Scott Morrison looks for wriggle room on climate as he detects the whiff of backlash

Extract from The Guardian

Scott Morrison

Sarah Martin

The prime minister is clearly under pressure as the bushfire crisis lays bare the consequences of a warmer planet

Sun 12 Jan 2020 17.27 AEDT Last modified on Sun 12 Jan 2020 17.39 AEDT

Scott Morrison’s hint that he will ‘go further’ on emission reductions might be meaningful – or it might prove to be deliberately duplicitous. Photograph: Marc Tewksbury/AAP

It’s too early to say whether the prime minister, Scott Morrison, is speaking with a forked tongue when he says the government will “evolve” its climate change policy.
What appeared on Sunday to be a shift in rhetoric on the government’s emission reduction targets may be meaningful – or it may yet prove to be deliberately duplicitous.
Morrison is clearly under pressure on the government’s unambitious climate change policy, an issue that may have remained conceptual for some if not for the horror bushfire crisis that has laid bare the consequences of a warmer planet.

For months, the prime minister has refused to yield on calls for more ambitious action, saying the government was doing enough and would “meet and beat” its Paris target of reducing emissions by 26% to 28% of 2005 levels by 2030.
But as the cries for action have become louder – including from a group of former fire chiefs who have clearly linked the fire crisis to the effects of climate change in Australia – Morrison is detecting the whiff of backlash.
Despite his ill-judged family holiday to Hawaii, and what was arguably a tardy national response to the fires, Morrison is not politically naive.
He knows that the political pressure over climate change is only becoming more intense, and will be most profoundly felt in inner-city seats held by moderate Liberals, particularly in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
Like a verbal Rorschach test, Morrison’s media appearances on Sunday were open to interpretation, but designed to give the government wriggle room.
A conservative Queenslander who works in a coal seat? Morrison wants you to hear the message that he won’t be changing course.
But a moderate Liberal in Victoria? Morrison’s message for you is he plans to “go further” on emissions reduction.
Morrison’s allegiance to the party’s centre-right faction has given him more rhetorical flexibility in his response to climate change than conservative MPs ever allowed his predecessor, Malcolm Turnbull.
But conservatives will become suspicious – and unruly – if the man they believe to be one of their own actually wants to back up this latest change in rhetoric with action or substantial policy change.
On the other flank of the party, there is an emerging view – from a clutch of at least a dozen MPs – that climate anxiety can no longer be ignored. These MPs will be demanding more.
Moderates are hoping that Sunday’s rhetorical shift is the first sign of a pivot – that of a pragmatic prime minister attempting to turn around the Queen Mary.
But conservatives will be hoping that Morrison is all talk, no action.

Morrison has been attempting to paper over the cracks within his partyroom by insisting that there is “no dispute” within the coalition that climate change is linked to the bushfire crisis, despite abundant evidence to the contrary.
It was no accident that Morrison told his MPs last week in a phone hook-up to shut their collective trap on climate change policy until after the fires abated.
Climate change policy has dogged the conservative side of politics for more than a decade, and there is no reason to expect that Morrison will be left off the hook.
But he is not Tony Abbott, and nor is he Malcolm Turnbull; he carries none of the ideological baggage of his predecessors. This could prove a great strength for Morrison as he seeks to navigate a new policy path through such politically dangerous territory.
Shifting course is, as the prime minister said on Sunday, “a challenging task”.

But it’s now clear that the status quo is untenable.