Research On The Climate Policies Of Australia’s Major Left-wing Parties And The Political Impact

In the early 1990s,the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its first report,which confirmed that climate change posed a threat to human survival and development,and aroused wide attention from countries around the world,including Australia.In the decades since,Australia has suffered bushfires triggered by years of drought and floods caused by continuous rainfall,and urgent action on climate change has become a popular demand.Since the beginning of the new century,climate change has been a hot issue in Australia’s federal election campaign,causing the downfall of several party leaders and federal prime ministers.Australia’s left and right political parties are polarized on the issue of climate change,with the left party being the main force pushing for positive developments in climate policy.The Alliance Party,the main force of Australia’s right-wing political party,is passive on climate issues;Australian Labor Party and Australian Green Party,as the main left-wing political parties in Australia,uphold the principle of social justice in dealing with climate change,and continuously improve their efforts to address climate change with the goal of achieving sustainable development.For many times,Australia has promoted the establishment of emission reduction mechanism,vigorously developed renewable energy,and attempted to reform Australia’s energy structure.We have actively participated in multilateral cooperation and carried out climate diplomacy to inject vitality into Australia’s climate policy.After the 2022 federal election,the Labor government,with the support of the Greens,successfully pushed through climate target legislation,breaking a nearly decade-long stagnation in Australia’s climate policy.While Labor and the Greens have long cooperated extensively on tackling climate change,the two sides differ on climate change policy ideas,actions and principles.Labor’s climate policy does not get rid of the idea of relying on the capitalist mode of production and the neoliberal economic development model to deal with the climate crisis in essence.Australian Green Party is more radical in climate policy and tends to break through the capitalist framework to solve the climate crisis.However,the influence of Australian Green Party is still insufficient,and it can only exert influence on the basis of the mainstream political parties’ climate policies.Whether it can break through the traditional capitalist climate change governance framework is a test for Australia’s left-wing political parties.The climate policies of the left have had a profound impact on Australian party politics.First,the Greens have become the "third force" in Australian politics with their active climate change policies,breaking the traditional "two and a half parties" pattern and ending Australian Labor Party’s domination of the left wing of Australian politics.Second,Australian Labor Party and the Alliance are caught in a conflict between balancing climate change and economic interests.On the one hand,Labor and the Coalition have been forced to respond to climate change as its profile has grown.On the other hand,the fossil fuel industry is the core lifeblood of Australia’s economic development,and for the sake of fossil energy interests,economic interests and party elections,Australian Labor Party and the Alliance Party are relatively conservative on climate action.The mainstream parties’ indecision between climate change and the economy has caused discontent among voters and partly undermined their base.Finally,due to differences in ideology and governing philosophy,Australia’s left and right political parties are polarized in their stance on climate policy,and there are differences in the process of climate policy making,which deepens the contradiction between left and right political parties.Meanwhile,Australia’s climate policy has come and gone with the change of government.