Spotting agreement behind the elephant in the room

Every so often elections matter. The last one mattered big-time for carbon emissions.

In 2013, we voted to end the carbon tax. In its two years of life, emissions from electricity generation fell an exceptional 10.6 per cent. We now know that in the 21 months since they've climbed 5.6 per cent.

The extraordinary turnaround is appallingly timed for a country which in April signed the Paris Accord agreeing to attempt to hold the increase in global temperatures to between 1.5 and 2 degrees.

Pitt&Sherry energy analyst Hugh Saddler, who compiled the figures, says they are the result of an abrupt change in the mix of electricity generation "away from hydro and back to brown and black coal as removal of the carbon price changed the relative costs".

And a change in attitudes. The political messages that we helped create assured us that saving energy was no longer that important.

Read Peter Martin’s piece in today’s Melbourne Age - “Election 2016: Behind the battlelines there's surprising agreement on climate change.”