Australia's net zero transformation will define the 2020s, the Treasurer said on Thursday well into 2023.
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He posed at this juncture that the nation could still either succeed or fail in these "turbulent twenties".
And it was clear that this current path is one of failure.
"We need to get more projects off the ground faster," Jim Chalmers warned with particular zest.
"We will need to do even more to ... meet our ambitions".
It is climate change, so it is not just economic failure, but health, welfare, national security and, of course, environmental.
![Treasurer Jim Chalmers. Picture by Gary Ramage Treasurer Jim Chalmers. Picture by Gary Ramage](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/128375134/63f86b11-3ec1-44f8-96cb-fb97180c341a.jpg/r0_0_4000_2258_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Even so, the gears, we are told, are now shifting. From net zero establishment in the last budget, there will be a far greater focus in the next one, now six months away. What's promised is more government investment and "doing more" to get private capital flowing towards concrete things to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Coal and gas continue without glowing mention, mind you, but he's spruiking Australia's advantages, apart from abundant solar radiation and offshore wind, of critical minerals, manufacturing battery and storage technology, renewable hydrogen, and forging "green metals" such as nickel, cobalt, zinc and copper.
The government is looking for an "efficient and orderly" pathway to net zero, but environmental critics say it is still way too cautious and there could be more tax changes on the offer, while way over in the other quarter former prime minister Tony Abbott is still fighting with science and railing against what he calls an "emissions obsession".
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It is a national transformation similar to the economic changes of the 1950s and 1980s, but Dr Chalmers states it "poses a different set and a different kind of economic and social challenges".
There are also political challenges as well. And aren't they starting to pop up Whac-A-Mole style for the Albanese government?
Labor is fighting two flanks and a de-buzzed electorate which collectively just saw an end to the Voice to Parliament proposal. With its two-seat majority, it is also staring down an electoral redistribution of federal seats and which may not favour the government.
There's a resurgent Greens movement on the left which is putting a super effort into door-knocking on housing, and on the right there's an opposition smashed by the last federal election but emboldened by the Voice referendum result.
The Coalition will be looking to use the Trump-style Advance Australia winning way of the "no" campaign.
The path to any future Coalition victory must include recapturing inner metro teal seats, but there seems no serious attempts to do that. There are more teal-baits than reconnection.
It may be hard to use elbows in the middle ground, but ramping up climate action, even for the sake of the economy, is a place to start. A hot, dry summer beckons and esteemed scientists say global heating is happening faster than is currently understood, fuelling the burning question: "what have we been doing?"