Book Review: Climate Politics and the Climate Movement in Australia (2013) (original) (raw)
Related papers
Between Conflation and Denial – The politics of climate expertise in Australia
Australian Journal of Political Science, 2018
Scientific warnings about impending climate disaster and experts' advocacy for more and better climate science have been largely unsuccessful for advancing evidence-based policy in Australia. Continuing expectations to the contrary stem from a reliance on the supposed ability of science to prime political understandings of climate change. This paper shows how scientists undermine this 'deficit model' ideal by conflating types and uses of evidence and expertise in policymaking. These tactics are unconvincing for conservative opponents, for whom climate science is far from the last word on what climate change means. This paper examines experts' rhetorical tactics through the eyes of conservative policymakers and, thereby, proposes a strategy more likely to effect resilient climate adaptation and mitigation policies in Australia.
2017
This is a thesis by publication comprising four published research papers and an overarching statement which examine the language and discourse of the climate change debate in Australia since 2007. Published over the period of my candidacy, the papers individually explore a range of questions about the broader underpinning drivers of a unique period of political disruption in Australia – the so-called ‘climate wars’. Thematically, this thesis considers how the scientific urgency and moral imperative for climate change policy action, so powerful in 2007, degenerated into a rancorous political wedge that provided the catalyst for the removal of three sitting prime ministers. The thesis addresses a number of pertinent questions. What is it about climate change as a scientific, environmental, economic, psychological, social, cultural and ethical and ideological phenomenon that offers insight into this remarkable period of Australian political history? What does the political narrative o...
In the lead up to the 2007 election, Kevin Rudd famously amplified the environmental political rhetoric on climate change by referring to it as “the great moral challenge of our generation”. However an examination of three key political speeches on implementing climate change policy, concludes that scant attention has been paid to the notion of the moral and ethical elements of the debate from either side of Australian politics. This paper examines the discursive dimensions of these speeches and considers the broader implications for the status of the climate change policy currently being played out in the Australian political arena.
Article title: Fighting the future: the politics of climate policy failure in Australia (2015-20
Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change , 2021
This Focus provides an overview of climate politics and policy under the Turnbull (2015-2018) and Morrison (2018-) conservative Coalition governments following the dismantling of carbon pricing in 2014. Without effective policies to reduce emissions in place, Australia will fail to meet its 2030 Paris emissions reduction target. Climate policy failure is framed in these terms. The paper outlines Australia's climate policy challenge and the macro-constraints upon action, before detailing commentary and analysis of climate politics and policies post 2015. In reviewing accounts of the Turnbull and Morrison government's climate policy efforts, the paper draws attention to the handbrake of conservative politics upon decisive action. It finds that Australia's climate policy is not only structurally constrained by its reliance upon fossil fuels, but has been politically constrained by conservatives within the Coalition government since 2015.
Cheating on climate change? Australia's challenge to global warming norms
Australian Journal of International Affairs, 2009
The international governance of climate change was initially informed by two norms concerning who should take responsibility for mitigating climate change and how such mitigation should be pursued.1 Since the early 1990s, these norms have been contested by several states. In this article the author argues that such contestation is a product of the perceived incongruence between these norms and the domestic conditions of those states they seek to govern. Following an overview of the emergence and contestation of climate governance norms, the author elaborates on this relationship between international norms and domestic conditions. These theoretical assumptions are then explored in the context of Australia's response to international climate governance norms from the late 1980s to 2007. As the author demonstrates, the perceived incongruence of these norms with domestic conditions led Australia's foreign policy makers to contest the norms and focus on the construction of alternative governance processes by reframing the issue of climate change. Through a diversion of attention away from historical emissions to future emissions and possible technological mitigation options, climate governance was temporarily reconciled with Australia's domestic conditions. However, the author suggests that this came at the expense of international equity and long-term national sustainability.