Page 126 - Carbon Capitalism and Communication Confronting Climate Crisis

CHAPTER 10

Fighting for Coal: Public Relations

and the Campaigns Against Lower
Carbon Pollution Policies in Australia

David McKnight and Mitchell Hobbs

INTRODUCTION
Australia is not only one of the world’s biggest exporters of coal; it is also
heavily reliant on burning coal to run its economy. It has also been the site
of several key battles fought by the global fossil fuel industry to oppose
measures designed to reduce carbon emissions. In 2008–2009, the coal
industry publicly campaigned against the introduction of a carbon emis-
sions trading scheme by the Labor government of Prime Minister Kevin
Rudd. The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) was designed to
be a ‘cap-and-trade’ scheme whereby the government sets a limit on the
amount of greenhouse gases the nation can release into the atmosphere in a
given period, with the government releasing a series of carbon pollution
permits that are equal to the emissions cap. Companies could then trade
these permits to meet their energy consumption and production needs.

D. McKnight
University of New South Wales, Kensington, Australia
e-mail: d.mcknight@unsw.edu.au
M. Hobbs (&)
University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
e-mail: mitchell.hobbs@sydney.edu.au

© The Author(s) 2017 115
B. Brevini and G. Murdock (eds.), Carbon Capitalism and Communication,
Palgrave Studies in Media and Environmental Communication,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57876-7_10