The Future of Australian Climate Politics

Abstract

The preceding articles have shed light on the complex politics of climate change in Australia in a range of important ways. They have variously identified the obstacles to achieving and sustaining genuine public concern and willingness to support action; they have noted the importance of building partnerships with industry; they have pointed to the important function of the broader international context; and they have identified the pathologies of the Australian democratic political system and broader public debate that seem to militate against political consensus on the need to act on climate change.While applied generally to the dynamics of climate change since the mid-2000s to the present, a period of crashing public support and the fall of climate action proponents on both sides of Parliament, but also significant legislative breakthrough, these challenges will continue to animate the politics of climate change in Australia beyond. This concluding essay reflects on these challenges, with a particular focus on possible changes after the 2013 Federal Election, due at the time this Special Issue will go to print. With polls and analysts predicting a Coalition victory at the time of writing, and Coalition leader Tony Abbott promising an end to carbon pricing, the future for the climate change policy in Australia threatens to descend below current (largely inadequate) levels.We cannot predict the future, either the outcome of the election or the climate policy and politics that will follow it. What I can and will suggest here, however, is likely scenarios under different Governments, and domestic and international dynamics that might serve to enable or constrain the development of substantive climate change action in the Australian context...