Climate change – government and media failure

People trying to change Australia’s climate policies face a huge challenge. A fundamental problem is that in a democracy such as Australia’s, governments don’t make policy changes if they think this will damage them politically. The Albanese government will do everything it possibly can to tackle the climate crisis, except address the core problem, the burning of fossil fuels, the root cause of climate change!

The power of the fossil fuel industry influences government policy, and clearly the government thinks it is in its political interests to continue supporting gas and coal extraction. Unfortunately, in the current circumstances the government might be right. Current policies indicate the government sees promoting renewable energy domestically, whilst continuing to support gas and coal exports, including new projects, as a good political balance. It is prepared to live with the fact that supporting ongoing gas and coal extraction is in total conflict with the science.

The power of the fossil fuel industry wouldn’t be a problem if there was bipartisan political support for strong climate action. There should be bipartisan support because climate change is not an ideological issue. The world is facing a threat to life on earth, and all the politicians have to do is accept and act on the science and the evidence. Unfortunately, this isn’t going to happen any time soon and we have to deal with the problem the politicians have created. This said, it is quite shocking when politics prevents essential action to mitigate something as serious as climate change.

The government will have to be forced to accept it is in Australia’s interests to advocate for the planned, equitable, but rapid phase-out of fossil fuels. The only way to achieve this is through people-power, and this is a big challenge.

Currently there are two main ways in which attempts are being made to change government climate policies. Professional organisations and individuals are providing scientific information and evidence to convince the government to change policies, and grassroots activists are trying to force change through on-ground actions. These approaches are not working because the government is not feeling any pressure to change policies. The main reason for this is the lack of knowledge in the community about the climate problem, and the actions required to minimise the climate threat. When people don’t understand the problem, and what needs to be done about it, they are not going to demand change.

It is not surprising there is a major lack of community understanding of the climate problem. Both sides of politics support fossil fuels, so neither Labor nor the Coalition are going to explain the problems with the burning of fossil fuels. When the government of the day fails to adequately tackle a major threat to Australia, and the political opposition fails to challenge the government, mainstream media should call out the politicians for this major neglect of their responsibilities. The failure of the media to do this may well be the greatest ever failure of Australian mainstream media.

There is minimal in-depth analysis of the global climate crisis, and what needs to be done to minimise the threat. Journalists appear to be more interested in debating who is winning the climate politics, rather than informing the public that government policy failure is increasing the risk of disastrous weather events and the loss of the Great Barrier Reef as a tourist attraction.

At the height of COVID-19 there were daily media interviews with epidemiologists and other health experts, with analysis of government policy and potential failures. On climate change, most interviews are with politicians, and there are few interviews with climate scientists. And even when scientists are interviewed it is rare for them to be asked key questions.

Forcing the government to withdraw support for fossil fuels requires a powerful communications campaign to obtain major community support. My two previous articles in P&I (“Calling all influencers: standup and be counted on climate” and “The media is silent on the climate war that must be won“) proposed a strategy that includes such a campaign.

Several highly credentialed climate writers have regular excellent articles in P&I that provide important information. However, they need to do more than this. They should now initiate action to bring about change. They should talk with their colleagues, relevant contacts and fellow writers about how a team can be formed to challenge government policy. I think the strategy I have proposed is viable, and they should seek to implement it. If there are better ideas, this will be great. The key to success is for climate scientists to play a major role in any initiative. To be successful the campaign would have to be strong enough to cut through into the community and initiate a national conversation about government failure and what Australia should do to help the world minimise the climate threat. This makes it essential for high-profile leading Australians to play a key role in attracting major media coverage of the group’s activities, and to facilitate financing of a major media campaign that would include combatting an undoubted massive scare campaign from the fossil fuel lobby.

To summarise, the global situation is dire. The science is unequivocal; for the world to avoid a climate catastrophe fossil fuels must be rapidly phased out. The evidence tells us this isn’t happening and there is little political will to make it happen. Companies and countries are using carbon capture and storage and offsetting as excuses to justify the ongoing extraction of coal, oil and gas. The strategy I have proposed could evolve into a global movement to address this major problem.

From an Australian perspective, there is a view that if more climate-aware independents are elected at the next federal election this would help the government take stronger climate action. Unfortunately, this would not do a lot to help resolve the fossil fuel problem, as with both major parties supporting ongoing gas and coal extraction, they would have the numbers in parliament to ensure there are no policy changes regarding fossil fuels.

The bottom line is that if we do nothing to force change on the government we will have to accept that Australia will continue to be an impediment to the world avoiding a climate catastrophe.