Australia: Where climate change can bring down a prime minister

Posted By Joshua Keating Thursday, June 24, 2010 - 1:11 PM Share

It's often said of climate change that it won't be a major priority for governments until politicians are afraid of being voted out of office over it. Well that (sort of) just happened in Australia, where the ruling Labor Party unceremoniously dumped Prime Minister Kevin Rudd today. It's been a precipitous fall for Rudd, who began this year as one of the most popular leaders in his country's history, but now hold the dubious honor of being the only postwar Australian prime minister voted out after less than one term. 

There were a number of missteps along the way, but Rudd, who described climate change as "the greatest moral challenge of our generation," abandoned his trademark carbon-trading scheme and backed down on a new mining tax. Rudd was never particularly popular within his own party, and when his public popularity began to slip, it was only a matter of time before he got the ax. 

New Prime Minister Julia Gillard -- the first woman to ever hold the job -- has already promised to pursue both carbon trading and the mining tax. Australia, heavily reliant on coal and one of the world's highest emitters per capita, still has a long way to go. But it has to be encouraging to environmentalists that the country's voters seem to be holding leaders accountable for their green talk. 

WILLIAM WEST/AFP/Getty Images

EXPLORE:ENVIRONMENT
 

ERION2

2:36 PM ET

June 24, 2010

Carbon trading crap and bull..

Environmentalists rejoice...are you kidding me! I have nothing against environmentalists or control of carbon emissions and such. However the entire cap and trade scheme has got to be one massive scam aimed at making money for the financial industry that is supposed to manage it. The famous article from Matt Taibi on the Rolling Stone magazine makes a good case of it. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/12697/64796
There have got to be better ways at reducing carbon emissions but cap and trade is not one of them. I am just saying.....

 

DATROY

10:36 PM ET

June 24, 2010

Who voted?

Umm, you do know that this was not a popular election, right? Not a single one of the "country's voters" held him accountable one way or the other. It was the Labor caucus that dumped Rudd as party leader and elected Gillard instead. As such she became PM. The only people who voted to hold Rudd accountable were those who were clearly even further to the left than he was, which is saying something. Gillard is going to be a disaster.

 

SEOERLIU

10:39 AM ET

July 6, 2010

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