When the first Christmas items start appearing in the supermarket, you know the year’s starting to wind down. Recognising that the public needs a rest from him, Tony Abbott is also keeping a low profile, eager to ease us into a more relaxed and comfortable state. Keep calm, carry on and enjoy the coming summer knowing that “the adults are running the show”, as he says.

There’s nothing new about conservatives slowing down the pace of reform, offering paternal protection and preserving the status quo. Some might say that’s what defines them.

However, Abbott is failing in what Ronald Reagan reportedly described as a government’s first duty: to protect its people. Global warming poses the biggest ever threat to Australians and the Australian way of life, but he is siding with the enemy. This week he has put us on the fast-track to become the first ever country to introduce a price on pollution, and then repeal it.

Countries’ identities are always contested and many eschew scoundrels taking refuge in nationalism. Fair enough. But surely those who profess to be conservatives should take their creed seriously. Even the left is intent on defending some important but threatened parts of the Australian institutional arrangement. A decent amount of time off work to spend with your family and friends, for example. A Christmas break where we can enjoy Australia’s precious natural environment, our bush and beaches. A standard of health enjoyed by most of the population that ranks with some of the world’s best.

Global warming threatens all of this. Global warming is already damaging the health and the way of life of ordinary Australians and unless we act those threats will become catastrophic. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) predicts that under extreme climate change, the kind of bushfires we saw in Victoria on Black Saturday may happen on average once every two years (and we shouldn’t forget that more people died from the summer’s heatwave than the fires themselves). I drove past world-renowned wineries in southwest WA a few weeks ago, where the Climate Commission says climate change is drying the region, threatening WA’s agriculture and biodiversity. The Climate Commission also warns of impacts on our fish stocks as the ocean absorbs CO2 and acidifies.

So when Rupert Murdoch’s tabloids this week start reporting a leaked draft from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggesting 9,000 more Australians will die every year from extreme heat unless we get global warming under control, why doesn’t Abbott’s inner-Reagan kick in? Sadly, the coalition shows no interest in ensuring that Australians on summer holiday will have less frequent bushfires, healthy oceans to fish in or thousands fewer deaths.

While much of the rest of the world is moving forward with action on climate change, including introducing carbon pricing, Abbott is taking us backwards. The OECD might urge action, but Abbott is as deaf to the economics of climate change as he is to the science. Like the Tea Party in the US, he has adopted a radical anti-market position, regardless of the economic consequences, as a political tool to mobilise extreme public opinion. In office he beats the same Tea Party drum, engaging in a new culture war, this time on climate action.

It is no surprise that one of his first acts in government was to abolish the body responsible for communicating the warnings of climate science, the Climate Commission. And he will continue to prosecute this culture war as long as he sees the political benefits.

Regardless of Abbott’s short term opportunism, the reality of climate change will continue to pose a stark reminder of his failure to perform the fundamental responsibility of his high office. When a conservative PM fails even Reagan’s first test of good governance, history will judge him harshly. Donning a volunteer firefighter uniform for the media is a con if you’re also helping start fires that put people’s lives in danger.

If our prime minister truly wants to protect the Australian people, he must help fend off dangerous global warming, the country’s biggest ever threat. Otherwise, we’ll be spending every Christmas holiday worrying about how many people will die.