The Labor government was elected on a platform of integrity and real action on climate. Weve been duped.

The 2024 State of the Climate Report published on 8 October by a distinguished group of scientists warns, We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster. This is a global emergency beyond any doubt. The government knows that fossil fuels are the major drivers of climate and related ecological breakdown, and what we need to do to stop it. Yet it continues to approve new and expanded fossil fuel projects.

A political calculus and neoliberal logic guide the governments climate policies and decisions, resulting in short-term thinking, snake-oil remedies such as dodgy carbon offsets and carbon sea-dumping, and the lie that we can adapt to climate catastrophe.

By kowtowing to lobbyists who inhabit the corridors of political power, our leaders are indulging in a giant confidence trick that will result in planetary disaster unless they quickly change course.

The Australia Institutes Polly Hemming, Rod Campbell and Sumithri Venketasubramanian wrote in a co-authored paper State-sponsored Greenwash, there are no credible policies or regulatory measures to address rising emissions by industry in Australia. The fossil fuel industry and major emitters have set Australias policy agenda on climate.

Weve all witnessed the recent catastrophic floods in Europe, Africa and Asia, hurricanes in the U.S., and wildfires in Portugal. The government knows what needs to be done to avoid the worst impacts of climate change: decarbonise, reduce emissions, and phase out fossil fuels without delay. But instead of phasing them out, it is approving their expansion.

To make matters worse, rather than applying the polluter-pays principle, the taxpayer is footing the bill for the environmental, ecological and social damage that the fossil fuel industry causes. Taxpayers are subsidising the climate crisis. According to The Australia Institute, in the 2022/23 financial year, the industry received taxpayer largesse of $11.1 billion; funds which could otherwise have been directed to reduce emissions.

Although climate change is the major threat to biodiversity, Tanya Plibersek denounces the Greens as extreme and blocking progress for their attempts to insert a climate trigger in environment legislation. A trigger would require the climate impacts of projects with significant carbon emissions to be considered. Meanwhile, the government favours unproven technology such as carbon capture and storage, and solutions such as dumping carbon dioxide into extra-territorial waters. What could possibly go wrong?

The governments signature climate policy, the Safeguard Mechanism (more accurately called the Safeguard the Fossil Fuel Industry Mechanism) allows Australias biggest polluters to buy unlimited, dodgy carbon credits instead of actually reducing the carbon they are dumping into the atmosphere. Carbon credits are distracting delusions, not real solutions to the climate crisis.

These strategies to avoid real decarbonisation are bad enough, but the governments newly-minted Future Gas Strategy undoes its positive efforts to reduce emissions by increasing the use of renewables. The Strategy envisages that gas will remain an important source of energy through to 2050 and beyond. It maps out a plan for how gas will support our economys transition to net zero in partnership with the world. A fossil fuel that is a massive climate problem will help the world decarbonise. Black is white.

As for those climate extremists such as the Greens, the governments response is to whip out the drug-dealers defence: if we dont supply it, another country will. Our gas exports will help poorer nations reduce their emissions by replacing coal with gas. Bring out the violins.

Australia must make a swift transition away from fossil fuels and stop approving new gas projects. We do not need more gas for our energy transition. Even the International Energy Agency, which has long been a fan of fossil fuels, has declared that there is no need for investment in new fossil fuel supply. The IEAs position is that renewables and energy efficiency are the means to net zero, not a coal-to-gas transition.

There is no gas shortage in Australia. Gas production in Australia has tripled since 2010. Most of it is exported, along with the multinationals profits. The export of gas has pushed up prices paid by domestic consumers because we pay world market prices. The government collects very little revenue from the industry; instead it subsidises it. We are being ripped off by the gas industry.

As leading climate scientist, Joelle Gergis, has argued, committing to real zero, not net zero, is the only sane option. This can only happen when we stop burning fossil fuels. We are disastrously off-track to decarbonise our world. We cant rely on adaptation to climate change. It wont be possible in some parts of Australia.

Why is the government Janus-faced on climate action, supporting investment in renewables while approving the expansion of the gas industry? An answer can be found in the power of the fossil fuel lobby. In her 2024 Quarterly Essay Highway to Hell: Climate Change and the Fossil Fuel Lobby, Gergis recounts a dispiriting meeting with an unnamed senator, a newcomer to politics. He confided terrifying accounts of how the fossil fuel industry has a stranglehold on our federal government: bearing witness to the passage of legislation to appease lobbyists to parliamentarians indignantly arguing a case against the governments duty of care to provide future generations with a safe climate; and to the disgraceful behaviour of self-serving political animals undermining the national interest.

Im guessing the senator was David Pocock. His private members Climate Change Amendment (Duty of Care and Intergenerational Equity) Bill 2023 imposes a statutory duty on decision-makers not to make a decision that could harm the climate if it poses a material risk of harm to the health and wellbeing of current and future children. The Bill was referred to a Senate Committee where it was rejected by the Labor and Coalition members. Pocock and the Greens dissented.

Instead of addressing the climate crisis and protecting current and future generations, the government and opposition are acting to protect the fossil fuel industry and worsen the climate crisis. So much for integrity and real action on climate.