{"id":26996,"date":"2025-05-02T04:01:12","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T04:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=26996"},"modified":"2025-05-02T04:24:59","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T04:24:59","slug":"what-australias-vote-means-for-climate-in-a-major-coal-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=26996","title":{"rendered":"What Australia\u2019s Vote Means for Climate in a Major Coal Economy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The leading candidates in Saturday\u2019s national election have starkly different policies on energy and global warming.<\/p>\n

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Few voters have as much power over climate change as an Australian citizen.<\/p>\n

Among democracies, only the United States and Canada come close to Australia in terms of per capita greenhouse gas emissions. The country is also one of the world\u2019s biggest exporters of planet-warming fossil fuels, selling coal, the most polluting fossil fuel, as well as natural gas, in vast quantities to Asian countries.<\/p>\n

When the country holds national elections on Saturday, polls indicate that climate change won\u2019t be top of mind for many. But the leading candidates, from the Labor Party and the Liberal-National Coalition, have starkly different climate and energy policies.<\/p>\n

Front and center is the country\u2019s reliance on an aging fleet of coal plants to generate its electricity.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if it weren\u2019t for climate change, that fleet needs to be retired,\u201d said Andrew Macintosh, a professor of environmental law and policy at the Australian National University. \u201cOn one side you have Labor, which is proposing to keep ramping up renewables, and on the other you have a conservative coalition pushing nuclear.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Both approaches would result in emissions reductions, Mr. Macintosh said, but the nuclear plan has left many scratching their heads. Nuclear power plants can take more than a decade to build, while renewables can be rolled out in months.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019d have to keep the coal running for many additional years,\u201d he said, \u201cwhich would be both expensive and polluting.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The leading candidates in Saturday\u2019s national election have starkly different policies on energy and global warming.Few voters have as much power over climate change as an Australian citizen.Among democracies, only the United States and Canada come close to Australia in terms of per capita greenhouse gas emissions. The country is also one of the world\u2019s biggest exporters of planet-warming fossil fuels, selling coal, the most polluting fossil fuel, as well as natural gas, in vast quantities to Asian countries.When the country holds national elections on Saturday, polls indicate that climate change won\u2019t be top of mind for many. But the leading candidates, from the Labor Party and the Liberal-National Coalition, have starkly different climate and energy policies.Front and center is the country\u2019s reliance on an aging fleet of coal plants to generate its electricity.\u201cEven if it weren\u2019t for climate change, that fleet needs to be retired,\u201d said Andrew Macintosh, a professor of environmental law and policy at the Australian National University. \u201cOn one side you have Labor, which is proposing to keep ramping up renewables, and on the other you have a conservative coalition pushing nuclear.\u201dBoth approaches would result in emissions reductions, Mr. Macintosh said, but the nuclear plan has left many scratching their heads. Nuclear power plants can take more than a decade to build, while renewables can be rolled out in months.\u201cYou\u2019d have to keep the coal running for many additional years,\u201d he said, \u201cwhich would be both expensive and polluting.\u201dWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26998,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26996"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26999,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26996\/revisions\/26999"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}