Fiddling while the bush burns
Scott Morrison would make a decent Nero. The Australian prime minister might not be quite fiddling while his country burns, but his refusal to discuss or even acknowledge climate change while many of his countrymen and women suffer through yet another devastating bushfire season is at best disingenuous and, at worst, negligent.
Morrison has declined to talk about the scientifically established links between the changing climate, droughts and the perennial fires. The National Party colleagues in Morrison’s federal National-Liberal coalition have gone further. Much further.
National leader Michael McCormack, Morrison’s deputy in the coalition government, has attacked those raising the link as ‘‘raving inner-city lunatics’’.
His attack was chiefly directed at
‘‘pure, enlightened and woke capital city greenies’’ such as MP Adam Bandt, but it is a slight on many others, including scientists, respected environmentalists and even firefighters. That includes former Fire and Rescue NSW commissioner Greg Mullins, who wrote that the bushfires were part of an ‘‘established long-term trend driven by a warming, drying climate’’. ‘‘The numbers don’t lie, and the science is clear,’’ he stated.
Perhaps Morrison and others believe an alluring tune played on an old fiddle is an adequate distraction from their own fiddling on climate change. Australia is one of the world’s worst per capita greenhouse gas polluters and is heavily reliant on coal, which provides 60 per cent of its energy needs and made A$62 billion in export earnings last year.
But Morrison’s government has pointedly turned its back on the Paris Agreement to cut emissions and is openly hostile towards not only legislation that might mitigate climate change but also the very science that explains it. The prime minister agreed with neighbours at the recent Pacific Islands Forum that limiting global warming to 1.5C was important, but officials later admitted there was no legislation in place or even planned for Australia to aid that cause.
The attitude of Australia’s government stands in stark contrast to our own. New Zealand faces nothing like the bushfires threatening Australians’ lives and property; many of the worst scenarios on this side of the Tasman are predicted to play out over coming decades.
Consequently, our politicians could be forgiven for hemming and hawing, for obfuscation and outright opposition. For playing a distracting tune on the fiddle. Instead they displayed unity in last week’s nearunanimous support for the Zero Carbon Bill.
No-one is expecting that to hold in the coming years, as this country struggles with the devilish detail needed to bring the zero-carbon goal to reality. But in the immediate future, more important than the how is the understanding about, and support for, the why.
Unlike their counterparts in Australia, our political leaders on both sides of the parliamentary benches believe that climate change is real, that it has grave consequences for all, and that combating it will involve a collective effort.
That’s worth the loss of the pavlova, the theft of Phar Lap and all the Russell Crowes and Keith Urbans who now call Australia home.
Unlike their counterparts in Australia, our political leaders on both sides ... believe that climate change is real, that it has grave consequences for all, and that combating it will involve a collective effort.