December 14, 2020
Australia is not exactly thought of as a global leader when it comes to climate policy, so much so, in fact, the country was recently excluded from the United Nations Climate Action Summit. It is perhaps most famous for being the only country to have passed and then repealed carbon-pricing legislation, as well as its enormous coal export trade with China. Australia and the United States face similar political hurdles in passing significant climate policy as large, fossil fuel-producing nations marked by seemingly endless culture wars over the issue. While pundits prefer to compare the United States to its more ambitious European counterparts, these are misleading. Instead, the Australian example offers a more realistic approach whose principles could be built upon and applied to an ambitious U.S. climate agenda that reaches across the aisle while leaving a lasting technological and institutional legacy.