Greenwash Political Action Party and Urban Grassroots Movement for the Green Party

Monday, October 23, 2006

How the environment movement has won the battle but could lose the war

This is an edited version of piece first published by www.crikey.com.au

So this is what a victory looks like. The environment movement’s arguments about climate change have not only been accepted, but have been embraced. Mel and Kochie’s move to back mass public protest on the issue shows how breathtakingly fast and complete the turnaround had been.

But just as the debate is won, there are real dangers that in Australia the environment movement and the Greens could lose the war.

Senator Bill Heffernan’s entry into the debate marked a dangerous turn. Heffernan argues that the climate change priority is to help farmers reeling from the impacts of drought to move North where there is likely to be an increase in rainfall.

With a massive budget surplus and the Government desperate to be seen to be doing something on climate change, Howard could announce a series of farmer-focused climate packages in the run to the 2007 election that pork barrels a key constituency and sidelines the Greens.
In a sense Howard would be moving beyond acting to prevent dangerous climate change to an ‘adaptation’ phase in which the government provides ‘solutions’ to the consequences of global warming. Dennis Shanahan gave the PM’s plans a push along on Saturday when he declared that Howard wasn’t going Green, instead Howard was ‘browning the Greens’.

The environment movement will need to confront this issue if it is to successfully prevent Howard hijacking the urgency of the issue with a farmer friendly pitch or his dangerous nuclear push.

Part of the problem to date has been a failure in simple messaging about what needs to be done to cut greenhouse pollution and avoid dangerous climate change. Some argue Kyoto is the answer, some want a carbon tax, others ‘feed-in laws’, some carbon trading and other prioritise a renewable energy target. Meanwhile the Government argues ‘technology’ is the solution and offers the dangerous option of nuclear power while the coal industry has been touting the Orwellian phrase ‘clean coal’. With so many ‘solutions’ proposed, it is too easy for none of them to cut through.

But the real danger comes from within. Some in the environment movement will be tempted to settle with some small concessions from Howard. It will be easy for some environment groups to peel off from the mainstream and do a deal with Howard that would give huge environment credibility to the Government and result in a massive missed opportunity to achieve real change. With the tsunami of community concern currently hitting politicians, now is not the time to be settling for half measures.

The big Walk Against Warming protests on November 4th around the country (now backed by Mel and Kochie), mark the beginning of a new protest push that will help prevent Howard controlling the debate.

While this week’s $230m announcement from Howard regarding the low emission technology fund is just the detail of a 2004 announcement, we are undoubtedly about to see a rash of new greenhouse policy announcements from state and Federal Governments and Oppositions.
When looking for tests to judge whether these policies match their rhetoric here are some simple tests:
- Is there a commitment to legislation that guarantees a 60-90% cut in greenhouse pollution that scientists say we need by 2050 to avoid dangerous climate change?
- Will there be a legislated medium term target of say 20% by 2020 to ensure action now?
- Is there a renewable energy target like those being adopted in Victoria and SA?
- And is there a commitment to address coal exports which are by far Australia’s biggest contribution to global greenhouse emissions?

Unless the environment movement and the Greens keep these goals at the forefront of the debate it will mean that while the argument is won, the war to cut pollution will be lost.

posted by Ben Oquist # 1:41 PM 1 comments