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The realpolitik behind Albanese’s $8 billion climate bombshell · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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  Speaker 1: It's Friday, September nineteen, twenty twenty five. Anthony Albanezi is
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  Speaker 1: packing his bags to fly to New York for the
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  Speaker 1: United Nations General Assembly vote on recognizing Palestine as a state,
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  Speaker 1: but opinion polls in the West Bank show Palestinians won't
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  Speaker 1: support Australia's key demand for recognition the reform of the
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  Speaker 1: Palestinian Authority. That story, based on a report by the
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  Speaker 1: Australia Israel and Jewish Affairs Council, is an exclusive live
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  Speaker 1: now at the Australian dot com dot U. An ambitious
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  Speaker 1: climate goal that gives us just ten years to have
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  Speaker 1: are omissions Today, The gritty politics behind a bold new
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  Speaker 1: number the Prime Minister hopes will soothe the hardheads, calm
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  Speaker 1: the Zealots and keep him in a job. Already be
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  Speaker 1: your position saying no way. So can Leader Susan Lee
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  Speaker 1: survive yet another climate war? Today, our political editor Jeff
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  Speaker 1: Chambers joins me to dig into the issue that has
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  Speaker 1: a nasty habit of killing political careers. Jeff Chambers is
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  Speaker 1: The Australian's Political editor. Jeff a huge day in the
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  Speaker 1: story of climate in Australia. And this is the issue
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  Speaker 1: that has killed off a bunch of prime ministers. It's
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  Speaker 1: crueled the careers of opposition leaders. It's been incredibly difficult
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  Speaker 1: for Australians to get their heads around. Of course, this
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  Speaker 1: issue is so complex. What's your kind of first thought
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  Speaker 1: about this sixty two to seventy percent target that the
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  Speaker 1: government's come up with.
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  Speaker 2: Australians shouldn't kid themselves. We've heard a lot from Anthony Albanezy,
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  Speaker 2: Chris Bowen and Jim Chalmers about hitting this sixty two
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  Speaker 2: to seventy percent emissions reduction by twenty thirty five. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: we're already struggling to hit both of mes reduction at
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  Speaker 2: our eighty two percent renewables in the grid by twenty
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  Speaker 2: thirty targets. It's a big ass for anyone to believe
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  Speaker 2: that the government will be able to deliver on such
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  Speaker 2: greater ambition. Let's be real. The seventy percent is to
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  Speaker 2: try and spoil the Greens and the Teals, the climate
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  Speaker 2: activist groups, who by the way, haven't bordered. The real
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  Speaker 2: figure here is sixty two percent.
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  Speaker 1: So let's just break that down. That means Australia needs
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  Speaker 1: to dramatically cut its emissions of greenhouse gases starting today,
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  Speaker 1: and by twenty fifty we've promised the world will be
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  Speaker 1: at net zero emissions. People say that a lot net zero.
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  Speaker 1: This is what it actually means. It means greenhouse gas
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  Speaker 1: emissions are massively reduced by doing things like cutting fossil fuels,
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  Speaker 1: and then they're also balanced out by the removal of
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  Speaker 1: greenhouse gases through means like growing forests, restoring wetlands and
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  Speaker 1: changing farming practices. The idea is that when you balance
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  Speaker 1: it all up, there's effectively no greenhouse gases and therefore
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  Speaker 1: no more climate change.
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  Speaker 3: This is a responsible target, back by the science, back
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  Speaker 3: by a practical plan to get there and built on
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  Speaker 3: proven technology, so right target to protect our environment.
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  Speaker 1: To hear Anthony Albanezi talk about it, you'd think climate
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  Speaker 1: policy is pretty straightforward, but we all know in Australian
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  Speaker 1: politics it's a leader killer.
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  Speaker 3: The greatest moral and economic challenge we will face in
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  Speaker 3: the twenty first century is climate change.
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  Speaker 1: Kevin Rudd's emission's trading scheme went south, and so did
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  Speaker 1: his Prime ministership. I hope I've been able to demonstrate
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  Speaker 1: to you that this has been a very busy two
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  Speaker 1: and a half years. Julia Gillard blew herself up with
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  Speaker 1: a carbon tax. It will be easier for the next woman,
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  Speaker 1: and the woman after that, and the woman after that,
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  Speaker 1: and I'm proud of that. Malcolm Turnbull went too fast.
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  Speaker 2: I started to sink into a very very deep depression.
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  Speaker 1: Tony Abbott tried to rain it all in. There will
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  Speaker 1: be no wrecking, no undermining, and no sniping. And then
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  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two, Climate two hundred and the teals
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  Speaker 1: helped labor wipe out Scott Morrison. And yet now the
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  Speaker 1: old ideas are coming back around.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I think obviously we can go back to the
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  Speaker 2: carbon tax, and the irony of that is now we've
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  Speaker 2: got the Productivity Commission and miners themselves and big business
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  Speaker 2: saying we probably need a carbon price to be hitting
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  Speaker 2: the targets that we're talking about now. So in the
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  Speaker 2: space of just over a decade, it's funny how things
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  Speaker 2: can move so quickly. And I think the real pressure
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  Speaker 2: point is that if they don't get it right, they
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  Speaker 2: don't get enough renewables, enough batteries in there. The technologi
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  Speaker 2: is not up to scratch, we'll see blackouts and I
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  Speaker 2: think blackouts is poison in politics. And the other big
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  Speaker 2: question is as we bring in data centers and try
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  Speaker 2: and drive AI here in Australia, you need a lot
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  Speaker 2: of power and that's where this question over the future
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  Speaker 2: of nuclear power rests. Because so many other similar Western
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  Speaker 2: democracies in countries, a lot of their emissions reductions promises
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  Speaker 2: are underpin by zero emissions nuclear So I think that's
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  Speaker 2: the sort of challenge ahead.
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  Speaker 1: Labor and Anthony Alberanezi could have released this target before
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  Speaker 1: the election. By the time the next election rolls around,
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  Speaker 1: presumably they're hoping Australians will have moved on. Was that
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  Speaker 1: a bit sneaky, Well.
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  Speaker 2: It wasn't, honest, let's put it that way. You've got
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  Speaker 2: to remember back November twenty twenty four, Peter Dutton had
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  Speaker 2: increased the coalition's primary aid up to forty percent, Labor
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  Speaker 2: was at thirty one. Things were not looking good for
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  Speaker 2: the government, so they were concerned that this perception they
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  Speaker 2: were going so hard on net zero and these targets
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  Speaker 2: could have a really bad impact for them in seats
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  Speaker 2: like the Hunter which is a traditional coal mining area.
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  Speaker 1: Quietly the government told the Treasury to do economic modeling
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  Speaker 1: on a number a sixty five percent reduction by twenty
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  Speaker 1: thirty five that was a lot lower than what the
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  Speaker 1: Climate Change Authority wanted. Albanezi had to balance the fears
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  Speaker 1: of some in his cabinet that labor would go too
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  Speaker 1: fast and on the other hand pressure from some labor
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  Speaker 1: voters to go faster. Jeff and the other journals have
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  Speaker 1: been given a giant pile of official advice and modeling
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  Speaker 1: to work through, and buried in there is the evidence
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  Speaker 1: of just how hard even this is going to be.
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  Speaker 2: And there is a little list in the Climate Change
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  Speaker 2: or Authority advice and it says, look, even just to
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  Speaker 2: get to sixty two percent, we're going to have to
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  Speaker 2: harve Australia's current emissions levels. We're already struggling to cut
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  Speaker 2: emissions levels or drupling win tripling utility solar capacity, doubling
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  Speaker 2: rooftop and distributed solar capacity. That half of the light
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  Speaker 2: vehicles sold between now and twenty thirty five would have
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  Speaker 2: to be electric vehicles. Somehow we're going to produce more
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  Speaker 2: sustainable aviation fuel and renewable does diesel electrifying it keep
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  Speaker 2: The list goes on ceasing logging of old growth forests
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  Speaker 2: and harving reclearing rates. It just when you read these lists,
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  Speaker 2: it makes you really understand that it's going to be
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  Speaker 2: really hard. And also Chris Bowen is relying on so
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  Speaker 2: much technology that doesn't exist. They've had to sort of
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  Speaker 2: walk back their hopes for green hydrogen because it hasn't
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  Speaker 2: developed like they thought it might. And I think that's
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  Speaker 2: the problem. There's a lot of bets going on and
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  Speaker 2: a lot of assumptions going on. We still don't have
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  Speaker 2: a price tag on how much this is going to cost.
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  Speaker 2: We hear about the economic benefits, but I think a
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  Speaker 2: lot of Australians know what is this going to cost
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  Speaker 2: us financially? And is this going to have an impact
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  Speaker 2: on our reliable energy.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up? So can Susan Lee's leadership survive this hotter
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  Speaker 1: than hot issue? And what about Susan Lee. She's struggling
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  Speaker 1: to even hold the Coalition party room together on this issue.
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  Speaker 2: So immediately after Anthony Albernizi announced his new very ambitious
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  Speaker 2: twenty thirty five target, Susan Lee and Ted O'Brien delivered
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  Speaker 2: a scathing press conference. They've completely rejected the twenty thirty
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  Speaker 2: five target on the grounds that the government aren't even
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  Speaker 2: close to coming to hitting their existing twenty thirty targets.
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  Speaker 2: If you can't adopt an ambitious twenty thirty five target,
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  Speaker 2: you are not going to get to net zero by
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  Speaker 2: twenty fifty. This is a thorn in the side of
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  Speaker 2: Susan Lee. It's clear to me that Susan Lee's leadership
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  Speaker 2: is likely untenable unless the current policy of supporting that
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  Speaker 2: zero by twenty fifty is rejected. But in saying that,
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  Speaker 2: they obviously need to have alternatives that Dante and others
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  Speaker 2: prepare and it can't be the same nuclear policy. It
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  Speaker 2: has to be an entirely different approach, where for the
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  Speaker 2: sake of the moderates, who, by the way, they're the
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  Speaker 2: ones that did the numbers and got Susan Lee the leadership,
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  Speaker 2: those people are very strongly saying, how on earth can
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  Speaker 2: we win back any seats in metropolitan Australia without some
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  Speaker 2: sort of climate change and energy policy that can win
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  Speaker 2: votes in the Nats, in the Libs, across the joint
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  Speaker 2: party room there at such extreme different positions. I do
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  Speaker 2: believe that if Susan Lee wants to remain leader over
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  Speaker 2: the coming period that she is going to have to
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  Speaker 2: move this process faster. I think that Labour's twenty thirty
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  Speaker 2: five target announcement presents an opportunity for the Coalition to
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  Speaker 2: prosecute a case. But they have to prosecute that with facts,
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  Speaker 2: economic facts, proper modeling and argue the point. They can't
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  Speaker 2: just be shrill and just jump up and down. They're
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  Speaker 2: going to have to present a viable alternative, and I
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  Speaker 2: think that's a really big challenge for them.
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  Speaker 1: Jeff Chambers is The Australian's Political editor. You can read
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  Speaker 1: all our analysis right now at the Australian dot com
• 10:36
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• 10:39
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