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Modernising Climate Policy in Australia: Climate Narratives and the Undoing of a Prime Minister

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  • Giorel Curran

    (Department of Politics and Public Policy, Griffith University, Nathan, Queensland, Australia 4111)

Abstract

Australia came very close to legislating an emissions trading scheme as part of a climate policy package in 2009. This climate policy was driven by a new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, who had made addressing climate change his signature policy commitment both before and after the 2007 election that brought the Australian Labor Party to power. His climate policy was underpinned by two main interrelated narratives: ecological modernisation and climate justice. In this paper I consider the story of the Rudd government's climate policy experience through an ecological modernisation lens. In the end, it was the seeming disjuncture between political rhetoric and policy outcomes that brought the Rudd prime ministership down. The telling of the Rudd climate story through these narratives reveals some of the limitations of (mainstream) ecological modernisation as a major environmental management approach, as well as highlighting the vagaries of political leadership.

Suggested Citation

  • Giorel Curran, 2011. "Modernising Climate Policy in Australia: Climate Narratives and the Undoing of a Prime Minister," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 29(6), pages 1004-1017, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:29:y:2011:i:6:p:1004-1017
    DOI: 10.1068/c10217
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Garnaut,Ross, 2008. "The Garnaut Climate Change Review," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521744447, October.
    2. Karin Bäckstrand & Eva Lövbrand, 2006. "Planting Trees to Mitigate Climate Change: Contested Discourses of Ecological Modernization, Green Governmentality and Civic Environmentalism," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 6(1), pages 50-75, February.
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    Cited by:

    1. Cheung, Grace & Davies, Peter J., 2017. "In the transformation of energy systems: what is holding Australia back?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 96-108.

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