PM Battles To Shake Sceptic Tag

by Matt Price - Sunday Herald-Sun

After the first week of Parliament, the fundamental split between Labor and the Government on climate change is crystal clear.

Kevin Rudd's Opposition believes global warming to be a looming catastrophe requiring urgent, perhaps drastic, action.

John Howard does not.

There was a lot of talk and not much entertainment or illumination when Malcolm Turnbull debated Peter Garrett on the 7.30 Report.

But their generally polite chatter contained the seeds of the critical division confronting Australians at the next election.

"I think it's a very large challenge, I don't like using words like 'crisis'," was Turnbull's assessment of the looming consequences of global warming.

"It is a crisis," was Garrett's response.

For non-Nobel Prize winners, attempting to sort the science from the hype can be maddening. Which is why this clear cut division - crisis/no crisis - is helpful for Australians assessing what's on offer in election year.

Howard, we know, is a reluctant convert to climate change. For years a proud sceptic, it was only a few months ago the PM led Coalition ridiculing of Al Gore when the almost-President visited Australia to promote his popular documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.

Having suddenly turned sympathetic to the notion of human-induced global warming, the PM is battling to shake the sceptic tag.

Howard is plainly struggling to get his head around the politics and substance of climate change.

His botched response to a parliamentary question - which prompted an embarrassing clarification after Howard's insistence the jury was still out on whether global warming and carbon emission were connected ran on evening TV news bulletins - seemed less about faulty hearing than uncharacteristic confusion.

Normally supremely assured when broaching any subject, Howard tiptoes around climate change like a nervous first-time ice skater.

Which is why the PM is determined to switch the argument back to his favoured turf - the economy.

By week's end Howard and Turnbull were dismissing Labor as climate change zealots bent on destroying the economy and vaporising millions of jobs. It's an obvious strategy that presents Labor with a serious challenge.

If you accept global warming to be a "crisis", surely it's incumbent on Rudd and Garrett to announce suitably drastic policies to avert disaster.

There are several helpful suggestions in the marketplace: the Greens want to shut down the coal industry, a position supported by Australian of the Year, Prof Tim Flannery.

Labor won't go anywhere near abandoning the nation's chief export commodity, but beyond criticism of Howard there's been a hollow ring to the Opposition's rhetoric.

In Parliament, where debate on climate change dominated the week, Garrett raised the prospect of Bondi Beach disappearing and Rudd spoke of dengue fever spreading across Brisbane.

Grim stuff, indeed.

Yet when Garrett was asked about the costs of averting catastrophe, he stumbled badly.

"I don't expect to start answering hypotheticals about where burdens may or may not fall," he told Sky TV. "We don't really know what 'pay more' means."

If Labor can convince Australians climate change threatens our lives and livelihoods, there won't be much quibbling about expense.

Flannery adroitly compared the global warming threat with somebody facing a serious illness: "You don't ask, 'how much is it going to cost me to get a cure?' You ask, 'what are my chances of a cure and what do I do to make sure the cure happens?' "

Howard is taking a calculated risk talking down climate change.

If voters assess the problem is less challenge than crisis, they'll sensibly punish the Government at the polls.

Should history prove the doomsayers right, the PM's recalcitrance will permanently blacken his legacy.

But it's disingenuous to warn of horrendous consequences while pretending to be capable of painlessly averting impending doom.

Garrett and Rudd need to be upfront with Australians about the sacrifices required to curb the climate crisis.

Our lives could depend on it.