Economists back climate change as top election issue for 2022

An overwhelming majority of leading Australian economists say climate change and environmental policy are the most important issues for the upcoming federal election.

As party leaders scramble to set the tone for the next six-weeks of election campaigning, the economists polled have pointed to several issues often neglected by major political parties, that they say should be the focus of election policy platforms.

A group of around 50 Australian economists were surveyed by The Conversation and the Economic Society of Australia, with 74 per cent of those polled saying climate change should be the most important election issue.

The group ranked housing affordability, health care and tax reform as the three most important issues, after climate and the environment.

While there has already been a significant focus from party leaders, and much of the media, on the issue of taxes, none of the 50-so economists surveyed said that the need to ‘lower taxes’ was the most important election issue.

Several of the economists surveyed said climate change needed to be a major focus for political leaders, given it represented a multi-level change for the economy, presenting both threats and opportunities for Australia’s future prosperity.

CEO of the Grattan Institute, Danielle Wood, said that Australia’s progress on climate change remained too slow.

“Climate change is the biggest economic and environmental challenge for Australia and the world. We have committed to net zero by 2050, but progress is still too slow over the next decade leaving us with a bigger and more disruptive task to decarbonise through the 2030s and 2040s,” Wood said.

“The policies that will make a difference are well known and the next government will be on the wrong side of history if we don’t move now.”

Economist, and member of the climate council, Nicki Hutley, said that climate change presented both positive and negative opportunities for Australia, given in the potential harm caused by worsening climate extremes and the new industries being created as part of a green transition.

“For me, the most important issue this election should be climate change. Australia’s current ambition of 26%-28% emissions reduction by 2030 is totally inadequate and the economic costs of failure to act faster are immense,” Hutley said.

“The need to act with urgency has been made clear by the IPCC. This is not ‘just’ about worsening extreme weather events and the disruption they cause, but about lost economic opportunities in the green economy and issues such as international trade penalties and rising cost of capital.”