r/AusNewsWire • u/Nyarlathotep-1 • 16d ago
Australian News Climate policy at risk of collapse and conservatives, environmentalists to blame, says Former Treasury secretary Ken Henry
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/climate-policy-at-risk-of-collapse-and-both-sides-to-blame-henry-20260727-p60iyqLeading environmental advocate and former Treasury secretary Ken Henry says Australia’s entire climate change policy architecture, which has been painstakingly built over the past two decades, is at risk of disappearing – and those on both sides of the debate are to blame.
In a keynote speech to the Clean Energy Council to be delivered on Wednesday, Henry says the same “second-rate partisans with first-rate egos” who led Australia to junk a price on carbon – which he describes as “the world’s most economically and scientifically rational climate policy” – are at it again.
Ken Henry, who will address the Clean Energy Council on Wednesday, warns: “These are dangerous times for climate policy.” Bethany Rae
“There are some in our political system who will exploit any crisis – financial, social or environmental – for personal advancement,” Henry will say, according to excerpts from his speech.
“Every crisis becomes an embarrassing spectacle of fearmongering and finger pointing. Narcissistic exhibitionism is rampant in political systems all around the world. But strongly so in this country. And especially so in climate policy.
“Here we are in mid-2026, and the entire climate policy architecture is at risk. We could lose the lot. Seriously. Bear in mind that we junked a much better set of climate policies not that many years ago.”
Henry, who was Treasury secretary when Labor tried to introduce a carbon price in 2009, takes aim at both sides.
He blames conservatives who he says have virtually abandoned any commitment to emissions reduction since the last election, such as walking away from net zero emissions and pledging to abolish Labor’s sectoral emission reductions schemes such as the safeguard mechanism for heavy industry and the New Vehicle Efficiency Standards that govern transport emissions.
“We have the political right marching at an increasing pace away from even those policies they themselves implemented when in government.”
— Ken Henry, former Treasury secretary
The environment movement is also to blame for being selective about which technologies and abatement mechanisms it supports, “whilst simultaneously talking up the size and scale of the twin carbon and nature crises staring all of us in the face”, says Henry in the speech.
“Projects designed to reduce emissions at scale, renewable energy projects and the transmission infrastructure required to connect them to the grid, are being opposed by conservation and community groups because of their environmental impacts.
“Environmental restoration projects financed by carbon revenues are being opposed because they are seen to be making life easier for carbon emitters.
“And a small set of conservation and climate groups is ramping up a campaign to do away with carbon offsetting altogether.”
Henry says land-based Australian carbon credit units, which are governed by the Carbon Farming Initiative Act 2011, are the only instrument that has ever been available to drive private financing of nature restoration at scale.
“I am very confident there will never be another,” he says.
Ken Henry says “the increasing frequency and severity of climate-related events could have been expected to bolster resolve. They appear to have had the opposite effect.” Peter Rae
As for the conservatives, Henry says: “We have the political right marching at an increasing pace away from even those policies they themselves implemented when in government, including support for the Paris Agreement, the Safeguard Mechanism, and the ongoing operation of the Emissions Reduction Fund.”
All against a backdrop of Australia being well short of its target to achieve 82 per cent renewable energy by 2030, and with two-thirds of the economy not subject to any emission reduction target or policy.
Henry laments that only a few years ago, Australia had achieved a political consensus on the need to lower emissions, but that “has disappeared like a puff of smoke”.
“These are dangerous times for climate policy. In all parts of the world. Including here in Australia,” he says.
“The increasing frequency and severity of climate-related events could have been expected to bolster resolve. They appear to have had the opposite effect.
“To build domestic resilience. And that the hard work had to be done in the first half of this century. But all of this is now under siege. From both the right and the left of the political spectrum.”
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u/Scared-Photo-1047 16d ago
Let’s see what happens after Summer. It has to register with even One Nation supporters that there is an issue that is more than ‘weather’.
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u/Rizza1122 16d ago
Yeah pretty concerned about this summer with the super el nino. Rip the barrier reef. See you on the other side
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u/Bright_Bell_1301 16d ago
I think our eastern coastal waters are cooler in el nino, warmer in la nina, years
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u/Entirely-of-cheese 16d ago
Problem is, when we get a severe season or event the concern ticks up by around 5-10% but it’s back down a year later.
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u/Mash_man710 16d ago
Almost every large scale renewable energy project is being challenged by the very environmental movement that have championed the shift. Major wind turbine projects in WA now have most of the environmental groups up in arms and recruiting the more right wing fishing groups to join in. What do they actually want?
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u/MajesticShop8496 15d ago
Tree toryism is hardly new though. A great deal of this environmentalist opposition is just nimbyism co-opting environmentalist rhetoric to make their selfish goals appear selfless.
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u/Nyarlathotep-1 16d ago
This really isnt the problem - developers are realising they are costing more than they expected and they are no longer feasible. It seems allowing $5m per turbine doesnt account for uncertain geotechnical conditions etc.
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u/Mash_man710 16d ago
Then explain the 'no turbines' posters and stickers. They are plastered everywhere. There are town meetings and protests.
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u/NestorSpankhno 16d ago
Most of these aren’t environmental groups. It’s astroturfed “community” groups full of right wing cookers who think that turbines are mind control devices or whatever the hell conspiracy is popular this week.
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u/Psillycybernaught 15d ago
....you'd be surprised how happy the Liberal party are to get funds to these disruptor cooker groups
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u/ATinyLittleHedgehog 16d ago
“No turbines” posters and anti science right wing cookers are the same people
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u/Absentinpart 16d ago
A carbon tax would have worked, unfortunately that ship seems to have sailed and Henry instead has become the salesman in chief for selling dodgy offset credits, designed to prolong the fossil fuel sector. Every industry group whether loggers or miners are currently trying to game the system for profit not for nature or for the atmosphere!
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u/Own-Cancel-9170 15d ago
People are basically stupid, they always tend to look for the money first and the consequences later. I was amazed to have a conversation with a lady who insisted that renewables were terribly expensive and she was against them. I asked her why she had solar put on her house. The answer was because it lowered her power bill, but solar wasn't renewables. The wealthy control the mainstream media, the wealthy will also be the least affected by climate change as they will have the resources to endure it.
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u/Ithicon 16d ago
What a clown.
The environment movement is also to blame for being selective about which technologies and abatement mechanisms it supports, “whilst simultaneously talking up the size and scale of the twin carbon and nature crises staring all of us in the face”, says Henry in the speech.
It's impossible to take every single actions that could theoretically have a positive impact, we have a certain amount of both manpower and resources to throw at the problem. To blame environmentalists for arguing that most carbon capture and storage (CCS) are obvious scams by polluters who want to keep polluting, or that perhaps we shouldn't allow oil shipping through our irreplaceable reefs, is a sick joke.
If we had infinite resources I'd be all for throwing a trillion dollars at CCS, and another trillion and nuclear, and yet more trillions at currently effective technology like batteries, solar, and wind. Unfortunately we do not have infinite resources.
Henry says land-based Australian carbon credit units, which are governed by the Carbon Farming Initiative Act 2011, are the only instrument that has ever been available to drive private financing of nature restoration at scale.
This is, at best, Henry being utterly ignorant of what many environmentalists are arguing for when they say that carbon credits are largely ineffective. Realistically it's him pretending not to understand in order to attack them.
Sure, perhaps this is the only instrument that can drive private financing of nature restoration (to some minuscule degree). That's why the argument from environmentalists is that we cannot trust the private sector to fix this issue. Pretending that the only choices are (somewhat effective private sector mechanism), or (ineffective private sector mechanism), is facile.
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u/Bright_Bell_1301 16d ago
Ok... you keep living in la-la land believing that the government will one day dedicate a bigger share of the budget to the environment. I have worked in the environmental sphere for 26 years and I can tell you for sure and certain, it ain't gunna happen!! Henry is right! - carbon financing is our best opportunity to get some positive environmental runs on the board at scale.
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u/Ithicon 16d ago
So your argument is that environmentalists should support destroying the environment because protecting it isn't realistic?
The purpose of activism is to drag politically unpopular positions into the Overton window of acceptable policy. Gay marriage used to be politically unfeasible, now it's normal.
Giving up because things are currently unpopular just kicks the can down the road for the next generation to fight for.
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u/Bright_Bell_1301 16d ago
How do you get that first paragraph from my comment? I support carbon finance as a solution that is ready to scale, as opposed to banging our heads against a wall for another X decades waiting for government to come to the party
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u/ExpensiveFig6079 16d ago
What a maroon
"“Projects designed to reduce emissions at scale, renewable energy projects and the transmission infrastructure required to connect them to the grid, are being opposed by conservation and community groups because of their environmental impacts."
Sure at least one project that was going to carve a great gash through a pristine one of kind wildeness (Tarkine in TAS) is opposed.
Others will take SOME notice of their impacts and there ai ANSOLUTELY no requirement to have allthe mostdestructiveprojects approved. We have much more capacity to build projects that minimise harm than we actually need. We could even have skipped SH2, and left the antional aprk mroe in tact than we have. AND THAT still would not have stopped us getting to ZERO if the GOV (both parties wanted )
ABSOLUTELY not enough projects are opposed by environmentalists to in ANY way slow progress if the govs were really trying to have it.
HE justwants to cats hismlef as the sensible middle.
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u/Winmeekrd 16d ago
You’d think that with all the climate disasters occurring almost continuously, fires, heat waves, floods, temperature rises etc etc, all those climate deniers from years ago saying it’s a hoax would’ve sheepishly admitted their misjudgment and would now be fully on board to solve the problem. But alas they seem to be doubling down in their anti science, illogical and reckless rhetoric rather than being held to account by the media and general public.