In an ideal world, combining the federal environment portfolio with the federal energy portfolio, as Malcolm Turnbull has just done in his Cabinet reshuffle, would make perfect sense.
But in today’s political context, which sees big mining companies pour mega donations into the two big parties, it’s a troubling move, especially as the responsibility for the merged ministry falls to Josh Frydenberg.
Minister Frydenberg is a well-known coal supporter who has argued for nuclear power from his first speech in the Parliament.
Alarmingly, Frydenberg’s appointment could signal Malcolm Turnbull’s support for nuclear is growing since he left uranium mining, processing and storage ‘on the table’ late last year, even though nuclear power is a dangerous, expensive and slow-off-the-ground distraction from job-rich renewable energy.
As Resources Minister, Frydenberg pushed ahead with a proposed nuclear waste dump in South Australia that stands to financially benefit a landholder who happens to be a retired Liberal politician, despite opposition from Traditional Owners.
Championed by Andrew Bolt as ‘Mr Coal’, the former Resources Minister believes there is a “moral case” for the Adani mega-coal mine.
He argues that the coal mine will lift people in India out of energy poverty, ignoring the fact that four out of five people without electricity in India are not connected to an electricity grid so can't access coal-fired power.
The solution to energy poverty in India is localised renewable energy. Unlike coal, clean energy doesn’t cause millions of premature deaths every year through air pollution a year or pollute local water supplies.
Given Minister Frydenberg’s track record, his approach to his role as Environment and Energy Minister threatens to be very different from what is required to save our Great Barrier Reef and safeguard our very way of life from global warming.
To give the Reef a chance and to protect our Pacific neighbours from sea-level rise, the title really should be Minister for the Environment and for Clean Energy.
We need an ambitious, rapid transition to clean energy that embraces storage technology for reliability, provides assistance to communities affected by the end of fossil fuels, and helps workers with training to benefit from this job-rich 21st century industry.
Malcolm Turnbull’s Cabinet re-shuffle gives no indication that his government is up for the task of leading this necessary national transition from dirty to clean energy.
Mr Turnbull has announced the largest Cabinet team in 40 years but despite the size and the breadth of issues covered in his colleagues’ titles, climate change has been completely ignored.
Climate change is the biggest economic challenge we face and a stand-alone Minister and Department would provide a serious advantage in meeting it.
Instead climate change has been completely forgotten and environment has been relegated to a part-time role for a known coal-loving, nuclear fan.
No wonder the fossil fuel lobby is happy.
Shortly after Minister Frydenberg’s appointment was announced, The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association put out a glowing media release.
The Qld Resources Council executive Michael Roche said the sector had "won the trifecta", in energy and environment and with Matt Canavan, who questions climate science while cheering on coal, taking over from Frydenberg as Resources Minister.
Some environment groups carefully expressed qualified hope that the merger of environment and energy could assist in the economic transition we so desperately need toward clean energy.
I’d love nothing more than for that to be true. However, the environment movement’s caution is well warranted, given the control fossil fuel companies exert over both the old parties.
As political donations are not disclosed in real time, we’ll have to wait for at least half a year to find out which big mining companies have donated with the aim of holding on to the polluting status quo.
From the looks of Malcolm Turnbull’s Cabinet reshuffle though, the dirty donations continue to be more than enough to keep the Prime Minister forgetting about the once-genuine concern he seemed to have for future generations surviving global warming.
Queensland Senator Larissa Waters is the Australian Greens Deputy Leader and climate change spokesperson.
