Australia's Liberal Party (They're Not) Stance On Climate Spirals Off To Somewhere Between Incoherence And Insanity [View all]

The best thing that can be said about the Coalition’s internal brawl over whether to abandon its support for reaching net zero emissions by 2050 is that it has some honesty in it. Not much honesty, but if you look closely you may see some light breaking through. The federal Liberals and Nationals have never supported the idea of reaching net zero by 2050. Some individual MPs have but not the parties. We know this because they have not backed a policy to help meet it since Scott Morrison adopted the target in 2021 to try to deflect rising pressure at home and abroad.

It means the public argument now playing out has been about politics far more than substance. When Liberal MPs meet in Canberra on Wednesday they will be really just discussing whether to drop the charade. The taxpayer-funded nuclear energy policy rejected by Australian voters at the last election was a fossil fuel policy in disguise. If it had been introduced and worked – a Kosciuszko-sized “if”, according to some experts – it would have meant stalling the growth of renewable energy and burning a stack more coal and gas for power until at least the mid-2040s. The Coalition also promised to abolish or limit all climate measures introduced in Labor’s first term.

Since getting thumped in May, it has dropped its election stance. But the Coalition’s shadow energy minister, Dan Tehan, has signalled that its replacement policy could include subsidies to introduce not only nuclear energy but boost coal and gas. How this would square with the second part of his title – shadow minister for emissions reduction – is anyone’s guess. The Nationals’ leader, David Littleproud, has said his party’s decision last week to abandon the net zero emissions target is “not denying the science of climate change” because “what we’re saying is there’s a better, cheaper, fairer way to address it”. Has Littleproud explained what that better, cheaper, fairer way would be? You can probably guess the answer. He also hasn’t explained how voters should interpret the Coalition’s decision to drop the title of shadow minister for climate change after the election as anything other than a form of climate denial.

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Whether countries will meet and go beyond their targets, as scientists say they must if the world is to avoid increasingly catastrophic climate damage, is a valid question. But that’s not what the argument in Australia over net zero emissions is about. At its heart, it’s about a trajectory: whether to push on in cutting emissions, backing green industries and preparing for the future, or walking away from that effort with little acknowledgment of the consequences. None of this is to ignore the problems inherent in net zero targets. As the climate scientist Joëlle Gergis indicated last week, they won’t work if they are used as an excuse to continue burning fossil fuels and relying on tree planting and other nature projects that suck that new carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/commentisfree/2025/nov/11/coalition-brawl-australia-2050-net-zero-emissions-target