Verity Barton is a former member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly and is President of the Australian Liberals Abroad in the UK. She works as a strategic communications advisor in the City.
During its last years in Government, it felt like the Conservative Party struggled with making the case for decarbonisation and Net Zero. People talking about NIMBYism stopping us building the homes the country needs, but it served to block the development of renewable energy generation that many in the country support. From opposition to solar power in rural communities and a moratorium on wind generation through to an obsession with how many recycling bins we’d need, the lack of certainty and consensus within Government only served to frustrate a large number of voters and businesses alike. All of this, of course, got wrapped up in the prism of worrying about the cost to the consumer – whether domestic or business – but failed to consider the long-term cost of inaction, or the economic benefits of making an argument for a reasonable transition over time, as well as the political price with Millennial and Gen X voters.
The problem is – and it’s a lesson the Liberal Party learned the hard way – most voters, including many Conservative voters who switched to Labour or the Liberal Democrats for the first time this year, want to see some kind of acknowledgement of the need to decarbonise and a plan to get there. If they think you don’t care about the issues that matter to them, why will they vote for you?
The Liberal Party in Australia, both in Government and Opposition, has also struggled with the decarbonisation challenge and whether or not there is a role for Government in tackling climate change. The thing is, though, that train has left the station: Governments of all persuasions in both the UK and Australia have accepted that Government needs to set a clear trajectory and work with all stakeholders in the energy sector, as well as consumers, on realising that joint ambition.
Ahead of COP26, then PM Scott Morrison and then Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor were roundly criticised in Australia, and around the world, for their approach to tackling climate change which saw them adopt the mantra that if there’s a business case for Net Zero, it’ll happen. The reality is, Government cannot always abrogate a responsibility to chart a course or send a positive message – that’s part of creating an environment within which the private sector feels empowered to drive and deliver change.
For too long, the Liberal Party has found itself riven by an inability to square itself around the reality that it is possible to drive economic growth, deliver energy security and chart a course toward emission reductions. This saw the party go from former Prime Minister John Howard advocating an Emissions Trading Scheme ahead of the 2007 election, to the Liberal Party bringing down Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull over it in 2009, through to ScoMo vacillating over whether to even attend COP. The Conservative Party in 2024 cannot make the same mistake.
This failure to acknowledge the reality of climate change and the opportunity for the Australian economy meant the Liberal Party lost seats to the ‘Teal Independents’, many of them former Liberal Party members themselves, in 2022. They all campaigned on increased action to tackle climate change by reducing emissions. Safe Liberal seats, including that of the founder of the modern Liberal Party Sir Robert Menzies, fell for the first time.
This is a mistake the Conservative Party cannot afford to make if it wants to make itself relevant to an electorate that believes in climate change, especially younger and middle-aged voters who are deserting it in droves or have never been given a reason to vote for them.
The Teal Independents campaign like the Liberal Democrats. They are running grassroots campaigns and while the Liberal Party fails to grapple with the Net Zero challenge, it’s hard to see how they can win those seats back. These are seats Liberal Leader Peter Dutton needs to win if he has any chance of forming government, despite the unpopularity of the incumbent Albanese Labor Government.
This week’s Conservative Party Conference has nearly 50 fringe debates with a focus on energy and climate. Worryingly, instead of the debate being about the journey and the path to Net Zero, I was hearing growing scepticism about the need to decarbonise at all, something I hadn’t previously heard at my previous six Conservative Party Conferences. What I did hear a lot about was how we need to boost investment to drive economic growth. Necessarily for a lot of businesses, that involves investing in sustainability and the green economy. The Mansion House compact – designed to drive pension fund investment in the UK – can create opportunities for greater investment in decarbonisation and shareholders are demanding listed companies make more sustainable investments and choices.
Business is clearly sending a message through its investments and its choices. One of the consistent calls from business in the lead up to the last election was a need for certainty. This means there is a political and an economic imperative to the decarbonisation challenge.
To start winning back the trust of voters who walked away from the Conservative Party at the 2024 election, the new leader needs to set out a cogent plan not only for reliable and affordable baseload power in the short to medium term, but also how it will support the decarbonisation agenda in the medium to long-term and to realise Net Zero.
It is a fallacy that votes are won by ignoring climate change, and there is a middle ground between Nigel Farage’s position and that of Ed Miliband. To win from that place needs political will and courage.
Net Zero and conservation is – and should be – a conservative mission. As the Conservative Party reshapes and redefines itself under a new leader, it cannot walk away from the mission it set and told the electorate it believed in. It must heed the lesson from the Liberals – voters believe in and care about Net Zero.
