ANDREW CARSWELL: Climate change wars leave Labor with everything to lose and risk more alienation for Libs

It may be bleedingly obvious that walking away from Australia’s net zero commitment would condemn the Coalition to the political wilderness.

It’s a perilous course of action — pushed by the rebellious right — that its leaders must resist with everything they have.

Yet the alternative path on climate and energy policy is no less treacherous for the Albanese Government to navigate.

It has just as much to lose from overreaching on climate and energy; by locking Australia into a future of heavy-handed constraints on economic growth in pursuit of excessive emissions targets that achieve symbolic gains that do little to change the planet’s climate trajectory.

You can see the fear in their eyes whenever the Government’s leaders step up to the microphone to talk on the issue. There is an unease. The unbridled enthusiasm has ebbed away.

Even Climate and Energy Minister Chris Bowen, once fond of lecturing the great unwashed on the need for “ambitious and achievable,” climate targets, has quietly retired the alliterative slogan.

The word “ambitious” has had its own extinction event.

For most part, he’s toned down his climate rage and renewable rants. It might have slipped out yesterday when he tried on his best Tim Flannery and warned of pending doom if the mercury keeps creeping higher. Floods. Fires. All that.

But by and large, the rants seem more restrained these days.

The Albanese Government knows it must be careful with its next climate move

In fact, until this week, you haven’t seen much of Chris Bowen. He’s been quietly beavering away in the bowels of Parliament House trying to get his climate numbers to work, emerging every now and then to raise the hackles of a climate-confused Coalition.

Otherwise kept out of sight by a Government that knows he is anathema to ordinary folk who value common sense. Who wants to talk about climate change anymore? Not the Prime Minister.

But this is his week to be let out of the cage. Roar! His moment in the ever-scorching sun, when the Albanese Government finally unveils its 2035 emissions reduction target.

He would do well to maintain the measured approach taken by his colleagues on this critical issue. Overheat at your peril.

The shift is telling: it speaks of a Government acutely aware that overplaying its hand on climate policy risks alienating the very middle-ground voters who swung in to support them — many for the first time — at the last election.

A Government that doesn’t want to offend anyone, anymore. Particularly its newfound supporter base in the suburbs and peri-urban fringe.

A Government that would prefer to sit on its hands, lest its wandering fingers poke a voter in the eye.

It has just as much to lose from overreach as a Coalition abandoning its commitment to net zero.

You can see this concern playing out in the Government’s half-hearted approach to hosting the COP 31 climate conference in Brisbane. It might have sounded like a good idea once. A perfect wedge against the Coalition.

Now it would rather sit down and craft immigration policy with Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price than play host to the 30,000-strong caravan of rent-seekers, climate warriors, and professional activists that gather for his annual climate change hadj. An armada of guilt trippers.

Why would it want to be associated with such a circus?

Breaking news: they don’t. Especially not in Queensland where Albanese knows he will need to build a wall to keep the seats he unexpectedly won in Peter Dutton’s home State.

The big fella isn’t around anymore to offer such gifts as electoral landslides. Better not angry up the locals by subjecting them to Greta Thunberg. Or Twiggy Forrest.

And so when Turkey is finally announced as the winning host of COP 31, continuing the conga line of grand polluters that host such unremarkable events, the Government’s mouth will say “what a shame”.

But its eyes will say “what a relief”.

The Albanese Government knows it must be careful with its language and actions as it lays out its next set of restrictions/plans to reduce emissions, hoping to find that middle ground that satisfies Australians who want greater action on climate change, without further alienating those who are incensed by rising energy prices and the dotting of renewable projects across regional Australia.

Managing this tension will be critical.

It is why the Government has turned down the volume on his rhetoric. And why it’s been busy preparing the ground for its 2035 emissions reduction target, signalling that the figure, or range, is likely to sit at the lower end of expectations.

Talk of a target that touches 75 per cent has been dropped. It’s a bridge too far.

This week’s Newspoll result explains why.

Asked whether Australia should increase its action on climate change, 37 per cent polled said yes. It’s a considerable number.

But when you add the groups of Australians that either believe we should stick with the current actions on climate change, with the Australians who believe we should slow down action on climate change, you get 53.

Enough to rattle an already jittery Government.