Labor’s climate change policy has three components.

The first is a political pathway to consensus on a carbon price. It involves the establishment of a 12-month, 150-person “Citizen’s Assembly” to “examine the evidence on climate change, the case for action and a market-based approach to reducing pollution.” These “ordinary Australians” would function as “an indicator to the nation of the progress of community consensus”.

And the debate would be informed by a new “Climate Change Commission” that would  explain the science of climate change and report on the progress of international action.

How the assembly would be appointed and how it would communicate its views to the government remains unclear.

The second component are new standards for coal-fired power plants. All new coal-fired power plants would be required to  meet new best practice coal emissions standards and be  “Carbon Capture and Storage ready”. Existing coal-fired power stations will be subject to requirements to find opportunities to reduce their emissions.

The emissions standard for new plants would be determined by the Government “in consultation with stakeholders, including State and Territory Governments, energy market institutions, industry and environmental groups.”

However, the standards would not apply to coal-fired plants already given environmental approval “and are determined by the energy market institutions as being sufficiently advanced in their regulatory approvals at the commencement of these standards”.

This means two new plants in WA, Coolimba and Bluewaters, and the re-activation of an old plant, Muja, would not be subject to the requirements, which together will provide just under 1.1 GW of coal-fired power. The expansion of the Eraring Power Station in NSW, which will add 240 MW of coal-fired power, is also unaffected. The massive new Mt Piper and Bayswater plants in NSW, which will together add 4 GW of coal-fired power (although they are ostensibly also able to be gas-fired) also have “concept approval” and therefore are unlikely to be subject to the Gillard proposals.

Electricity generators have also been told that emissions standards that will form the basis for the Government handouts to polluters under its CPRS will be held at the levels determined in 2008 for the CPRS, in order to encourage emissions reductions.

The third component is a proposal to invest $1b over ten years to upgrade the electricity transmission network to connect renewable power sources to consumers. The initial commitment is $100m over the next four years. There will also be a $100 million Renewable Energy Venture Capital Fund that will “make critical early-stage equity investments that leverage private funds to help commercialise emerging renewable technologies.”

The $200m investment will be sourced from the Government’s $650m Renewable Energy Future Fund, funded by the shelving of the CPRS in the May Budget.

Comment

Putting aside the merits of Labor’s proposal – and good luck finding them – the Labor hardheads are gambling that climate change simply isn’t a big enough issue for the seats they want to retain and pick up. There’s some evidence that backs this up. When asked if climate change was one of their top three issues in considering  how to vote, only 12% of people told Essential Research that climate change was one of them – and only 4% said it was their top issue. That sentiment was strongest among young voters and high-income earners, but lower among middle-income earners and people aged 35-55 – exactly the target of Labor’s pitch that it wants to address cost-of-living issues.

From Labor’s point of view, this is simply not an issue worth risking votes on, and commentators and progressives can rant and rave – I do exactly that elsewhere – but in an election campaign that is highly risk-averse and aimed at ensuring Labor keeps the support it picked up in 2007 from middle-income earners and outer-suburban voters, Labor clearly believes voters just don’t care enough about the issue Kevin Rudd once famously labelled “the greatest economic and moral challenge of our time.” Any suggestion that climate action might end up contributing to price rises must be ruthlessly suppressed – which is why a carbon price is firmly off the agenda without the Coalition being so wedged on the issue it has to sign up to one.