Robert Glasser on Australia’s Turn to Climate Action

In the last few years, the costs and impacts of climate change have become unavoidably clear to Australians. In the summer of 2019-2020, the country saw one of its worst bushfire seasons and in 2021-2022 devastating flooding filled headlines. In an editorial endorsing the Labor Party’s bid for government earlier this year, The Age wrote that “a change of government is needed to begin restoring integrity to federal politics and ... face up to the challenge of climate change.”

Sure enough, Australia’s federal election in May 2022 saw the incumbent Liberal/National Coalition – then led by Prime Minister Scott Morrison – fail to secure a fourth consecutive term. Instead, for the first time since 2007 the Labor Party, led by Anthony Albanese, achieved a majority government. Across Australia, voters swung away from the Liberal Party’s coalition, switching their votes to Labor or “teal independents” for whom climate change is a critical issue.

Months later, the Labor government has maneuvered Australia toward becoming a more responsible global power when it comes to climate change. The road ahead isn't easy, particularly given Australia’s significant coal industry. But, as Dr. Robert Glasser explains in the interview below, Labor has positioned itself well politically to pursue an ambitious climate agenda.

Glasser, head of the  Climate and Security Policy Centre at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, spoke to The Diplomat’s Cathrine Putz about the role of climate change in Australia’s modern politics.

What impact did the issue of climate change have in the Australian Federal election in May?

Climate change had an enormous impact in the Australian Federal election. Indeed, it was called the “climate election” by many. Labor campaigned on a platform of more ambitious climate action, and it was a major factor in the swing against Scott Morrison’s conservative coalition.

After coming to power, what has the Liberal Party said – and more importantly what has it done – regarding climate change?

The changes in rhetoric and action on climate change since Labor’s election victory have been striking. The government has enshrined a more ambitious climate target – reducing greenhouse gases by 43 percent by 2030 – in legislation. It has produced the nation’s first climate and security risk assessment and initiated a process across government to develop a major strategy to strengthen national resilience to climate impacts.

Among Penny Wong’s first acts as the new Australian foreign minister was to visit the Pacific region to emphasize the government’s commitment to stronger climate action, including aid program support to help Pacific Island neighbors adapt to climate impacts.

Scott Morrison was hesitant to attend [the 2021] climate negotiations in Glasgow. The Albanese government is seeking for Australia to host the 2026 climate change Conference of the Parties (COP).

Some of Australia’s major economic sectors are intimately tied to the fossil fuel industry, such as coal mining. How has this influenced the discussion of climate change and mitigation strategies in the country?

In the previous national election, the governing Liberal/National coalition was returned to power in large part due to strong support in coal-producing regions, and a major anti-labor advertising campaign from Clive Palmer and others with significant financial interests in coal. This electoral base of support for coal quashed any attempts for ambitious climate action during the Morrison government’s tenure in office.

The Labor Party avoided the same fate in the most recent election by emphasizing the economic opportunities for these regions in the energy transition to renewables and by promising to create more than 600,000 new jobs and boost private investment in these regions. As a consequence, Labor is now politically well-positioned for more ambitious climate action, as described above.

In the summer of 2019-2020, Australia saw one of its most devastating bushfire seasons, and in 2021-2022, Queensland witnessed dramatic flooding. Analysts link worsening natural disasters – from fires to floods – to the broader impacts of climate change. How have such disasters in Australia affected the domestic conversation around climate change?

Sixty percent of Australians were directly affected by the 2019-2020 “Black Summer” fires and their cascading impacts. The more recent record flooding has affected broad swaths of the country, too.

Climate change is supercharging these events on an unprecedented scale, meaning fires and floods that have always happened to some extent cause significantly more harm than ever before. Increasingly these disasters are becoming national in scale, overwhelming the capacities of local, state, and territory governments. In addition, the “downtime” in between these events is shrinking rapidly, undermining community resilience. Over 50 of Queensland’s 77 local governments recently experienced three or more disasters in three years – for many it was five or six disasters.

As a consequence of these consecutive record-setting calamities affecting Australians, it is becoming increasingly impossible for governments to deny that climate change is happening or to delay climate action, in the expectation that the public, with its short attention span, will rapidly shift the focus to other issues.

When it comes to international efforts to address climate change, Australia has, over the last decade, been a low-key player. What kinds of commitments have Australian governments made, globally, regarding climate change?

Until relatively recently, international observers of Australia’s climate efforts have described the country as a “climate laggard.” The MIT Green Future Index, for example, which ranks countries based on their carbon emissions, energy transition, green society, and clean innovation, placed Australia 52nd of 76 countries in 2022, down from 35th the previous year.

Nevertheless, the Morrison government did provide significant aid funding to countries in our region, particularly in the Pacific, for climate adaptation, with the Albanese government now significantly scaling up this funding. Climate change is likely to feature prominently in Australia’s new development cooperation policy that is currently under development.

How has Australian action (or inaction, as the case may be) regarding climate change affected its relations with the wider Pacific?

Pacific Island states view climate change as their primary security threat. They welcome Australian aid funding for adaptation and Australian humanitarian support in disasters.  Nevertheless, they were highly critical of the Morrison government for its weak domestic climate mitigation targets, its occasional rhetoric of climate denialism, and for its failure to advocate internationally for more ambitious reductions of greenhouse gases. The Albanese government’s early climate actions and diplomacy have significantly strengthened Australia’s partnerships in the region.