Frank Jotzo, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
The Labor Party’s newly announced energy policy could finally set Australia’s electricity sector on the path to a renewables-driven future. But policies are still needed to cut emissions elsewhere.
In order to address a warming planet over the medium and long-term, climate policy must be designed to be adaptable and indeed attractive to those across the political spectrum.
Exxon Mobil has a clear motive to back a new plan to tax carbon with its clout and money. And a carbon tax that is high enough to work might prove politically impossible to enact.
Climate policy is clearly a threat to the job security of Australian prime ministers, but it could upend our international diplomacy as well, with a string of key summits looming in coming months.
With New South Wales suffering winter bushfires and temperature records tumbling around the globe, our leaders in Canberra have picked a bad time to jettison climate policy in favour of political bickering.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has abandoned the emissions-reduction component of his signature energy policy, in the latest chapter of a brutal decade-long saga for Australian climate policy.
The National Energy Guarantee faces a crunch test this week. And if the climate wars of the past few decades are any guide, Australian policies more often sink than swim when the waters get choppy.
The latest annual survey from the Lowy Institute shows that 59% of Australians support strong climate action, and 84% want the government to embrace renewable energy even if it’s more expensive.
What will Antarctica look like in 2070? Will the icy wilderness we know today survive, or will it succumb to climate change and human pressure? Our choices over the coming decade will seal its fate.
Dave Frame, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington; Adrian Henry Macey, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington y Myles Allen, University of Oxford
New research has suggested a fresh way to account for greenhouse gases with different lifetimes in the atmosphere.
Environmentalists and climate hawks are cheering, but many experts aren’t excited about the state making rooftop solar panels mandatory on most new homes beginning in 2020.
Deriving fuel from trees costs more than wind and solar power and it emits more carbon than coal. There are many heated debates about this kind of energy, known as forest or woody biomass.
Peter C. Doherty, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity
Scientific problems require evidence-led solutions. A new proposal to create a federal environmental decision-making body would take some of the politics out of climate policy.
Research suggests that speakers of “present-tensed” languages such as German and Finnish - in which the future can be describe in the present tense - are more likely to support stronger climate policies.
Barnaby Joyce had a long history of opposing climate action. His successor Michael McCormack seems to think the same way, despite climate being a growing threat to the Nationals’ rural voters.
Australia’s flagship climate policy, has spent more than $2 billion on emissions reductions, yet big businesses could wipe all this out. Time to resurrect the idea of a simple carbon tax.