Resource, business sectors support climate action, just not this time. Again

The general response to the safeguard mechanism negotiated between Labor and the Greens is it’s far from perfect climate policy — but it’s a start. Not great, but nothing could be worse than what we’ve had.

Samantha McCulloch, chief executive of the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association (APPEA), has a different view, and took to the pages of The Australian to share it.

“Australia’s gas industry shares the nation’s commitment to net zero and understands our growing responsibilities as part of a cleaner energy future,” she opens. “The safeguard mechanism reforms, aimed at achieving net zero, could actually push national and international climate targets further away and make the cost to get there even greater.”

As Crikey Worm points out this morning, arguing the policy will keep us hooked on “dirtier fossil fuels” for longer relies on the erroneous view that gas is not a fossil fuel. 

On top of that is the not-at-all-depressing sight of Labor’s Climate and Energy Minister Chris Bowen promising there’s nothing in the policy to stop new coal and gas projects and also that they’ll change the new rules if they need to.

Still, McCulloch’s take — full-throated support for climate change action except for what’s proposed — rang a few bells. We took a look back over the past decade and a half or so of climate change policy to see how the rhetoric has (or hasn’t) developed.

2007

In June 2007, with the Rudd government pursuing the “greatest moral challenge of our age”, the Business Council of Australia said it supported efforts to “link sensible and credible emissions reduction targets to a long-term, well-designed national emissions trading scheme”.

But… it also opposed the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol — a commitment of industrialised countries to limit and reduce greenhouse gases — and claimed the Rudd government’s carbon pollution reduction scheme (CPRS) would “exacerbate the impact of the economic downturn or unduly slow the recovery in economic growth”.

It also attacked Rudd’s emissions reduction targets and demanded special protections for coalmining. It also wanted the scheme delayed.

2009

The Minerals Council of Australia released a report claiming “approximately 23,510 fewer people will be employed in the Australian minerals industry due to the imposition of the proposed [emissions trading scheme], a fall in employment of 11% compared to what otherwise would have occurred”. It did not, you’ll be shocked to hear, entirely stack up.

Meanwhile the Australian Food and Grocery Council tried to whip up a scare campaign over the impact of the CPRS on food prices.

2011

Following the change from Rudd to Julia Gillard and the introduction of a carbon pricing scheme, the song remained the same. Once again the BCA said it supported “a market-based mechanism” to reduce emissions, but the government’s scheme would apparently “significantly increase risks to Australia’s economic growth and competitiveness” and was “extremely disappointing“.

Indeed, once the scheme — the impact of which on the economy was below even the modest forecasts of Treasury — was repealed by the Abbott government (ushering in five years of rising emissions and continuing higher electricity prices), the BCA joined the Australian Industry Group and Minerals Council to “welcome today’s repeal of the carbon tax“.

2013

Under Abbott, the BCA continued to argue for the need for climate action, although when that government briefly toyed with a safeguard mechanism, it demanded that it “explicitly ensure that the safeguard mechanism does not impose a burden that disadvantages Australia’s emissions-intensive, trade-exposed or import-competing industries”.

2018-19

In 2018, Labor announced a commitment to a 45% emissions reduction target. The BCA met with Liberal Party MPs to say the target was “economy-wrecking” and that it would run against it.

In 2019, Australian Industry Group’s Innes Willox argued: “Moving to a 45% emissions reduction target for 2030 would be a tough ask for many industries … These targets should be pursued through policies that maintain our trade competitiveness.”

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All this is worth remembering when we assess whether the industries that profit most from fossil fuels are really arguing in the best faith.