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The science is becoming more alarming by the month, and so are the impacts of global warming itself. The demand for decisive action can only intensify over the next three years; it will require far-sighted policies to bring about a wholesale transformation of the nation’s energy economy, a structural change on a par with that brought about by the dismantling of tariff protection. The Howard Government has been punished by the electorate for its climate scepticism. Yet the expectation that Labor will take resolute action can only intensify. Any government that fails to tackle Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions with sufficient vigour will be seen to be craven and guilty of sacrificing the national interest to the demands of the industries of the past.
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