The message certainly hadn’t been heard on Sunday morning, when Treasurer Josh Frydenberg declared that Australia’s climate policies have been “settled”.
On Monday, BHP’s Head of Sustainability & Climate Change, Fiona Wild, also urged the Government to rethink its policies.
She called the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change’s report a “rallying cry”, saying that BHP accepts its assessment of climate change. “The human influence is clear and physical impacts are unavoidable,” she told the Greenhouse Gas Technology 14 event in Melbourne yesterday.
“We believe that the world must pursue the twin objectives of limiting climate change in line with current international agreements while providing access to affordable energy,” she said.
Later, Wild told the Australian Financial Review that BHP has “always been really clear that we support a carbon price.”
A Guardian Essential poll today finds more than half of Australians (56%) don’t believe Australia is doing enough to address climate change, with voters aged 18 to 44 more likely to worry about the issue. The good majority (63%) say climate change is caused by human activity.
For voters in Wentworth, the issue appears to have played a significant part in the overall results, with exit poll data from The Australia Institute finding 77% said it had influenced their vote.
Why isn’t the message getting through?