The climate movement in Australia
Climate Politics and the Climate Movement in Australia
Verity Burgmann and Hans Baer
2012
Melbourne University Press
$49.99
ISBN: 9780522861334
Also available an e-book (downloadable PDF files) or a d-book (print-on-demand).
Review by Cam Walker
Anyone who watches, or is involved in, the debate around climate change will know it is often a murky and messy landscape. There are lobbyists, companies both good and bad, green groups big and small, think tanks, sceptics, commentators and governments all in the mix.
Even though I live and breathe climate change politics, I am often daunted by the sheer numbers of groups and people who are involved, and the complexities of how we all interact and where the points of leverage are. Action on climate change is one of those conflict points in the 'culture wars' within Australian society (with the sceptics and 'believers' lining up roughly along conservative and progressive lines), with the additional confusion that comes from having so many well resourced vested interests who represent industry influencing media and public debate.
So, when a book like Climate Politics comes along, anyone with an interest in climate politics should dive in, to get a good sense of how it all works.
Of course, any book will be, to a degree, a reflection of the authors politics and world view, and this is certainly the case with Verity Burgmann and Hans Baer, two left-wing academics from Melbourne University. It is Melbourne-heavy and tilted towards progressive views, but it provides a deeply impressive perspective on the movement and the issues at play.
Verity and Hans start with a quick run down of climate change and what science tells us is coming, and the fact that global and domestic political responses have been both too slow and of insufficient scale to deal with Nicholas Stern's 'wicked problem'. They quickly dismiss the possibility of a greener 'business as usual' delivering a solution, and focus in on the possibilities presented by the rising climate justice movement (CJM).
The CJM was certainly an obscure and marginal branch of the climate movement for a long time. I know this from the bitter experience of a decade's work trying to interest governments, aid groups and environmental NGOs about the plight of climate refugees – people who are displaced by global warming.
But with the failure of the international climate negotiations at Copenhagen in 2009, the movements from the global South (especially Africa, Latin America and the small island nations) burst onto the political stage, calling for stronger action than the voluntary accords which were on offer. More radical groups from the 'North' – and even those who were moderate but starting to give up hope for international action – found common cause with the grassroots activists from the South, and climate politics entered a new phase. 'Climate Justice' became a force to be reckoned with.
Here in Australia, there had been a brief moment of hope when the Howard government was dislodged from power, with new PM Kevin Rudd promising action. As this faded in the endless negotiations over what type of an emissions trading scheme (ETS) we would get, yet another wave of activism emerged, driven by the sheer desperation of the impending climate crisis that was bearing down on us. Climate Code Red, co-authored by Philip Sutton and David Spratt and initially published in 2008, helped launch this new sensibility. The need for action at emergency speed drove the creation of hundreds of new groups and the creation of the climate emergency movement. The rise of the climate action groups, national climate summits, and direct action camps followed.
Bookending this emerging movement was a new wave of corporate lobbyists, the fact that the Greens got balance of power in the Senate and were able to drive the ALP further on climate action than would have otherwise happened, and new 'opinion formers' like the think tank Climate Institute Australia.
Hans and Verity do an admirable job of sketching out the various players in this landscape and, significantly, places each of them in the jigsaw of the larger picture. With a nice bit of historical context and blow-by-blow assessment of the glacial pace of action under the Rudd and Gillard governments, key actors are introduced: the Greens, the big environmental NGOs, academics, trade unions, and then the grassroots movement. They give voice to many in the grassroots who are often missing from history books while, as they admit, other voices are absent, largely through the limitations of space.
The newest emerging issues in climate politics are both throw backs to earlier decades and new models of organising. The struggle against the massive gas hub planned for north western WA brings together indigenous, biodiversity and climate concerns and bears strong similarities to the anti uranium struggles of the 1970s and '80s. The Lock the Gate (LtG) movement, which galvanises (in the words of LtG president Drew Hutton) 'Cockies, blockies and greenies' – graziers, rural poor and environmentalists – is arguably something new, building on a narrative of care for country, of values, of land, water and connection to place, and the right of communities to create their destiny instead of corporations. LtG is filling some of the political space taken by right-wing populists like Pauline Hanson, and is a fascinating development in community politics in Australia. Sadly both these movements get the barest look in Climate Politics.
Another strength of the book is its serious coverage of the absolute grassroots – including the sustained direct actions against the coal and CSG industries.
Apart from being a good bit of 'people's history', the final section of the book looks at approaches to change. The authors make it clear they are not fans of market-based mechanisms such as carbon trading and offsetting (and highlight the 'secondary injustices' that often flow from such schemes as we outsource our responsibility for climate action).
They sketch out some of the approaches to change that have been widely adopted. I sometimes find myself despondent when activists tell me that we don't have 'time for justice' when framing our response to climate change because of the urgency of the threat. There is certainly a politics of despair that underpins some sections of the movement, and the charge that many of us are too 'sunny' in our messaging is something that must be considered carefully. But when key figures, such as writer George Monbiot, embrace nuclear power as a solution to decarbonising our energy systems, or corporates can see big profits in attempts to geo-engineer the atmosphere, our alarm bells must start ringing.
It is my firm belief that unless we place justice at the core of our response, the world we create through responding to climate change will not be worth living in. Yet current debate often doesn't really consider the deeper questions: can we have growth based economic systems and still respond to global warming at sufficient scale? Will pragmatic and incremental responses such as the carbon tax be able to be ramped up, or should they be abandoned in favour of more systemic and radical approaches?
At present, the greener 'business as usual' and the ecological modernisation approaches are dominant assumptions that act as the basis for much of the day-to-day activity within the climate movement. Critiques of growth models and conversations about the risk of over-reliance on technological adaptation rather than cultural and political transformation bubble away largely at the fringes of debate. The authors argue that 'globalising capitalism' as a solution will simply increase inequality and 'fry' the planet. I have to agree with them when they argue that we should not let the necessary technological transformation become the tail that wags the dog. They say that with climate chaos looming, political transformation is no longer optional − survival depends on renouncing the global status quo and creating an ecologically balanced way of life. They briefly posit the idea of democratic eco-socialism as a world view we should strive for.
Climate Politics is an insightful and thorough coverage of Australia's climate movement; more strength to its arm.
To read chapter synopses and to download chapter one for free, see mup.com.au/page/168. The chapters are as follows: The Politics of Survival, Climate Change in Australia; The Public and the Politicians; the Political Effects of the Greenhouse Effect 1980-2007; Carbon Pollution Reduction and Carbon Pricing: the Rudd and Gillard Governments; Corporations and the State; The Australian Greens; ENGOs and Think-Tanks; Academics; The Union Movement; Constructing the Climate Movement; The Hard Work of Climate Movement Organisation; Demos and Direct Action; and Towards a Safe Climate and Climate Justice
Cam Walker is campaigns co-ordinator with Friends of the Earth in Melbourne.
This review was originally published in Dissent magazine, Summer 2012/13. dissentmagazine.org