The Politics of Climate Action: Why the Middle Ground Feels Like Quicksand
I’ve been thinking a lot about Cathy Wilcox’s recent cartoon showing politicians stuck “down in the sensible centre” on climate policy, and the heated discussion it’s sparked online. The image perfectly captures something that’s been gnawing at me for months - this idea that somehow threading the needle between climate action and economic pragmatism is the mature, responsible position.
The thing is, I get it. I really do. Politics is messy, compromise is necessary, and bulldozing through unpopular policies is a great way to hand power back to people who’ll actively make things worse. But when I see Albanese approving new coal and gas projects while simultaneously talking about Australia’s renewable energy future, something doesn’t add up. It’s like watching someone put out a house fire with one hand while pouring petrol on it with the other.
The arguments in defence of this approach follow a familiar pattern. We can’t just shut everything down overnight - and they’re right, no one serious is asking for that. We need to keep the lights on in other countries - fair enough, though the idea that we’re the world’s benevolent energy supplier rather than just another resource exporter chasing profits feels a bit rich. We need to transition slowly to bring people along - absolutely, except the “transition” seems to involve opening up projects with approvals stretching to 2070.
What really gets to me is the economic argument that gets trotted out every time. Someone pointed out that if we don’t sell coal to China, they’ll just buy it from somewhere else, possibly with higher emissions. It’s the classic drug dealer’s defence - “if I don’t sell it to them, someone worse will.” But here’s the thing: as one of the world’s largest coal exporters, we’re not just meeting existing demand, we’re helping to keep prices low and making it harder for renewables to compete globally.
The other day I was walking through Federation Square, watching the solar panels on the nearby buildings catching the afternoon sun, and I thought about how this whole debate reflects something deeper about Australian politics. We’ve become really good at the theatre of climate action - the announcements, the targets, the green tech summits - while the substance remains frustratingly elusive.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those “they’re all the same” people. Labor’s renewable energy policies are clearly better than the Coalition’s “nuclear by 2040” fantasy. The Safeguard Mechanism is doing something, even if it’s not enough. But when your climate policy includes approving 30-plus new fossil fuel projects in your first term, you’ve got to wonder whether you’re managing a transition or just managing the optics.
The frustrating part is that polling consistently shows Australians support stronger climate action. Yet somehow we’ve convinced ourselves that doing what the science demands would be political suicide. Maybe the real problem isn’t that voters won’t accept climate action - maybe it’s that our political class has become so captured by fossil fuel interests that they can’t imagine governance without their approval.
I keep coming back to what one person in the discussion said about the difference between politics and theatre. Real politics means exercising power to make real change. But increasingly, it feels like we’re getting the theatre - the careful positioning, the triangulation, the endless search for that sweet spot in the “sensible centre” - while the real decisions get made in boardrooms we’ll never see.
Look, I’m not naive about the complexity of transitioning an economy built on digging stuff up and selling it overseas. But complexity isn’t an excuse for inaction, and pragmatism shouldn’t mean accepting defeat before you’ve even tried. The climate doesn’t care about our electoral cycles or our economic anxieties. Physics doesn’t negotiate.
Maybe what we need isn’t more sensible centrism, but some actual political courage. The kind that says we can retrain workers, we can diversify our economy, and we can be a renewable energy superpower without also being the world’s coal dealer. It’s possible - we just have to want it more than we want to avoid a difficult conversation.
The middle ground between action and inaction isn’t sensible - it’s just slow-motion surrender dressed up as pragmatism. And that’s not nearly good enough for the challenge we’re facing.