“The climate election.” That was the tagline of Australia’s 2022 federal election. It was the election that Labor promised “to end the climate wars.” It saw the election of several community independents who campaigned on a platform for climate action, claiming formerly safe Liberal seats. And 2022 was the year the Greens had its record-breaking result.
Fast forward to 2025, and it feels like climate action had been put on the back burner… Until ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred hit Queensland. It took death, injury and 300,000 people losing electricity to put this issue even slightly back on the election agenda.
How is that in the aftermath of 2022, the climate crisis is still being treated as a side issue?
Complacency has set in
After four years of the Morrison government, during which bushfires raged while the Prime Minister vacationed in Hawaii, we were desperate for change. It wasn’t about Labor winning but the Coalition being defeated — a contest between a party with a basic climate policy and a party led by the man who brought a lump of coal into parliament.
Labor’s victory in 2022 let us become complacent, thinking we didn’t have to put as much pressure on Albanese’s government because they’d already promised to do better.
Right away the Labor government set an emissions reduction target of 43% (below 2005 levels) by 2030. This was a big improvement on the previous Coalition government target of 26-28%… but Labor’s emissions targets are still almost half of what they should be to keep global heating below 2°C. The Climate Council recommends Australia cut emissions 75% by 2030 (based on 2005 levels) and aim to reach net zero by 2035.
Labor also reformed the Safeguard Mechanism, requiring Australia’s biggest polluters to reduce emissions intensity. However, the safeguard applies only to emissions within Australia, despite 90% of emissions from our coal being exported and released overseas.
Instead of going further to implement policies that will actually work, the Labor government focused on the failures of the previous government. Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen said Labor had made “more progress for Australia in 12 months than in 10 years.”
Is that true? Yes. But being this “lesser evil” strategy also saw Labor approve 32 new coal, oil, and gas projects despite the International Energy Agency’s repeated calls for no new coal and gas projects.
An interesting pattern also began to form: Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek would issue a media release when a coal mine was blocked, or a renewable energy development occurred. In contrast, the approval of fossil fuel developments did not come with media releases.
And then, in the final days before the election, a shocking environmental betrayal: Labor teamed up with the Coalition to pass changes to the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC Act), limiting the ability to review previous federal environmental decisions — leaving yet more loopholes and exemptions for coal, oil and gas developments. It rushed through the amendment to protect salmon farming in Tasmania, an industry which has been destroying our environment for years and will likely make an endangered prehistoric species, the Maugean skate, extinct.
To add insult to injury, reforming the EPBC Act was one of Labor’s 2022 election promises The reforms were supposed to make sure that the climate impacts of new fossil fuel projects be considered explicitly in the approval process; these changes are now 25 years overdue and were recommended by two independent inquiries.
So yes. In 2022, we voted in the lesser of two evils. And because of that, a lot of change took a back seat. As a climate activist, I can’t help but wonder whether the climate change would be more at the forefront of the conversation if Morrison’s government had been re-elected — though I would never wish for it.
The shift in public opinion
But maybe it wouldn’t have mattered either way, as public opinion on the importance of climate change has shifted significantly. Other issues have been taken priority, such as Palestine, the housing crisis, and, of course, the cost of living. I’ve been involved in the climate movement for six years, and the last two have felt like a losing battle. It’s difficult to remind people how significant the climate crisis is; that while we can’t afford groceries, we also can’t afford climate change to be lower on our list of priorities.
The data shows this clearly. Fatigue from the news cycle is being increasingly studied and many people, including myself, have had to take breaks from from consuming the news at points.
A 2024 study found support for addressing climate change declined most among Labor voters, dropping 20% in just two years (from 79.2% in 2022 to 58.6% in 2024). A similar drop was also found among Greens voters, who went from 90.4% to 79% support in the same period.
Moreover, in a 2025 survey by Roy Morgan of over 14,000 electors, concern about “global warming and climate change” dropped by 9 percentage points since 2022, falling to a mere 23%. The cost of living is the dominant issue, with public concern rising by 7 percentage points to 57% in 2022.
Similarly, Ipsos’ annual climate sentiment survey showed a decline in Australians’ commitment to climate leadership. While in 2022, 44% of Australians felt the federal government was doing too little to address climate change, in 2024 only 31% felt this way.
So, it’s unsurprising that climate change fell off the radar. And with less pressure on politicians to act, they are showing less appetite to do so. Reporting from Zoe Daniel’s National Press Club event in February 2025, Ronald Mizen noted that while climate change was high on the so-called ‘teal independent’ agenda, in this election it was “clearly less of a focus” compared to economic policies like business tax breaks.
Reporting from Zoe Daniel’s Press Club event in February 2025, Ronald Mizen noted that while climate change was high on the so-called ‘teal independent’ agenda, in this election it was “clearly less of a focus” compared to economic policies like business tax breaks.
However, I am hopeful that despite this clear change in public sentiment, the Greens and some independent MPs have continued to push for climate action and emissions targets that align with the expert recommendations.
Combatting helplessness in the 2025 election
While I am glad to see more candidates campaigning on climate action in this election, I’m worried that Australians feel helpless in the face of this crisis. Outside minor parties and independents, this election is currently a choice between one government pushing nuclear and no emissions targets, or another government maintaining the inadequate status quo.
Additionally, there has also been a decline in support for climate activism, such as protests and rallies, from 42% percentage points in 2022 to 36% percentage points in 2024. This has come alongside threats to our right to protest in states like New South Wales.
But I’m not giving into this helplessness.
On September 20, 2019, 350,000 striked for the climate. I was 17 at the time and one of the organisers in Sydney. I watched a flood of people before me hold up their signs, I heard our voices in unison chanting for climate action, and I felt so much pride in our community.
I felt invincible at that moment. And I believe we can get back to that. But we can’t let it take another Black Summer to push us to act. So what needs to change?
Many within the climate movement have recognised that, most of the time, we are preaching to the choir.
This federal election is the time to change that. We must have conversations about the importance of climate policy with those we don’t normally engage with, and change the way we talk about the crisis to explain how it impacts the issues of the day.
On cost of living and the economy, that means making sure people understand that solar power is cheaper, investing in disaster prevention saves lives, and continuing to open coal mines is a short-term strategy that will push Australia into an economic disaster.
We also need to let people know about the importance of securing a minority government this election. Richard Dennis, of The Australia Institute says that minority governments can actually be more effective than majority governments in passing necessary legislative reforms. The minority government led by Julia Gillard was the one of the most productive parliament in history, passing the introduction of a carbon price, the establishment of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), and the creation of a Royal Commission into institutional abuse.
A minority government brings a greater diversity of views into the legislative process, as minor parties and independents have more number of seats. It requires the government to engage in negotiation and consensus-building, ensuring that reforms had broad parliamentary support rather than relying solely on party discipline. That’s the opportunity on offer in 2025.
But above all we have to remember that — regardless of the outcome of this election — we cannot be complacent. Australia remains the world’s second-largest exporter of coal as of 2024. We need to recognise the severity of the state we are in, and come together to push relentlessly for these changes.
Just as we did in 2019, we can feel invincible alongside each other again.
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