Malcolm Turnbull gives in to conservative members of his party who demanded he axe carbon emission reduction targets

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Australia’s prime minister has abandoned plans to rein in greenhouse gas emissions in an attempt to stave off a leadership coup from within his own party.

The Australian government had proposed using a broad energy policy, called the National Energy Guarantee, to bring in a carbon emissions reductions target in the energy sector of 26% by 2030, which would have helped Australia meet its obligations under the Paris climate agreement.

But the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, was forced into an embarrassing backdown on Monday after opposition within his Coalition government and amid mounting speculation that he could face a leadership challenge.

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A group of conservative MPs threatened to vote against the legislation on the floor of Australia’s lower house, a move that would have constituted a crisis of confidence in Turnbull’s leadership.

The rebel MPs were led by Australia’s former prime minister, Tony Abbott, who Turnbull seized the leadership from in 2015. The pair have a history of bitter disagreement over emissions policy.

Abbott, who signed Australia up to the Paris climate agreement in 2014, said using energy policy to reduce emissions was “madness”.

“I am just interested in trying to ensure that Australians have the lowest possible power prices and that people’s jobs are safe ... what that means is that we stop running a power system to reduce emissions,” he said.

To placate the dissenters, Turnbull late last week moved to strip the emissions reduction target from the legislation.

That did little to assuage the concerns of Turnbull’s internal opponents. Government MPs began sounding out conservative figurehead, Peter Dutton, the home affairs minister, for a possible leadership challenge. Abbott reportedly said he would give his support to Dutton.

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The Coalition held an emergency meeting on Sunday night to discuss the energy policy, and a poll published at roughly the same time showed a significant in decrease in support for the government, piling more pressure on Turnbull.

On Monday, Turnbull capitulated and announced he would not include any emissions reduction target in his National Energy Guarantee policy. He said it was clear the government, which holds only a single-seat majority in the lower house, did not have the numbers.

“Now in politics you have to focus on what you can deliver and that’s what we’ve done and will continue to do,” Turnbull said on Monday. Turnbull said he had “absolute support” of his party and Dutton.

The decisions earned him the praise of maverick Coalition MPs. One conservative, George Christensen, a Queensland senator, said of Turnbull’s decision: “We have a new energy policy thanks to a band of ‘Liberal National rebels’ who stood firm and fought for common sense.”

The debate comes as Australia deals with unusually early bushfires in the state of New South Wales. Environmental scientists have described the winter fires as “mind-bending”, and “unusual in the extreme”, and say climate change is extending the normal bushfire season.

Successive Australian governments have struggled to implement climate and energy policies. Attempts to legislate mechanisms to reduce emissions have done enormous damage to former Labor prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.

Rudd faced a sustained and highly effective campaign over plans to introduce an emissions trading scheme in the late 2000s, and Gillard’s carbon pricing mechanism was attacked relentlessly in the lead-up to the 2013 election, which Labor lost.

The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, seized on Turnbull’s backdown on Monday and described him as the “white flag prime minister”. “Mr Turnbull has demonstrated that he is not the leader this nation needs,” Shorten said.

“Real leadership is about fighting for the principles you believe in. Real leadership is about not always giving in to your enemies every time they disagree with you..”