Illustration: Michael Mucci As we know, Tony Abbott once described himself as a "weather vane" on climate change; the winds that blow him about are political. Otherwise why would he classify coal as good and wind farms as bad? Do rocks and wind turbines have moral qualities? This is not about an open minded examination of energy markets. Like all of this government's big decisions, it's about ideology and politics. If you want to understand the frenetic claim and counter-claim you're going to hear on this subject, you'll find this simple, two-point guide indispensable. The political rubric is:

1. If the argument is decided mainly on climate or environment considerations, Labor wins. 2. If it's decided mainly on electricity prices, the Coalition wins. So Labor will be telling us that we have to deal with dangerous climate change; it will promote its ambition to increase Australia's renewable energy share to 50per cent over the next 15 years. And the government will be telling us that it is dealing responsibly with climate change, while Labor's plan would be a giant wrecking ball shattering the economy. The winner is not the one who can provide the best answer. It's the one who can set the question. If the election is a referendum on the environment, Labor wins. If it's a referendum on electricity prices, the government wins. That's why Abbott opened the week with his Sunday message trying to set the terms for the campaign to come. "Under this government, Australia will continue to make a strong and responsible contribution to the global effort to address climate change, but we'll do this without sacrificing jobs or prosperity."

As the first half of this statement implies, the government's first task is to neutralise the environmental angle, to defeat the charge that it's doing nothing about climate change. It will do this by announcing a carbon emissions target similar to Canada's. The Canadian plan is, as ANU's climate change economist Frank Jotzo says, "the lowest denominator, less than the US target, but with an economy comparable to Australia's". The current pledges by some of the major developed countries, expressed as emissions reduction targets for 2025 using the starting point of 2005: the US is pledging to cut by 26-28per cent, the EU by 23 per cent, Britain by 41per cent and Canada by 24per cent. Using a later end point, Canada's target is also expressed as a 30per cent cut below 2005 levels by 2030.

The defensive work done, Abbott then moves to the offensive – attacking Labor. You could see the opening salvo in this assault on the front page of the Daily Telegraph on Monday with its banner headline: "ALP's $600billion Carbon Bill". The subheading: "Power bills up 78per cent". These startling figures are based on modelling commissioned by Labor, so it must be true, no? ANU's Jotzo: "I went into the spreadsheet they used to get these numbers. The modelling had a high, central and low price scenario. "They've taken the high price scenario. Then they've presented everything in cumulative and nominal terms, not in real terms. "Presenting the future in today's dollar's makes no sense whatsoever unless you want to make the numbers look bigger."

It's propaganda, naturally. Abbott is trusting that his scare campaign of 2011-13 will be as potent today as it was then. Public confidence in Bill Shorten's Labor is about as high as it is in Abbott's government, so this campaign might yet work. But much has changed since Abbott electricity scare Mark 1. First, the electorate knows that last scare campaign was just that. Labor's carbon tax came and went; the economy grew unhindered. Second, the energy market has changed dramatically, and is about to change even more dramatically. You won't hear Abbott pointing out that all Australia's coal-fired electricity generators are scheduled to be retired over the next 10 years.

You won't hear him saying what Moody's credit rating agency said in its Monday report on the coal sector: "Coal remains a main fuel source for electricity production worldwide, but the concerted efforts by large coal-importing nations – including the US, China and Japan – to move towards renewable sources and natural gas continue to reduce demand for coal." Or even citing last week's speech by his Communications Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, pointing out that China's imports of coal declined by 37.5per cent year on year in the first six months of this year. Or the International Energy Agency's point that the price of a solar system has "been divided by three in six years in most markets, while module prices have been divided by five". So, costs fell by a factor of three in six years, and the agency expects it to halve again by 2030. But never mind the facts. This is politics. Peter Hartcher is international editor.