Fossil fuel industries in Australia could be left behind by improvements in renewables and the possibility Donald Trump changes tack on a carbon tax, a former US Republican congressman has warned.

In a speech to the National Press Club on Wednesday, Bob Inglis, a conservative advocate for private sector action on climate change, called for the United States to take unilateral action by imposing a carbon tax with an import levy on goods made in countries without a carbon price.



Inglis, a congressman for 12 years who lost Republican preselection over his advocacy of a carbon price, argued that conservatives could be persuaded to join a coalition to fight climate change by appeals to the free market or to faith.

Inglis was surprisingly upbeat about the prospect of Trump taking action on climate change. He claimed Trump was “channeling the fears of a fearful people” when he dismissed climate change as a “Chinese hoax” but could not possibly believe that.

“There is some chance that President Trump, may respond to his daughter Ivanka’s interest in climate change.

“There is a chance he may listen to secretary of state Rex Tillerson who, as recently as October was advocating for the same revenue neutral carbon tax we are proposing at [eco-right website] republicEN.org.”

He predicted reality would force Trump to shift, as gas prices increase, coal mining jobs do not return and new technologies will be needed to create jobs.

Inglis favoured a “revenue-neutral, border-adjustable carbon tax”, a plan in which Americans would be compensated for a carbon price with payroll and company tax cuts and the US would levy an import tax on countries without a carbon price.

Channeling what he called “Trumpocene” rhetoric, Inglis said the new president could boast of “the art of the deal” and beating China in the World Trade Organisation court if the US “taxed their plastic coming into our Walmarts at the border”.

“We don’t need an international agreement ... The way I’d put it is America can make a bold commercial move and the rest of the world will follow because China wants access to the American market,” he said, predicting the whole world would follow suit.

Inglis warned that such a move posed a policy risk to Australia, because coal would be in a “very difficult economic position”.

He said that technology also posed a risk to fossil fuel industries because improvements in solar power efficiency, battery storage and wind becoming more manageable in the grid would all make renewables a better investment.

Inglis said that allowing the free market to operate by removing subsidies on all types of energy and reflecting environmental damage through a carbon price would promote technologies that mitigate climate change.

Measures like removing tax credits for renewables would win Tea Party support but wind and solar would still be able to compete if the biggest subsidy – “being able to belch and burn into the trash dump of the sky” – is removed.

Inglis recounted how his son had convinced him to take environmental issues seriously and predicted that the Republican Party would be forced by demographics to adopt a climate policy that was less hostile to the science of global warming.

“Young people want us to be relevant to their future and they want to know why [we have to] be so retro in the Grumpy Old Party rejecting science,” he said, predicting Republicans would prefer to cast themselves as the “Great Opportunity Party”.

The “eco-right’” asks “can free enterprise solve climate change”, he said, rather than framing the issue by asking whether people believe in climate change or not.

But faith is also a tool of persuasion because “there is a deep and rich opportunity there to talk about loving God and loving people and the stewardship of the earth”, he said.

Inglis said that in the field of climate change there is no contradiction between religious faith and science and people trust scientists all the time, such as doctors warning them about their cholesterol.

Inglis said parliamentarians had to risk their seats over issues like the environment or end their careers in the pitiable position of being able to say only: “I stood for nothing, I accomplished nothing, I just went along with the flow”.