One of the interesting asides in Annabel Crabb's Quarterly essay on Malcolm Turnbull is the news that the Liberal leader once tried to buy the magazine you are now reading. "One day we are talking about the Australian edition of The Spectator and whether it will last," writes Crabb. "Turnbull says he thinks it will," and "almost as an afterthought" adds: "I once tried to buy The Spectator." As Crabb's furtive check shows, he did indeed try to buy it -- with some help, mind you, from a famous media mogul in Australia. Of course, it never came to pass.
As interesting as this anecdote and others are, however, a curious thing is missing from Crabb's essay on the former journalist, lawyer and investment banker: there is no discussion or even mention of Turnbull's impeccable green credentials.
This is particularly odd for three reasons: Turnbull was the environment minister in 2007 who bent over backwards trying to encourage John Howard to ratify the Kyoto protocol (and help save the election); he won last September's Liberal leadership ballot largely because his opponent (and my old boss) Brendan Nelson tripped up over climate change policy; and he stands a decent chance of becoming prime minister by strongly opposing what the government claims is the most important and far-reaching legislation in a generation. I am, of course, referring to the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, which passed the lower house of parliament last week.
Turnbull recently announced the Coalition's new policy, which is to say Nelson's old policy: namely, that it is crazy for Australia, which accounts for only 1.4 per cent of global emissions, to commit to specific carbon cuts when no nation that matters -- China, India, the US -- will follow our lead. Better to wait at least for the Americans to legislate their emissions trading scheme before we do so.
The press warn that Turnbull's wait-for-the-world policy is playing with fire. The argument goes like this: with the Coalition opposing the climate change bills this month and probably in October when the legislation is likely to be tabled again, Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong could very well call a double dissolution and make the next election a referendum on the environment, widely perceived as a Coalition liability. Turnbull would be better off staring down the sceptics in the Coalition, neutralising climate change as an issue and giving unconditional bipartisan support to the government's ETS.
Nothing could be further from the truth. For a curious thing is happening on the way to the post-Kyoto UN global conference later this year: the legislation to implement a cap-and-trade system is likely to collapse not just in Canberra but in Washington, too. And the reason for the opposition among lawmakers is the same in both Australia and the US: that any serious action to reduce each nation's carbon footprint would be futile without the support of the developing, big polluting nations, most notably China and India, at Copenhagen in December.
Just last week, President Obama's Number Two special envoy for climate change, Jonathan Pershing, said the US may miss the December deadline for committing to reduce its emissions, making it impossible for US negotiators to set a target for any successor deal to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol in Copenhagen.
Pershing's pessimism is justified. The Waxman-Markey bill -- named after two leading Democrat experts on climate change -- proposes a cut by 17 per cent from 2005 levels by 2020 as well as a host of subsidies and special exemptions, including allocating 85 per cent of allowances to big polluters for free. The legislation has just passed a key congressional committee, and it will probably clear the House of Representatives during the (northern) summer.
But the bill faces a roadblock in the US Senate, where 60 votes are required to overcome a filibuster. Most of the 40 Republicans, as well as several Democrats from states that rely heavily on coal and whose energy costs would rise under an ETS, are likely to oppose.
This is important because, first, the US climate bill will probably be defeated just as a similar bill was last year; and second, it would then make no sense for Australia to rush in measures that would inflict collateral damage on our economy in terms of higher prices, lost jobs and lower competitiveness.
Turnbull's support for an ETS, remember, is conditional on not just the promise of developing nations to cut emissions, but also the passage of Waxman-Markey. (Ditto the governments of Canada and New Zealand.)
The Chinese government, meanwhile, expects developed nations not only to cut their emissions by at least 40 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020, but donate up to 1 per cent of annual GDP to help poorer nations cope with climate change. Those demands won't be met.
The point here is that different nations have different interests, and none is willing to make a serious cut without an equal commitment from others. At this point, if Australia adopted an ETS and our trading competitors do not, then our exports would cop a carbon cost not borne by our competitors. Rudd and Wong would then be hurting Australian industry and jobs, whereas Turnbull would be seen as saving both.
It is possible that the delegates at Copenhagen in December will mouth platitudes about visions and targets to cut back emissions. We witnessed such grandstanding at the Group of Eight summit in Tokyo a year ago when the world leaders pledged to cut global emissions by half by 2050. But why should any sane person take seriously the solemn promises by politicians to get something done so far into the future when none of those politicians will be in power, and most will be dead?
The developing nations insist that, since the advanced nations have warmed the planet for so long, they will make cuts to carbon emissions if the US, Europe, Australia and the rest agree to make the really drastic cuts.
But as politicians not just in Australia but increasingly in the US and other advanced nations point out, anything short of a genuine global accord on sweeping, mandatory and enforceable cutbacks on emissions is self-evidently futile. That is why the prospects for a post-Kyoto climate deal in Copenhagen are not looking too hot. And it is why Malcolm Turnbull is onto a political winner.
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