Finding meaning and political strategy in narratives about Australia’s carbon price: a reply to Newman

ABSTRACT

This commentary replies to Joshua Newman's article and ‘counter narrative’ about the Rudd government's proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS), shelved in 2010. Newman argues that other analyses of the CPRS amount to a ‘prevailing narrative’ that Labor should have pursued an alliance with the Greens and independents for stronger climate mitigation policy rather than bipartisan Coalition support in parliament. His narrower empirical focus on parliamentary norms and practices is not sufficient for establishing a compelling explanation of the events surrounding the CPRS. Newman’s analysis is valuable, but it gives us a weak grip on the key issues of interpretation and explanation we’re all facing with regard to that political moment. I reflect on the methodological challenges when establishing meaning and causation in political analysis of the CPRS because it involves evaluating party-political strategy amid a deepening crisis for the state as it (mis)manages climate change with ad hoc market solutions.

本文是对约书亚·纽曼文章的回应，纽曼对陆克文政府倡议的、并于2010年被搁置的碳污染减排计划做了“反叙事”。他认为其他对该事件的分析等于在说，工党应该与绿党和独立人士联手以推出更强劲的减缓气候变化政策，而不是在国会中寻求两党联盟。纽曼对于国会规范及实践的强调泥于经验、过于狭隘，不足以对碳减排提案的前因后果给出一个有力的解释。他的分析很有价值，但在解释上没能抓住那一政治时刻的关键所在。本文通过确立碳减排事件分析中的意义及因果，思考了方法论上的问题。采用临时市场手段管理气候变化的政府面临危机，需要对危机中的政党策略进行评估。

KEYWORDS:

• Australia
• climate change
• carbon emissions trading
• carbon pollution reduction scheme

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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Rebecca Pearse

Beck Pearse is a lecturer in the Australian National University’s Fenner School of Environment & Society and School of Sociology. Her teaching and research focuses on inequalities and environmental policy. Beck’s doctoral thesis was published as a monograph Pricing Carbon in Australia (Routledge/Earthscan, 2018) and documents the regulatory contradictions of Australia's short-lived emissions trading scheme.