Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s decision in 2021 to commit Australia to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 — the “net zero” policy repudiated by the Coalition four years later — was driven in part by his determination to get access to US and British nuclear-submarine technology.
An account of the last Coalition government by veteran journalist Paul Kelly reveals British Prime Minister Boris Johnson applied intense pressure on Mr Morrison to adopt the climate policy despite deep opposition from Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce.
The Biden Administration, which was spending some $US400 billion ($577 billion) on climate subsidies, wanted other Western countries to follow.
Even though Mr Morrison thought coordinated global action on climate change would be “pointless” without the participation of China, he went along with the policy, knowing it would help him negotiate the AUKUS agreement, under which Australia will initially buy second-hand US nuclear submarines, then co-build nuclear subs with the British and Americans.
“Having got there, I thought it would help Kurt (Campbell, a senior US diplomat) and that it would help Boris,” he said.
The revelations in The Twilight of Exceptionalism provide new insights into a crucial decision by the last Coalition government, and a policy some conservatives believe eventually contributed to the rise of One Nation.
While pushed by left-wing Liberals, including the current shadow treasurer Tim Wilson, to adopt the policy, it had no discernible effect on Liberal Party support at the 2022 election, which the Labor Party won easily. Mr Morrison received little or no credit for the AUKUS submarine agreement, which will create the world’s seventh nuclear submarine fleet and strengthen cooperation between Australian and US military forces.
Not believers
Neither of the two men publicly accountable for the net zero policy, Mr Morrison and Mr Joyce, believed at the time it would stop global warming.
“I had been initially shocked when US climate envoy John Kerry said America could reduce its emissions to zero, but if China didn’t act it would be pointless,” Mr Morrison said in an interview for the book. “In the international forums I attended, people were so focused on the politics they didn’t see the practical.”
At the time China was responsible for about one third of global emissions of Greenhouse gases, making it the largest emitter, and more than the US and the European Union combined. Since then, its emissions have risen about 4 per cent.
Australian emissions have fallen 1 to 3 per cent depending on how they are measured under policies that subsidise wind and solar power, encourage the purchase of electric cars, and impose a type of carbon price on the biggest emitters.
In 2021, Mr Joyce voted against the net zero policy at a meeting of Nationals MPs a week before Mr Morrison planned to announce it at a United Nations climate conference in Glasgow, 2021, according to the book.
A small majority of Nationals MPs agreed after Mr Joyce negotiated funding for rail lines, dams, pipelines, port upgrades, highways, roads, irrigation and other projects from Port Hedland to Bundaberg. “I think by the end I’d got about $32 billion worth of stuff,” Mr Joyce told Kelly. “It was amazing.”
Kelly writes in the book he was unable to verify the $32 billion figure, but Budget documents listed an extra $21 billion for country areas.
Last year Mr Joyce defected to One Nation, which describes man-made global warming theory as a “hoax”. In an interview for the book, he admitted supporting a policy he disagreed with to preserve the Government’s unity.
“I don’t support net zero and people have always known that,” he said. “But I have had to say so in many public forums because it is a cabinet decision. I’ll be proven correct on this point. Net zero is going to fall apart. Outside this crazy Parliament House boarding school only one thing matters: cost of living.”
Last November the Liberal Party abandoned the net zero policy, bringing it into line with the National Party, which briefly terminated the Coalition over climate policy. The decision was seen as an attempt to stem the loss of voters to One Nation.
Some Coalition-turned-One Nation voters have told researchers they changed votes because the Liberal Party had become too similar to the Labor Party.
Mr Morrison said he agreed with the decision, citing political pressures in 2021, including from the US Government.
“I don’t think anyone believes this target is going to be reached at 2050,” he told Kelly.
A poll published in Monday’s Nine papers estimated support for One Nation at 26 per cent, for the Coalition at 23 per cent and the Labor Party at 28 per cent. A poll a month earlier from the same polling firm, Resolve Strategic, put One Nation at 29 per cent, the Coalition at 20 per cent and Labor at 28 per cent, suggesting the Coalition may have won back lost supporters.
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson lost her lead as preferred prime minister to Anthony Albanese, dropping from 33 per cent to 25 per cent while the real prime minister’s support rose to 33 per cent from 29 per cent, according to Resolve.
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