the document containing Morrison's 'plan'. It contained nothing to get Australia anywhere near the (already compromised idea of) #NetZero.

There was no plan, no modelling, no change in actual policies. The #ScottMorrison 'commitment' to net zero was still completely consistent with decades of #Coalhugger #Coalition policies. The target was toothless, an exercise in getting a headline to quiet the conscience of the news-skimming voter whose grandkids keep telling them climate is bad but who really wants to vote for hurting marginalised people and/or retaining their current tax loopholes (and who hasn't realised how much the #ALP embraces both anyway).

So with this week's news that #SussanLey has dropped that pretence, at least now there is one iota less dishonesty in Australian politics (albeit one with its own new lies and contradictions).

The last time the Coalition's #ClimatePolicy slightly departed from utter loyalty to the #DirtyEnergy industry was the morning of the 1st Dec 2009 in the hours before #MalcolmTurnbull was deposed as leader of her Majesty's Opposition and replaced by #TonyAbbott by a single vote.

#Auspol #ClimateWars #LNP

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(continued)

Even during the dying days of the 2009 Turnbull era, #Coalition #ClimatePolicy extended as far as tepid support for the deeply flawed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme introduced by #KevinRudd and his #ALP government.

Rudd's #CPRS had a 2050 emissions target of a measly 60% reduction from 2005 levels, had no mechanism for increasing ambition, grandfathered in a generous gift of pollution certificates to the worst polluters, and did nothing about Australia's massive and rapidly growing #DirtyEnergy exports (Australia's worst climate crime, dwarfing domestic emissions—a grand atrocity yet to be addressed in earnest by either side of the duopoly).

But the CPRS was nonetheless a climate policy with mechanisms that might have actually reduced Australia's domestic emissions over time, something the Coalition have never embraced in the almost-sixteen years since then.

Dropping the #NetZero2050 fig leaf is on brand.

(NB Once Abbott rolled Turnbull, PM Rudd could have easily passed his signature legislation if he had been at all willing to negotiate with the Greens under #BobBrown, who would have voted for the CPRS as literally better-than-nothing, with just one or two small tweaks—tweaks later conceded by #JuliaGillard in minority government. But Rudd wouldn't even talk to Brown.)

Nov 13 at 10:46pmWeb