As I argued in a recent article, the election of Donald Trump as President would be disastrous for climate change compared with the current Democrat administration of President Biden. The situation is quite different in Australia. The election of a Coalition government federally next year, even under Peter Dutton, would not be all that much worse than the situation under the current Labor administration of Anthony Albanese.
Both major parties have the same 2050 greenhouse gas emissions reduction target. The Coalition refuses to set an interim 2030 target, but in practical terms that makes little or no difference. Snowy 2.0 and the Marinus Link (which will bring hydro-generated power from Tasmania to the mainland are both lock in (see my previous article), and the major power generators have pledged to eliminate coal-fired power stations by 2038. Moreover they can be trusted to do so because those power stations will have reached the end of their useful lives by then.
Of course, in some cases they will replace them with gas peaking plants which have lower greenhouse gas emissions (but still emit significant amounts). Preferably we would see the federal government introducing a carbon tax or similar method of ensuring that closed coal power stations are replaced by facilities that don’t emit any greenhouse gases at all. However, neither Labor nor the Coalition have any intention of introducing a carbon tax. Thus, as I say, there is little or no practical difference between the two major parties.
Even on nuclear power, I suspect there is no real difference. Dutton has made much of the nuclear option, but his party has pledged to conduct an 18 month public consultation process if they achieve government. I suspect that they will quietly drop the nuclear proposal after that. Any party that wants to stay in government needs to maintain a fiscal strategy that keeps the Budget roughly in balance, and the huge cost of building nuclear power stations within ten years (or at all) would make maintaining a balanced Budget almost impossible.
The bottom line is that a future federal government of either party will make little or no practical difference on climate change. Both parties have fairly sensible, moderate policies on climate change (in contrast to the US). Of course, neither party will say that nor will the media. “Things are more or less ok and there isn’t much difference between the parties” isn’t really news, even though it happens to be true.