In this election, one critical issue stands above all others

In this campaign we face a bewildering array of problems needing attention: the punishing cost of homes, the appalling treatment of people in aged care, the high cost of childcare, the neglect of every level of our education system, the continuing destruction of our natural environment and the pressure on our hospitals, not to mention the cost of living.

But there’s one problem that’s the most threatening to life, livelihood and lifestyle, the most certain to get a lot worse, the most imminent and the most urgent.

It’s not the cost of living, nor the risk of war with the Solomons (I joke), nor even the dubious behaviour of Scott Morrison and his ministers and their refusal to establish a genuine anti-corruption commission.

I’ll give you a clue: as I write, my fifth grandchild is on the way. I find it hard to believe anyone could be so self-centred and short-sighted as to think any problem could be more important or more pressing than action to limit climate change.

But the pressing need to discover whether the contending pollies have memorised a list of facts and figures has left little time for debating such minor matters as which side has the better policy on global warming.

And, whatever I may think, it’s clear most voters don’t rate climate change that highly. Recent polling by the Australian National University’s Centre for Social Research and Method shows voters rank reducing the cost of living most highly (65 per cent), followed by fixing the aged care system (60 per cent), strengthening the economy (54 per cent), reducing health care costs (53.5 per cent) and – at last – “dealing with global climate change” (just under 53 per cent).

But I’m pleased to say – and you may be surprised to hear – that the nation’s economists are in no doubt on what matters most. Three-quarters of the 50 top economists surveyed by the Economic Society of Australia nominated “climate and the environment” as the most important issue for the election.

Professor John Quiggin, of the University of Queensland, says the key message from the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is that “if the world acts now, we can avoid the worst outcomes of climate change without any significant effect on standards of living”.

But the report said it’s “now or never” to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees. Action means cutting emissions from the use of fossil fuels rapidly and hard. “Global emissions must peak within three years to have any chance of keeping warming below 1.5 degrees,” he says.

If you wanted to pick the worst continent to live on as the climate changes, it would be Australia, according to Quiggin. We are a “poster child” for what the rest of the world will be dealing with. Not that we care.

The economic costs of the transition to renewable energy would be marginal, he says. “The required investment in clean energy would be around 2.5 per cent of gross domestic product. That’s far less than the cost of allowing global heating to continue, with costs further offset by clean energy’s zero fuel costs and lower operating costs.”

Voters complain there’s no real difference between the parties, but on climate change we’re being offered the full menu of varying strengths. Climate Analytics, a non-profit research group founded by Bill Hare, has assessed three parties’ policies, plus Zali Steggall’s climate bill, which the teal independents are supporting.

The Liberals have supported zero net emissions by 2050, but refused to increase their commitment to reduce emissions 26 or 28 per cent by 2030. This is judged to be consistent with global warming of 3 degrees, bordering on 4 degrees.

Labor’s target is emission reduction of 43 per cent by 2030. Its plan is supported by the Business Council of Australia. This is judged to be consistent with global warming of 2 degrees, which would be “very likely to destroy the Great Barrier Reef”.

Steggall’s climate bill has a target of 60 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030, which is close to, but within, the upper boundary of modelled 1.5 degrees pathways for Australia. A higher target would give a higher probability of meeting the 1.5 limit.

The Greens’ target of a 74 per cent reduction by 2030 is judged consistent with limiting warming to 1.5 degrees. Some parts of the Barrier Reef would survive. Globally, the most extreme heat events could be nearly twice as frequent as in recent decades. In Australia, an intense heat event that might have occurred once a decade in recent times could occur every five years and would be noticeably hotter. Phew.

If you’ll forgive a little colourful characterisation, the choice ranges from the Liberals’ “let’s just say we’ll do something, so we don’t offend Barnaby and his generous donors” to Labor’s “let’s do a lot more than the Libs, but go easy on coal and coalminers” to the Greens’ “let’s not muck about”.

And the many Liberal voters in the party’s leafy heartland who really do care about climate change now have a way to make their views felt.

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Morrison's deal: Nationals rewarded for agreeing to harm the regions

Let me be sure I’ve got this right. Scott Morrison is ending his Coalition’s deep divisions over climate change by agreeing to pay billions in regional boondoggles in return for the Nationals refusing to lift their veto of any increase in Australia’s commitment to reduce emissions by 2030.

The usual way blackmail works is that the blackmailer returns to you something you really value in return for you paying the blackmailer an arm and a leg.

But the way Morrison’s deal with Barnaby Joyce and the Nationals will work is that Morrison – or rather, the taxpayer – spends billions on projects of doubtful value in return for the Nats’ agreeing to nothing more than symbolism: to reduce carbon emissions to net zero by 2050, which will be after all the signatories are dead and gone.

The first point is that agreeing to net zero emissions in 29 years’ time is a decoy and a fig leaf if that’s all you do. To make it real you have to make a commitment you can be held to: a much bigger progress payment in the next nine years to 2030.

That, of course, is what the Glasgow conference is about. The major countries agreed on net zero months ago (as have all our premiers and many of our business and industry groups). That’s just the price of admission to the room.

What you do in the room is proudly announce the big increase in your commitment over what you promised at the Paris meeting in 2016. Those few leaders unwilling to commit to a significant increase will be pilloried as “free-riders” (aka bludgers) on the other countries – and rightly so. You’re a brave man, Scott.

But the second point is more important: all of us will be worse off if Australia’s selfish delinquency damages the global effort to limit the extent of global warming, but the biggest losers will be the small businesses and voters the Nats’ claim to represent – the regions.

The regions will be the biggest losers because, of all the industries, agriculture will be the hardest hit by continuing global warming. Farmers’ loss of freedom to keep clearing land will the least of their worries.

But the regions lose also because we don’t get on with expanding our renewable energy industries – most of which happens in the regions – and lose any “first-mover advantage” in establishing the new generation of manufacturing industries processing hydrogen, clean steel, clean aluminium, and even clean cement using all-renewable electricity. This, too, will happen in the regions.

That is, we don’t get on with generating the new, well-paid and skilled jobs for mine and gas workers to move on to as the rest of the world stops buying our coal and gas.

The amazingly perverse nature of Morrison’s deal with the Nationals – we pay them for refusing to allow us to get on with protecting ourselves against the world’s turn away from fossil fuels – has been brought to our attention in a study by Matt Saunders and Dr Richard Denniss, of the Australia Institute, All Pain No Gain, released today.

They argue that whatever the final cost of the deal turns out to be – no doubt a lot more than its announced cost – it will be far exceeded by the cost to the economy of us not acting earlier to reduce emissions.

To put it the other way, modelling commissioned from Deloitte Access Economics by the Business Council of Australia finds there would be significant benefits to the economy if we lifted our target to reducing our emissions by 46 per cent by 2030.

Comparing this with other modelling by Deloitte, the authors calculate that the additional benefits over the next 50 years would have a “net present value” (the value in today’s dollars of all the incomings and outgoings over the next 50 years) of more than $210 billion.

Now, I never take modelling results too literally, but the Business Council’s argument does make sense. The higher target leads to increased investment in renewables, which increases growth and jobs, as well as greatly reducing the cost of electricity (because, once you’ve built the plant, the cost of extra solar and wind energy is negligible).

Morrison’s excuse for not increasing the 2030 target is that, without the coming new technology, this would force choices and cost jobs. But he’s got that the wrong way round.

As the Business Council (and the Grattan Institute before it) have explained, forcing the pace in industries where the technology is already well-developed – electricity and electric vehicles – leaves more time for the technology to be developed in other industries.

With friends like the chancers of the National Party, the regions need Morrison to see more sense.

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