Join today and you can easily save your favourite articles, join in the conversation and comment, plus select which news your want direct to your inbox.
Join today and you can easily save your favourite articles, join in the conversation and comment, plus select which news your want direct to your inbox.
The latest idea to curb greenhouse gases is a clean energy target, but what does that actually mean?
All too aware of the sceptical right-wing eyes burning a hole in his back, the Prime Minister had attempted to slow the policy process down, to gather the evidence and build the support within his party for a gentle, non-ideological return to remedial action on climate change.Â
Action that many within his party room do not believe is needed, and to which some remain implacably opposed.
Malcolm Turnbull is all too aware of the sceptical right-wing eyes burning a hole in his back. Photo: Supplied
That was the purpose of setting the Finkel review in motion - to find a middle way through a morass that has paralysed politics for a decade.
Navigating this dynamic is key to the oil-and-water mix of Coalition politics and green economics.
Advertisement
Ruled out for exclusively these reasons, was an emissions trading scheme - a so-called carbon tax according to the climate denialists and coal-apologists in the Coalition party room. Even a sector-specific emissions intensity scheme, became political kryptonite along the way.
The proposed answer, Alan Finkel's "Clean Energy Target" is an attempt to hit a sweet spot matching the scientific bare minimum action with the maximum level of carbon abatement attemptable before conservatives riot.
Chief Scientist Dr Alan Finkel at a Senate Estimates hearing at Parliament House. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
Key to Turnbull's success is the primary selling point of cheaper retail electricity. Turnbull is manoeuvring to undercut Abbott's ideological appeal in the party room by showing the Coalition can deliver both greener and cheaper electricity. But will the colleagues buy it?
Clearly, the PMÂ has a job of work ahead of him. Labor's conditional offer to end the climate wars will inevitably fuel right-wing suspicions that (a) the Coalition is surrendering a useful political attack line, and (b) it is being done through a carbon price by another name.