In Australia's next federal election, I'll vote One, Zero, Zero — Greens 1, Labor 0, Coalition 0. This is the only way I can fulfil my voter duty, while recording protest at the failure of our major parties to offer real policies on the planet's climate crisis. I'm too old to get arrested in direct citizen protests against coalburning — the issue that counts most now.
If enough voters around Australia voted One, Zero, Zero, politicians would get the message. Because such a vote is legally informal, I don't advocate it in electorates where Greens candidates might actually win, as it would be wrong to waste these votes.
Unless Labor and the Greens unexpectedly pull off a compromise emissions trading scheme (ETS) or carbon tax system in the Senate in the next few weeks, Australia will go to the next election with no ETS laws passed. Rudd will blame opposition obstructionism, and fight the election on his preferred ground of health. He will downplay climate policy, while promising that a re-elected Labor government with Senate control would pass an ETS. Don't hold your breath — Labor's record doesn't inspire confidence.
Abbott will promise his brand of 'practical environmentalism': rural soil carbonisation gimmicks, climate voluntarism, no new taxes, no effective regulation of greenhouse emissions. As an avowed climate science denier, he is stroking concerned voters with empty promises.
Rudd's climate crisis denialism is more subtle. He claims to accept the science. But on every practical policy front, Labor betrays our hopes. It shelters coal export and power industries. Industry-scale infrastructure alternatives to carbon-burning are quietly kneecapped (in the case of renewables-based energy) or ideologically condemned (nuclear energy).
Australia white-anted effective international action at Copenhagen, with the 5 per cent ETS target, shameful even before it was corrupted by overseas 'green credits' and special deals for affected industries. There is no progress towards compulsory motor vehicle fuel consumption or emission standards.
Labor throws token conscience-salvers to concerned voters, with its subsidised home solar energy and insulation programs (from which any emissions savings would be swallowed up by a 5 per cent ETS law). Meanwhile we are told by government and industry leaders that Australia 'must' increase its population to 35 million, to take care of our elderly and provide labour for the resources boom.
Under these policies, Australian greenhouse emissions — already the highest in the world per