Has the UK Steel Jobs Bloodbath Broken Union Support for Climate Action?

There are intriguing signs of a softening of political resolve to act on Climate Change, on the left wing of Australian Politics. Perhaps the Climate Policy driven jobs bloodbath, in the British Steel Industry, is starting to have a wider impact.

Labor is moving towards announcing an inquiry into Australia’s electricity industry — which could be charged with developing a plan to shut down ageing coal-fired power stations — under an opposition election policy that seeks to avoid a carbon tax scare campaign.

The climate change policy is also expected to outline a “staged’’ reintroduction of an emissions trading scheme, but will shy away from specific details on how it will reach its goal of 50 per cent renewable energy by 2030.

With Bill Shorten also vulnerable to charges that the policy will drive up electricity prices, Labor is being urged by experts to keep some of the Coalition’s Direct Action policies, rather than move immediately to an ETS, and adapt them over time to maintain policy certainty for industry and encourage investment.

Read more (Paywalled): http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/old-power-stations-under-fire-in-alps-climate-change-plan/news-story/141b978dfe948a623f2bc8cf4dfdc36d

WUWT recently reported, how the devastating job losses in the UK Steel industry have been firmly linked to climate policy inflated energy prices. This softening of Australian resolve on climate action may be a direct consequence, of growing union membership disquiet about the impact on jobs, of trying to “save” the planet.

One obvious question is, why did labour unions ever support job destroying climate policies?

The answer is that the green narrative, of exploitation and environmental destruction, fits neatly with the left wing narrative, that profiteers who exploit the workers, would not hesitate to also exploit defenceless nature. As George Galloway, a prominent left wing UK politician once said in an interview;

“If you have an economic system for which nothing but profit matters, why would you care any more for the environment, than for any of the other factors which you employ?”

The reality of climate policy driven job destruction may be starting to challenge this implicit left wing position. While it is a tragedy that it has taken so much individual pain and hardship, to create a wider awareness that climate policies kill jobs, the silver lining is that just maybe, greens will no longer be able to automatically count on the support of the left, when promoting their economically destructive environmental policies.