Nation-building narrative

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Climate change politics in Australia has been dened by incendiary rhetoric and increasing public

disillusionment. Debate has been slipping into the partisan arena o the culture wars. Social

democrats can learn rom the Australian experience, which underlines the need to move away rom

cosmopolitan ethics and towards muscular nation-building. Climate change action requires broad

coalitions o support and an acknowledgement that reorm will be costly.

In 2007, staking his claim to become prime minister o Australia, Kevin Rudd amously described

climate change as the greatest moral, economic and social challenge o our time. Climate change

was, or Rudd, one o his dening concerns as opposition leader. I the Labor Party were elected, it

would ratiy the Kyoto Protocol and introduce an emissions trading scheme (ETS). A Rudd Labor

Government wouldnt be waiting or the rest o the world to act on climate change; it would ensure

Australia was leading it.

Some three years later, Rudd is indeed Australian prime minister. His governments rst ormal act was

to ratiy the Kyoto Protocol. Yet Rudds attempts to introduce an ETS have thus ar ailed. Once a sure

vote-winner or Rudd and Labor, climate change has now become something o an electoral yoke.

The public mood has shited. Bipartisan support or an ETS has disappeared, with the replacement

o ormer Howard environment minister Malcolm Turnbull as the leader o the Liberal-National

opposition. The new leader, Tony Abbott, a well-known climate sceptic, has gained considerable

political traction by dismissing an ETS as just a great big new tax. The Rudd Government, once so

sure-ooted on climate change matters, is now reluctant to ght the next general election on the

issue.

Australia may, on the ace o things, appear an atypical case study or social democrats seeking to

recapture the political initiative on climate change. Ater all, the ortunes o the Australian economy

are tied to ossil uels: primary commodities including coal and natural gas account or the bulk o

merchandise export income. During the last decade Chinese demand or raw materials has uelled

a resources boom that will continue or decades and whose windall is expected to be the largest o

its kind ever.

Moreover, the climate change debate in Australia has had something o an exceptionalist character.

For it has been arguably subsumed into the so-called culture wars that have raged in Australia in

recent years. Although a majority o Australians believe in anthropogenic climate change, some o

the language o climate change scepticism has been expressed in the amiliar cadences o right-

wing populism. With echoes o previous debates about the Australian republic, multiculturalism

and Aboriginal reconciliation, the scientists who compose the body o the IPCC are portrayed as

pernicious, rent-seeking elites attempting to capture the state. The so-called climategate

incident involving leaked emails rom the University o East Anglias Climatic Research Unit, and

the controversy surrounding the IPCCs ndings about the melting o ice glaciers, have only lent

credence to accusations o elite scientic conspiracy.

Yet one shouldnt dismiss the Australian experience on account o its peculiarities. In various ways,

it reveals a good deal about the underlying challenges or progressives elsewhere. On the one hand,

Australias vulnerability is a reminder o the truly grave threat global warming poses to biodiversityand ecosystems. The Great Barrier Ree, or example, has experienced unprecedented bleaching

over the last twenty years. Rising temperatures could mean that the kind o restorms that enguled

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2 | Nation-building narratives and climate politics | David Hetherington and Tim Soutphommasane | April 2010 www.policy-network.net

Climate change: the challenge or the Australian social democracy


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1. Hartcher, P. (2009) To the Bitter End:The Dramatic Story Behind the Fall oJohn Howard and the Rise o KevinRudd. Allen & Unwin.

2. Hanson, F. (2008) Australia and theWorld: Public Opinion and ForeignPolicy. The Lowy Institute Poll 2008.

3. Hanson, F. (2009) Australia and theWorld: Public Opinion and ForeignPolicy. The Lowy Institute Poll 2009.

Victoria that Black Saturday o 7 February 2009 will become more common. On the other hand, the

political journey o the Rudd Government highlights the pitalls o climate change reorm. For all o

Rudds belie in the urgency o climate change action, he has ailed thus ar to score a decisive reorm

victory. This is because his Government hasnt yet convinced voters that structural reorm demands

hard choices, nor has it oered a compelling political narrative about climate change action.

In this paper, we outline three lessons progressives can draw rom Australias climate change debate:

(1) that the task o structural reorm necessarily incurs high costs; (2) that the case or climate change

action is more persuasive when supported by a nation-building story; and (3) that the politics o

climate change require progressives to build broad coalitions o support.

The cost of reform

It was not that long ago that a resounding majority o Australians supported an ETS. Many observers

would say that popular desire or action on climate change helped contribute to Labors election

victory in 2007;1 polls conducted around the time showed that a clear majority o Australian voters

regarded climate change as a serious and pressing problem to be addressed, even i it should incur

signicant costs.2 And yet, today, majority support or the proposition has disappeared. 3 Why has

public support in avour o climate change action proven so ragile?

The answer lies in the limited nature o the Rudd Governments policy response. Though the arguments

in avour o action were outlined in existential terms climate change is a threat to the planet and we

must act or the sake o uture generations the proposed reorm oered such generous concessions

to aected parties that its core objectives became compromised. The stated emissions reduction

target o 5 per cent was widely considered to be too low and electricity generators were oered

compensation that eectively oset the impact o carbon pricing.

This let the Rudd Government open to attack on two ronts rom the Greens and the ar let or not

doing enough, and rom conservatives or imposing a set o costs that would make little dierence

anyway. So began the Australian publics spiral into climate change disillusionment.

In placing the weight o emphasis on the

moral, intergenerational equity arguments

or climate change action, and in oering

such large concessions to carbon polluters,

the Rudd Government let the impression it was reluctant to embrace the ull costs o mitigation.

This isnt to deny that the Government ailed to spell out these costs ministers did so repeatedly

over two years leading up to Copenhagen. However, they didnt explain eectively the pace o

transormation, the distribution o costs, and the value o the benets o reorm. The dominant

tone o the Governments approach was to suggest that genuine reorm could be achieved without

incurring signicant costs.

One reason or this may be that over the last decade, Australian governments have repeatedly

promised the public that nobody will be worse o under major reorms: the Howard Government

used this rerain to sell both its goods and services tax and its WorkChoices industrial reorms.

Moreover, the Rudd Government could be orgiven or believing it had made its case well: opinion

polls were avourable, most o the key interest groups supportive o its ETS and the oppositionremained shambolic.

www.policy-network.net3 | Nation-building narratives and climate politics | David Hetherington and Tim Soutphommasane | April 2010

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It is a damaging conventional wisdom to believegenuine reorm can be costless


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4. Garnaut, R. (2008) The Garnaut

Climate Change Review. Cambridge

University Press. See www.

garnautreview.org.au

5. Sullivan, D. (2008), Distributional

Eects o an Australian Emissions

Trading Scheme on Low-Income

Households, Brotherhood o St

Laurence

But it is a damaging conventional wisdom to believe genuine reorm can be costless. Reorm on this

scale requires deep oundations, among the public and key sectional interests alike. It is now clear

that the case or climate change mitigation through an ETS was something the Rudd Government

didnt explain careully enough.

Ultimately the climate change predicament boils down to a question o costs the costs o action

versus the costs o inaction.

First, consider the costs o inaction the consequences o accepting anthropogenic climate change.

The Stern Review concludes that a do-nothing business-as-usual approach to climate change would

reduce social welare by the equivalent o a 5-20 per cent cut in global per capita consumption,

and that the best estimate is likely to be in the upper part o the range. Australias Garnaut Report

nds that unmitigated climate change will cause domestic real wages to be 12 per cent lower by

the end o the century than they would otherwise have been.4 Yet such economic imposts dont

capture the whole impact. When one considers actors such as insurance value, adverse health

impacts, displacement o peoples and the destruction o biodiversity, the costs o inaction are clearly

catastrophic.

The costs o mitigation are easier to quantiy. Both the Stern and Garnaut Reviews have modeled

the costs o stabilising atmospheric CO2 at 550 parts per million. Stern concludes that the global

costs would equate to one per cent o world GDP, while Garnaut nds that a reasonable Australian

contribution to this global outcome would involve an initial cost o 0.8 per cent o national GDP in

year one, with ongoing costs o 0.1 per cent o GDP p.a. thereater until 2050.

On the costs o action, there are three points to make.

First, they are signicant. I we are to have a genuine debate about how to move orward, we must

acknowledge that mitigation costs are real and large. Using the Garnaut Review gures, mitigation

against climate change would cost Australia A$12-13b p.a. at the outset, alling to A$1-2b each year

until mid-century. By contrast, the Federal Government currently spends A$43b p.a. on health and

A$18b p.a. on education.

Second, the costs wont be evenly distributed. They will all disproportionately on two groups:

workers in trade-exposed, emissions-intensive industries (TEEIIs) and low-income households.

Jobs will be lost in the coal, steel and aluminium industries. This will particularly hurt regional

communities dependent on these industries - the Hunter Valley in New South Wales, the Bowen

Basin in Queensland and Victorian smelter towns.

In addition, any rise in the cost o living as a result o mitigation will be magnied by at least our

times or lower-income households relative to wealthy ones. According to one study, in a low-income

household, expenditure on living costs will rise by 2.3 per cent under a $25 carbon price while in a

high-income household, this increase is only 0.4 per cent.5

However and this is the third point any costs o migitation are much lower than the best estimates

o the costs o business-as-usual. It is orecast that mitigation will cost around 1 per cent o world

GDP, while Sterns most optimistic estimate o the cost o doing nothing is 5 per cent o world GDP,

stretching to 20 per cent in the worst case. And this is beore we begin to count species, reugeesand human lives.


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6. Archer, M & Beale, B. (2004) GoingNative: Living in the Australian Envi-ronment. Hachette.

www.policy-network.net5| Nation-building narratives and climate politics | David Hetherington and Tim Soutphommasane | April 2010

I one accepts that man-made climate change is a reality, and not ction, the equation is a no-brainer.

Even i one is unsure, it appears a airly prudent insurance policy.

So why havent politicians around the world been able to make these short-term sacrices in order to

avoid enormous long-term damage? Arguably, they have ailed to build public support or accepting

the short-term, albeit signicant, costs o mitigation. The Australian experience mirrors political

reality around the world. So where do we go rom here?

A nation-building narrative

It should be clear that resorting to the moral case or action isnt enough. Rather, any compelling

argument or climate change mitigation must be integrated into a national story and reormist

agenda. The ailure o Copenhagen to a large extent reecting an unwillingness o the large

polluting countries to subordinate short-term national interest to global responsibility has only

underlined the need or progressives to rerame climate debates in more nationally-ocused terms.

There are grave problems with resting the climate change argument on appeals to cosmopolitan

ethics.

Some social democrats may decry this as a orm o nationalistic retreat. Yet there are clear limits to

what appeals to global solidarity can achieve. It does little good to build castles in the air. For the

most part, the prose o democratic politics remains that o national interest. Reorm agendas, where

they are successully pursued by governments, are based on broad public support. Progressives cant

aord to rest their case on cosmopolitan poetry.

In the case o Australia, building broad public support or climate change around a national story isnt

necessarily straightorward.

Part o the problem relates to the

relationship between the environment and

Australian sel-understanding. Australians

oten express their patriotism in terms o a love o the physical aspects o their country, not least its

remarkable landscape. At the same time, the national imagination has always regarded the physical

environment as something to conquer: the Australian nation was built by elling trees, cultivating land,

damming rivers, and laying roads and railways through mountains and across deserts.6 Australians

have historically made their living rom the land and treat the environment as an economic resource

to be exploited much more than an endowment to be protected.

Social democrats are aced as well with the challenge o overcoming increasing social ragmentation.

Historically speaking, the broad let in Australia has stood relatively unied on environmental

questions. The working-class let and middle-class inner-city proessionals have enjoyed aligned

interests.

Such unity has been broken as it becomes apparent that the costs o climate change adjustment all

disproportionately on low-wage industrial workers. Sections o the union movement have either

resisted the introduction o an ETS, or withheld their ull-blooded support, on the grounds that it

would cost Australian jobs.

Meanwhile, sections o the green movement in Australia have also hardened their political stance on

the environment, perhaps sensing an opportunity to build the Australian Greens into a third orce

It does little good to build castles in the air... progressivescant aord to rest their case on cosmopolitan poetry


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that could rival the Labor Party as the leading let-o-centre electoral grouping. The upshot, though,

has been to make a political coalition more difcult to realise. It is notable that the Australian Greens

reused to endorse the Rudd governments ETS scheme, claiming that it didnt go ar enough in its

goals o reducing carbon emissions.

Fragmentation is compounded by the transormation o parts o the old working-class into an

aspirational lower-middle class concentrated in the outer metropolitan suburbs. 7 It is within this

particular segment o Australian society the aspirational mortgage belt that oers the most

resistance to climate change adjustment. Incidentally, it is also this group that the ormer Howard

government courted to great electoral success in its prosecution o the culture wars.

In this sense, the challenge or Australian social democrats on climate change has an undeniable

cultural character. I progressives here are to articulate a more convincing agenda or climate change

action, they must tap into a positive national story with which ordinary Australians can engage.8

The ailure o Copenhagen underlines the need or social democrats to rerame climate debates in

more nationally-ocused terms. Governments now make no pretence that national interest grounds

are the only basis on which they can act domestically to reduce emissions. It is telling that both

American and Chinese leaders have outlined the specic national interests at stake: Hu Jintao has

identied the economic opportunities or China in building leadership in low-carbon technology,

as well as the grave health and social costs o inaction; Barack Obama has ramed his domestic

arguments in terms o US energy security.

In Australia, where the language o jobs has long ruled the political vernacular, any persuasive

Australian narrative must necessarily be a nation-building one. This should involve, rst o all, a more

integrated approach to climate change. It is important to ensure that carbon pricing isnt regarded

as the panacea, but to recognise any carbon mitigation programme must also encompass calibrated

action in inrastructure, skills and training, employment generation, and regional development. The

preoccupation with the ETS has meant that climate change mitigation has not been positioned

as a long-term national project

o economic, social and

environmental importance.

A nation-building approach

would reverse some o the current conventional wisdom about the adjustment process namely,

the belie that any rst mover in making the transormation to a low-carbon economy will incur an

unjustiably large cost in terms o economic growth, employment and living standards. I Australia

is one o the countries who move rst in reducing their carbon emissions, it will, the argument goes,

lose out through carbon leakage as investment ows to those countries unburdened by stringent

emissions targets. There is also the risk that a sacrice in relative living standards would end up being

made or little gain, i other countries eectively ree-ride on unilateral action.

There is in act a rst mover advantage or Australia in acting sooner rather than later. In comparative

terms, Australia is already behind: consider, or instance, Germanys eorts in developing biomass

energy, Denmarks initiatives with wind power, or Caliornian and Israeli eorts with solar and electric

cars.

7. Burchell, D. (2003) Western Horizon:

Sydneys Heartland and the Future o

Australian Politics. Scribe Books.

8. Soutphommasane, T. (2009)

Reclaiming Patriotism: Nation-Building

or Australian Progressives. Cambridge

University Press.


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The language o jobs has long ruled the political vernacular...anyAustralian narrative must necessarily be a nation-building one


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9. Flannery, T. (2008) Now or Never: A

Sustainable Future or Australia. Quar-

terly Essay Vol. 31. Black Inc.


policynetworkessayIt is also important to emphasise the social justice imperative to climate change mitigation. We need

to take steps towards ensuring there is not a wave o economic exclusion that arrives when the world

eventually shits to a less carbon-intensive economy.

Instead o having to retrain redundant workers to make them t or a new economy, the transitional

work should begin today. There are signicant economic opportunities or Australia in a transition

away rom coal. While unproven at scale, clean coal is a theoretical option and Australia is better

placed than anyone to test its economic potential. The same holds or carbon sequestration. Natural

gas is abundant, less-carbon intensive than coal, and should orm a higher share o the energy load

over time. Geothermal hot rocks energy has potential, although like natural gas, it is situated ar

rom demand sources.9 Nuclear energy is also an option that should be debated, even i it currently

aces widespread opposition in Australia.

These economic opportunities are the positive ipside o climate change mitigation or Australia.

Embracing a more muscular vision o nation-building and social justice would help Australian

progressives to rerame the climate change debate.

Coalition building

Progress on climate change policy in Australia now depends on a new approach to coalition building

underpinned by a positive, pragmatic argument about the benets o reorm. Relying on the moral

urgency o climate change mitigation has proven not to be enough.

The task is challenging, but we neednt despair. Australian social democrats have a track record o

using unorthodox coalitions as a mechanism or delivering major structural reorm and it is here

that the antipodean experience may prove to be most salutary or other centre-let parties around

the world.

The economic and trade liberalisations under the Hawke/Keating governments were made possible

by a series o Accords between government, unions and business which tied real wage growth to

productivity improvements, breaking the back o wage-push ination. This required both business

and unions to make short-term sacrices or the long-term economic prosperity.

In the same vein, a new coalition is required today to deliver the support o key interest groups or a

universal carbon price. Brokered by government, this coalition would bring together leaders rom the

union, business, and community sectors including, critically, mining and agricultural interests. Such

a coalition could provide the necessary institutional backing as well as the grass-roots campaigning

capacity required to cement public support. It would negotiate adjustment unds payable to

displaced workers, aected companies and low-income households.

The outlines o these arrangements have already been sketched in the Garnaut Review. A coalition

o sorts emerged last year encompassing unions, community and climate change groups but

crucially, business representation was missing. So Australia has come close on both policy content

and institutional support. The challenge now or Australian social democracy is to lead a decisive

consensus in the ace o erce conservative opposition.

Whether such a coalition can be achieved might just reect the capacity o social democratic politicsmore generally. The work o building such bridges is surely difcult, especially when politics is

becoming increasingly polarised by ongoing culture wars. This, at least, should be the lesson rom


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policy

networkpaper

8 | Citizenship: tool or reward? | Elena Jurado | February 2008 www.policy-network.net

Barack Obamas healthcare reorm eorts. In an age when class-based politics have lost a great

deal o their power, building eective coalitions may prove to be beyond the reach o social

democrats, even in Australia where the labourist tradition remains unusually strong.

We should be heartened by the act that progressive politics can still prevail, as it did in the US

healthcare debate. Social democrats must continue to be bold and optimistic. This is no time to be

indulging what the distinguished historian Tony Judt calls a social democracy o ear, resigned to

conserving past gains.10 This is no time, indeed, to be entertaining despair and deeat.

Policy Network

10. Judt, T. (2009) What is living andwhat is dead in social democracy,New York Review o Books, Vol. 56, No.20 (December 17, 2009).

www.policy-network.net

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8 | Nation-building narratives and climate politics | David Hetherington and Tim Soutphommasane | April 2010

David Hetherington is the ounding executive director o Per Capita, a progressive Australian think tank (www.percapita.org.au). He previously worked at IPPR and L.E.K. Consulting. His articles have appeared in the Australian,the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Financial Review and the Sunday Age, and he is a regular commentatoron ABC Radio National.

Tim Soutphommasane is senior project leader at Per Capita, a research ellow at the National Centre or AustralianStudies at Monash University, and a columnist with the Weekend Australian. He is author o Reclaiming Patriotism:Nation-Building or Australian Progressives (Cambridge University Press, 2009).

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Nation-building narrative