Albo meets Trudo

Anthony Albanese and Justin Trudeau met in London just before the Queen's funeral, and among other subjects, they spoke about climate.

Hopefully Trudeau would have mentioned climate dividends in the conversation. If he did, Albanese would have known what he was talking about as CCL members have met with him a few times and described the many benefits of the approach. He was in opposition then and the party was in no mood to risk taking a carbon price to an election with climate wars still happening.

Things have changed and the parliament has a better-than-expected mandate to address climate change. The coalition is in opposition and considerably weakened by its election losses, particularly to the community independents (the Teals). The government is cautiously sticking to its election promises and treading carefully around issues that scarred them in the past.

But time and the climate crisis are accelerating and pressure from the crossbench and from many community organisations is rising. The safeguard mechanism is being reformed but it will take time to complete and is unlikely to drive emissions down quickly enough. COP 27 and the G20 are looming and both will bring international pressure for greater ambition.

We will be encouraging Albo and Trudeau to meet again at the G20 in Bali to further discuss climate. By then our PM may be realising that reaching 43% by 2030 is going to be difficult to achieve without a carbon price to counter the powerful blocking effect of fossil fuel subsidies. Trudeau is justly proud of Canada's climate dividends policy and will be pleased to tell Albanese all about it.

We will be encouraging other proud Canadians to chat with our climate minister, Chris Bowen at the COP 27 as well. Cathy Orlando, CCL's Country Director for Canada and Program Director for Citizens Climate International will be there, with other CCLers from Europe, Africa and the Americas.