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Once again, voters don’t want climate action but end up with a believer Prime Minister

The pattern continues. Do voters matter?  Obama hardly mentioned Climate Change in the 2012 election campaign, but climate zombie suddenly appeared in the victory speech. Major climate regulations get delayed til after elections. Days after the 2014 midterms, Obama announced “big deals” on climate change with China. We all know why he didn’t announce them before.

In Australia, Julia Gillard said there would be no carbon tax, barely won, and burned her political capital to bring in a carbon tax she didn’t need to bring in.

Tony Abbott won on a “blood promise” to get rid of the carbon tax, and yet here we are again with a PM who believes the whole kit and caboodle, and in 2009 he wanted to bring in a bigger more poisonous version of the carbon tax. Voters obviously don’t want carbon action anymore or Democrats and Labor parties would take it openly to elections. When they get the choice, like they did in Australia in 2013, voters vote to axe the tax.

If Turnbull signs us up to carbon trading in Paris, those 54 Liberal MPs and Senators who elected him will have totally sold out the voters. It’s up to the Liberal Party to constrain the member for Goldman Sachs. Global carbon markets could be worth $2 Trillion a year — bigger than coal, bigger than oil, the largest “commodity” traded. (Marvel — it’s not even a commodity.) Financial houses around the world have been salivating for a decade at the prospect of brokering deals on a new forced, fixed market made from thin air. It’s as if a whole giant currency might wink into existence.

Meanwhile, in the media, it’s all bread and circuses. While Big-oil gets painted as the monster controlling this debate, the largest vested interests in the room are a magnitude bigger, silent, and their entire market is 100% dependent on punters believing that we can change the weather, that carbon is pollution, and that “there is no debate”. It’s probably the largest market in human history based on bullying and namecalling. If people listen to the lepers, it’s all over. (Don’t let the deniers speak.)

Turnbull will poll well in the honeymoon, but many in the heart and soul of the Liberal Party feel betrayed. The most active and passionate supporters are angry beyond words — calling for a split or a new party. They’d rather lose the next election and get a real alternative than campaign to get Labor-lite.

 UPDATE: Turnbull has said “he is sticking with the Government’s policies on climate change.” Does that mean he will not allow carbon credits to be purchased from overseas? He needs to specifically rule that out (as Abbott did). It’s only a small step to “stick with the current target” of 26% by 2030 but allow companies to buy foreign carbon credits. Pretty soon we’re buying, selling and holding EU carbon credits and dependent on rulings made in Brussels over which we have no control. Money and control will flow out of the nation. Carbon markets feed bureaucracies, bankers and corruption.

Fake markets are not free markets.

 

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