Abstract
According to the 2020 Climate Change Performance Index, Australia was ranked as the worst-performing country on climate change policy. The country has an ambivalent record of climate policy development as well as implementation, and has been criticized for its inaction. This paper considers why the country has been locked in climate policy “paralysis” through analyzing defining attributes of such a paralysis, and the tentative connections between domestic energy policies and international trade and development. We conducted a media content analysis of 222 articles and identified media narratives in three cases of energy projects in the country involving thermal coal exports, domestic renewable energy storage, and closure of a domestic coal power station. The analysis reveals that policy paralysis in Australian climate change policy can be traced back to the countervailing arguments that have been pervasive around domestic energy security, rural employment and international energy poverty. The political establishment has struggled to develop a sustainable consensus on climate change and the citizenry remains polarized. We also discuss how a “focusing event,” such as a major natural disaster can break the impasse but this is only possible if energy security at home, energy poverty abroad and employment imperatives across the board are clearly delineated, measured and prioritized.
Highlights
In international terms, Australia’s emissions reduction commitments are clearly at the lower level of ambition
While the Australian government is not proposing any further targets for renewable energy beyond 2020, it continues to promote the expansion of fossil fuels
The article harvesting covered a wide range of newspapers across the full range of the political publishing spectrum such as The Australian, The Age, Crikey, Central Western Daily, Australian
Summary
Australia’s emissions reduction commitments are clearly at the lower level of ambition. While the Australian government is not proposing any further targets for renewable energy beyond 2020, it continues to promote the expansion of fossil fuels. The bushfires laid bare the governance dysfunction most acutely as the country grappled with ways to reconcile its revenue earnings from fossil fuels with the global impact of climate change, as well as endangered communities and wildlife at home. Such a major disaster is what Simshauser calls a “focusing event” which has the potential for spurring countries out of policy paralysis [3]. In the wake of the bushfire season, the Australian Climate Roundtable, a broad alliance of major Australian businesses, environmentalists, farmers, investors, unions and social welfare groups, released a statement saying that: “Australia is currently woefully unprepared for the scale of climate change threats that will
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