Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has said he can imagine a future where the world no longer uses fossil fuels.

That might seem like a major step forward for a leader who dislikes wind turbines and has cut the renewable energy target, but his vision has one major caveat: He can only see it once every tonne of coal and every molecule of gas has been burned.

Abbott expressed this vision while launching the Agricultural Competitive White Paper in rural Victoria on the weekend, a document that all but ignored the potential impact of climate change on one of Australia’s biggest export industries.

“One day the coal will have been dug up, the gas will have been extracted, but we will always need food and our land forever,” Abbott told reporters in Victoria on Saturday.

Indeed, we will always need food. But it seems that the man who was elected, at least partially, because of his obsession with deficits in fiscal budgets, has not yet got his mind across deficits in carbon budgets. Or the implications of running a huge carbon budget deficit on agriculture.

Just a reminder of what that carbon budget is: The world needs to leave at least two-thirds of its current fossil fuel reserves in the ground if it wants to avoid what everyone agrees should be the global collective target, trying to cap emissions at a maximum of 2°C.

In Australia’s case, that means reducing emissions quickly. At current rates, it will exhaust its own share of the budget within 17 years, the Climate Change Authority says – a result it says would be “inequitable” for future generations and against the national interest.

Abbott, however, has stated that coal is good for humanity, and his government has repeatedly said it will seek to exploit as much of its coal and gas reserves as it can, even if demand for those resources is falling. His policies have already sparked a reversal in the decline of coal fired generation in Australia, as we report here today.

His government has based its energy white paper, and even the emissions reduction discussion paper, on scenarios that would result in global temperatures rising around 4°C. This would have a devastating impacts on Australia and its agriculture.

Not that Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce – who still questions the link between climate change and human activity – was perturbed by the probability of such an outcome, when challenged about it in an interview on Friday:

“I’ve noted that Joel Fitzgibbon (the Labor spokesman who criticised the government on this point) didn’t get up to page 109, where we started to talk about climate change.”

Page 109? That’s where the Coalition started to talk about climate change, and finished talking about it almost as quickly. There is no mention of climate change in the 12-page white paper at a glance document, no mention in the first 108 pages of the main document; but five whole paragraphs – a total of 334 words – on pages 109 and 110.





Of course the Coalition is taking climate change seriously, says Joyce.

They are looking to store more water in dams, they want to invest in the forecasting abilities of the Bureau of Meteorology – even though Abbott’s main business advisor says they shouldn’t be trusted – invest in new irrigation techniques and drought tolerant plants.

“These are real and tangible things. We came up with tactile ways of dealing with the problem,” Joyce said.

But, what about not emitting in the first place? Joyce didn’t get asked. And he won’t be asked this question on Q&A on Monday evening either, because Abbott has told him he is not allowed to be there.