’Alopi Latukefu

21 September 2025

Australia’s climate policy is suffering from a crisis of sincerity. We continue to declare carbon reduction targets pegged against the 2005 baseline - a benchmark that conveniently flatters the numbers, while proudly invoking our early commitment to international climate agreements, such as the Kyoto Protocol. It’s worth recalling that Labor, back in 2007, made a triumphant show of signing on to Kyoto as one of the Rudd government’s first acts. And yet, more than 15 years later, the gap between rhetoric and reality has only widened.

At home, we make careful overtures toward reducing emissions - introducing carbon reduction reforms, talking up renewables, and setting net-zero goals. But abroad, we are aggressively expanding our fossil fuel exports. Australia remains one of the world’s largest exporters of coal and gas, proudly selling carbon to the world and deflecting responsibility by pointing to the emissions being produced ‘elsewhere’.

This duplicity is not only unsustainable - it's morally bankrupt. We shouldn’t accept a national climate policy that says one thing and profits from doing another; and this is particularly significant within the context of our relationship with the Pacific region, whose inhabitants are on the frontline of the climate crisis.

Here’s a comparison worth exploring: Australia is acting like the tobacco industry did for decades - selling a harmful product, denying responsibility, and shifting blame to the consumer. It took decades of public health campaigning to reduce smoking rates in Australia, but it wasn’t until the government put a price on tobacco - through excise taxes, that we saw a significant drop in consumption. And yet, even then, the tobacco industry pivoted, turning to vaping and targeting a new generation.

There’s a lesson here for climate policy: pricing works, but only if the loopholes are closed. When we taxed tobacco, we finally started to see results. The same logic should be applied to carbon. Australia must revisit carbon pricing - not just domestically, but in our exported emissions. If we continue to export billions of tonnes of carbon, then we should be responsible for its impact on the planet, no matter where it's burned.

Imagine if Australia imposed a carbon tax or an export levy - a kind of "carbon excise", akin to the tobacco excise. It is not an outrageous idea – eminent economist Ross Garnaut has proposed a ‘Carbon Solutions Levy (CSL)’ whilst The Australia Institute is currently advocating for a ‘Climate Damage Compensation Levy’. The argument that our coal and gas are "cleaner" than competitors' should work in our favour: if they’re so sought after, surely markets will tolerate a premium. This levy could bolster public coffers, at least in the short term, and finance real, equitable climate adaptation and transition efforts, both at home and abroad.

Of course, the fossil fuel industry will resist. Like Big Tobacco, they will lobby, spin, and seek out regulatory gaps to exploit. But this time, we must be smarter. We must learn from past successes and failures in regulating harmful industries.

The Pacific in the last couple of weeks have again repeated their call for Australia and the world to act on climate change as they do every year. Australia cannot stand as both a climate leader and one of the world’s biggest carbon dealers. It’s time to pick a side and start by taxing what we export as if it matters. Because it does, especially if Australia wants to remain part of the Pacific ‘family’.

Media Contact:

’Alopi Latukefu

Director, The Gobal Centre for Social Justice Advocacy and Leadership

(formerly the Edmund Rice Centre for Justice and Community Education)

Email:  [email protected]

Mob:   +61 4 66 028 196