Five years after declaring that the argument behind climate science was "absolute crap" – and four months after proudly repealing Labor's carbon tax – Tony Abbott this week stated that strong and binding emissions reductions targets must be set at next year's climate conference in Paris. And he warned that the world could not afford another disappointment like the Copenhagen summit in 2009. That statement, which followed a meeting with French President Francois Hollande, raised conjecture that Mr Abbott was – if not the throes of a Damascene conversion – then subtly shifting his position from leaner in chief of the developed world to willing, even enthusiastic lifter. "Targets have to be met," Mr Abbott warned, "and when it comes to Kyoto, Australia more than met its reduction targets, and that can't be said of other countries."
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When Mr Abbott gave his blunt assessment of climate change, he qualified it by saying "however, the politics of this are tough for us". They have been especially tough of late. In a speech in Brisbane last week, US President Barack Obama declared that no other country had more at stake when it came to thinking about and acting on climate change than Australia. "The incredible natural glory of the Great Barrier Reef is threatened," he said, adding that he wanted it protected so that he could visit the reef again, and later generations could come and see it. Shortly after the G20 summit ended, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper appeared to abandon his opposition to making a contribution to the United Nations' Green Climate Fund – a position shared with Mr Abbott. To add insult to injury, a group of senior British Conservative politicians (including Minister for Energy Greg Barker) suggested late this week that Mr Abbott's position on climate change was "baffling" and a betrayal not just of the fundamental tenets of political conservatism but of the beliefs of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher – who Mr Abbott identifies as a political guiding light and who in 1988 became one of the first global leaders to identify climate change as a threat.
Mr Abbott's growing international isolation on this crucial environmental matter has not deterred his cheer squad at home, however. Media commentators rebuked Mr Obama for his "impertinence" in not informing Mr Abbott beforehand about the contents of his speech. And, efforts may well be made to impugn the reputations of the Conservative MPs who took Mr Abbot to task, though there is nothing to suggest that they are anything other than competent politicians with a good grasp of the science of climate change and an appreciation of the need for an appropriate environmental policy response.
Earlier this week Foreign Minister Julie Bishop contradicted the president's claims about threat to the Great Barrier Reef, suggesting that Australia was employing world's best practice to ensure the reef was preserved for future generations. Paradoxically, the Abbott government has been an enthusiastic advocate for the enlargement of the Abbot Point coal terminal north of Mackay, in spite of fears the dumping of dredge spoil will further degrade the reef. Indeed, the Australian Academy of Science has cast doubt over the efficacy of overarching environmental safeguards, suggesting that the reef's 2050 long-term sustainability plan will be inadequate to achieve the goal of restoring or even maintaining the diminished value of the reef.
Mr Abbott would now realise that there are fewer places for him (and Australia) to hide on climate change. If the support of his brother prime minister in Canada evaporates, then he will be standing side by side with Libya, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Egypt, the last remaining climate-change holdouts. Such an unappealing prospect might well explain the shift in his remarks after meeting Mr Hollande.
Having made outright opposition to effective climate change measures a central pillar of his political success, Mr Abbott faces an awkward task in transitioning to a more responsible and constructive attitude. But transition he must. There will be an economic cost, but it won't be as great as he and his supporters think, particularly as Australia's emissions target under the original Kyoto Protocol are hardly onerous. And what jobs are lost are more than likely to be offset by those created as a result of investment in new technologies.
