Can the bush fires cure Australia of its schizophrenia about climate change and coal?
- How can any coherent position on climate change be taken by a prime minister who has attacked ‘coalphobia’ in parliament? However, while coal is Australia’s top export, it employs just 35,000 people and is unlikely to deliver many votes
As the world’s economies squirm in the face of the stark practical and political realities of carbon emissions and climate change, few can be suffering climate schizophrenia as severely as Australia.
But there are distinctive reasons for the Australian government to be sitting uncomfortably alongside a dwindling community of climate change deniers, and there are distinctive reasons that might rapidly change.
And I refer to the Australian government as opposed to the Australian people as climate deniers, because I suspect the government is today dangerously out of step with its famously blunt-speaking electorate.
Like so many politicians across the world facing re-election cycles of three to six years, few have been able to reconcile these short election cycles with the climate crisis that is bowling towards us from 30 years away.
