If ever there was going to be a climate change election, surely this was going to be it.

As May came and the election date was announced, the implications of the global Paris agreement between more than 190 countries just months earlier were still resonating – the world was moving away from fossil fuels and the challenge to keep global warming well below 2C was agreed.

The globe had just had its hottest year on record. April was the 12th consecutive month to break global heat records. In Australia, we just had the warmest autumn on record.

Levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, taken at Cape Grim in Tasmania, passed a symbolic 400 parts per million, driven by the burning of fossil fuels. Moves to cut climate research at the CSIRO made international headlines.

And then, of course, there was the worst global coral bleaching event on record, bookmarked by the worst known bleaching event on the Great Barrier Reef, killing about a quarter of all corals mostly in the once “pristine” northern section.

This disaster coincided with the hottest sea surface temperatures on the reef in the Bureau of Meteorology’s records going back to 1900.

So climate change and clean energy should have been the red-hot issue.

But instead, at least between the ALP and the Coalition, the reaction to these seismic events was, mostly, meh.

David Ritter, chief executive of Greenpeace Australia Pacific, says the reef’s plight should have been the “tragic starting gun” for an election where all parties pitched a vision “for how Australia can flourish in a world of new technologies, renewable energy and cleaned up political economy”.

It is as if the onion eater may have gone, but the bad breath of climate denialism still lingers across the government David Ritter, Greenpeace Australia Pacific

Instead, the political response was “tragically inadequate”.

“The political debate has lacked all sense of proportion,” he says, reserving particular disappointment that the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, had turned away from his previous passionate advocacy for action.

“It is as if the onion eater may have gone, but the bad breath of climate denialism still lingers across the government.”

I’ve spoken to several leaders in the climate and environment movement in the past couple of days and one message comes through consistently.

While poll after poll shows the Australian public wants action, there’s a distinct lack of leadership from the ALP and the Coalition.

Only the Greens have consistently shown leadership – which goes almost without saying.

John Connor, chief executive of the Climate Institute, says climate was “knocking on the door” but continued to be only a “tier two issue” for the main parties.

Although the ALP had a “demonstrably stronger platform” for climate change and a transition to clean energy, there was a “credibility gulf” between both main parties, their leaders and the public.

“The public just doesn’t believe them,” he says.

Connor believes that whichever party gains power, the Paris climate agreement will force the hand of the next government.

As part of the process, the UN will carry out a global stocktake of climate pledges from all countries in 2018. The Paris agreement also ensures that future pledges to cut emissions improve over time.

“They’ve danced around it this time, but they will have to grapple with it very soon,” he says. “This is all a curtain raiser for the next 12 months and the parties’ credibility will be put to the test.”

Fossil-fuelled politics?

Could one reason for the lack of leadership and low profile for the issues be down to the funding that major parties get from the fossil fuel and mining industry and the close relationships which those industries have forged across the political spectrum?

Blair Palese, chief executive of the climate campaign group 350.org Australia, thinks that is a big part of the story.

Her group ran a Pollution Free Politics campaign trying to get candidates to sign a simple pledge: “I support a ban on donations from fossil-fuel companies and a ban on subsidies to fossil-fuel companies.”

350.org Australia’s campaign video to push politicians to sign a pledge to get fossil fuel cash out of politics.

Palese says the campaign clearly touched a nerve with the Liberals who cited it six times in its “Greening of Labor” scare campaign.

Not surprisingly, no Liberals signed the pledge, but there were some successes. All sitting Greens MPs and senators signed, as have 18 Greens candidates.

Serving ALP member for Richmond, Justine Elliot, signed the pledge, as did three ALP candidates: Janelle Saffin (Page), David Atkins (Cook) and Steve Hegedus (Ryan).

Other notable signatories include independents Andrew Wilkie (Denison), Rob Oakeshott (Cowper) and Rob Taber (New England).

Palese says after the election her group will push harder for a reform of the opaque system of political donations and for a national corruption commission to be established.

Palese, too, says there has been a lack of leadership, particularly on the need to prepare communities and workers for the unfolding transition away from coal to renewables.

‘There is a terrifying lack of leadership – at national and state level – and it means workers are being left high and dry,” she says.

Leadership lacking

Announcing its election scorecard (links to others at the bottom of this post), WWF Australia’s chief executive, Dermot O’Gorman, said as the environment faced huge challenges “this generation of political leaders has not yet stepped up to reflect the concerns of the vast majority of Australians”.

The Australian Conservation Foundation’s chief executive, Kelly O’Shanassy, is similarly unimpressed with the political leadership. Only thanks to momentum from community groups and the tragic bleaching of the reef had the issues been pushed briefly into the limelight.

“The Coalition just didn’t want to talk about it – their policies are quite weak,” she says. “The ALP has much stronger clean energy transition policies, but neither leader has led the charge.”

O’Shanassy believes one campaign from a coalition of environment groups, including ACF, WWF and The Wilderness Society, called Places You Love, has helped to push environmental law reform on to the ALP’s policy platform.

“For a country with such a beautiful natural environment, we have such incredibly weak laws,” she says.

The Coalition did make one major environmental announcement when Turnbull joining the environment minister, Greg Hunt, in Townsville to reveal a $1bn reef fund.

But campaign groups were quick to criticise the plan. Not only was it several billions short of what one group of scientists say is needed, but the announcement was just a shifting of existing cash from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation which the Coalition has been trying to shut down.

“There’s no additional carbon reduction benefit from that,” says Imogen Zethoven, Great Barrier Reef campaign director at the Australian Marine Conservation Society. “We did send the Coalition a series of questions on that announcement, but we didn’t get any answers. It raises more questions than it answers.”

She says one major win was a policy commitment from Labor to regulate pollution levels flowing into the reef. “That is not to be underestimated,” she says. “That would be a major step forward.”

Your vote?

So who should you vote for if you want to improve the chances of survival for the reef and Australia’s unique habitats and help the country make the inevitable transition away from fossil fuels?

To help with that decision, in recent days the Climate Institute, WWF, the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Australian Marine Conservation Society have all published assessments of the key parties on their environment and climate polices.

You should read them and then go and vote.