Australia today is in a better position to tackle climate change than it was at the start of the week – but only just. The climate-action agreement between the Abbott government and Clive Palmer's party is a positive development for several reasons. Before the deal was struck, Australia had no active strategy to tackle climate change – the threat United States President Barack Obama accurately says will "define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other".
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The carbon tax was dead, an emissions-trading scheme was on the never-never, and the Coalition's $2.55 billion Direct Action plan – which The Age has described as woeful, but which is nonetheless better than nothing – was stuck in parliamentary limbo.
Now there is an agreement to do something about climate change. The Abbott government has skin in the game, billions of dollars in fact. It has signed up to the challenge and should now stop talking about the science of climate change like it is a first-year philosophy debate.
The Prime Minister's first call should be to government MP George Christensen, who has accused the Bureau of Meteorology of fudging temperature figures on the impact of climate change. It is this kind of right-wing conspiracy-theory nonsense that inhibits genuine mitigation. It is beyond time for Mr Abbott to reintroduce a minister for science, who could, at a minimum, tutor members of his government.
Other positives in this week's agreement include the retention of the Climate Change Authority and the decision to ask the boss of the authority, former Reserve Bank governor Bernie Fraser, to conduct an 18-month inquiry into an emissions-trading scheme.
The Age has long campaigned for a market-based system for tackling climate change – it can not be all fat carrots for big polluters, as proposed under Direct Action. And while Australia has gone from the global forefront of tackling climate change with a carbon tax to the back of the pack, Fraser's report has the potential to catapult Australia forward again. It is due in the 2016 election year. It must be released publicly and in full.
Environment Minister Greg Hunt's flippant comments regarding the emissions-trading scheme inquiry were not befitting of his office. Mr Hunt said the government was unable to abolish the authority, as it originally intended, "so rather than having people sitting there empty handed, twiddling their thumbs, they might as well do work". And he added that a carbon-trading scheme "will not be back in my time, in our time, in my belief, in the next 20 years, while the Coalition has any say in the matter".
This smacks of arrogance and duplicity: to cut a deal to hold an inquiry, but with no intention of considering the results. The Abbott government should not be afraid of the answer to the question it has posed.
Remember, the Coalition under prime minister John Howard supported an emissions-trading scheme at the 2007 election. And remember, too, the Abbott government remains committed to reducing Australia's emissions by 5 per cent below 2000 levels by 2020, and now billions of dollars are to be allocated to achieve this target.
We are confident the Fraser report will point to the benefits – economic as well as environmental – of Australia moving to an emissions-trading scheme.