![Climate change leadership is in need of an inspiring coach.](/web/20161212214429im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/8/a/s/w/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gt88l0.png/1481373884263.jpg)
It's a given in sport that if you're not leading, you're losing. Can someone please get out the whiteboard and tell national climate change coach Malcolm Turnbull?
No cricket team ever won a slogfest without taking a risk, no gold medal can be claimed without acknowledging the rest of the world and no coach has held the premiership cup aloft having empowered the slowest guy in the back pocket to make the strategic moves.
Leadership matters, on and off field, and as we enter time-on in this most bizarre of political years is it too much to expect that our prime minister can start kicking goals by offering up a coaching philosophy he actually believes in?
Any sports mentor worth their sweaty cap will tell you that defining a coaching philosophy will ensure you stay on track and provide your team with an identity and a way forward. Inherent in this notion is that you actually have a philosophy.
Say what you like about Russia's Olympic doping program at the 2012 London Games, there's little doubt it reflects the game plan of a hard-arse coach such as Vladimir Putin.
In Canberra, the fringe players appear to be calling the shots, with the back pocket geniuses last week shutting down a big-picture discussion on an emission intensity scheme.
One can only presume that they accept we actually live on a big and fragile ball ourselves?
Of course, Turnbull has political realities to deal with, but he had the look of a losing coach looking for excuses when he explained the government's position at his own press conference last week. It was surely the most unconvincing performance since Paul Keating declared his life-long love for Collingwood.
(Kevin Rudd may have been an implausible Brisbane Lions fan, but at least his lunatic popularism was true to form).
What is real is the sporting truism known to any success-starved club board – a coach in fear of his job will make short-term decisions no matter the long-term pain inflicted on players and fans.
Sport, on a broader stage, is seen as a refuge from political debates and long may it be so. But as The Climate Institute has made clear – at least to those listening to the umpire – it is not immune to the ravages of climate change.
In 2015 the independent research body reported on how sport will have to adapt to climate change and it makes for grim reading. In future years, elite and community sport in Australia will be forced to invest in venues that can cope with ridiculous heat and more intense rainfall.
Tennis' Australian Open, the AFL pre-season competition and cycling's Tour Down Under are among the most obvious recent examples of how extreme heat has created risk for athletes. Ticket sales have fallen at events affected by baking summers, while the 2007 drought saw three-quarters of AFL leagues in metro and rural Victoria delay their season.
At an international level, snow sports will survive, but the Jamaican bobsled team may end up more competitive than we all thought. The Climate Institute says nine out of the 16 world cities that hosted the Winter Olympics in the 20th century could not again guarantee proper snow conditions by the end of the 21st century. At home, snow fall has been reduced by 33 per cent in the past decade, giving our winter athletes even less time to stay home when preparing for competition.
The Institute's chief executive John Connor says extreme weather events threaten the viability of many sport "either in the backyard, at local grounds, or in professional tournaments".
"Football, cricket, tennis, skiing and more are struggling to adapt to, or prepare for, the impacts of climate change," Connor said, adding: "Questions also grow about whether the way some of our sport is played, or watched, is safe or sustainable. Elite venues are improving resilience but local clubs and facilities, the lifeblood of Australian sport, are struggling."
So what of direct action?
"Kick it long down the guts to Snake" has long been the lifeblood of any winning strategy, so why not ignore the rest of the world and just plump for local heroes?
Here, apparently, is where the government's Green Clubs program comes in. It's been encouraging the Scrubland West reserves to seek bronze, silver or gold accreditation for changing the lightbulbs, not over-flushing the beer lines and putting their cans in the right recycling bin.
According to the Green Clubs guide on the AFL website, clubs can "build reputation and demonstrate leadership: through their commitment to the environment".
It's a coaching philosophy to be sure, but let's be honest, one best suited to the minor leagues.
In truth, the big time players like the PM should be heeding the advice of a real leader such as legendary Hawthorn coach John Kennedy in his inspirational, albeit losing, grand final speech of 1975.
"What a pathetic performance. Half the game over. We've been thrashed ... One thing is to be beaten, another thing is to be beaten the way you blokes have been beaten ... I wonder how many blokes are prepared to go totally with me and take the risk. It couldn't be worse than it is."
Ringing any bells here, Malcolm??
"DO!" Kennedy famously implored. "Don't think, don't hope. DO!
"At least you can come off and say, 'I did this, I shepherded, I played on. At least I did something for the sake of the side. Do. Act. Don't think, act. Eye on the ball.
"I'm game enough to tell you to do it. Are you game enough to back me up? Are you game enough, to back me up on that?"
Now that's a philosophy – for sport, for team or saving the planet.