In the face of an increasingly uncertain future there are growing calls for change across society. But our elected officials, despite talking big at election time, only give us increments of nothing when it comes to delivery.
A desire for change
Australia has long been known as the land of drought and flooding rains, and its people like to think they are a tough and resilient mob who can handle whatever nature throws at them. However, speaking as a member of that mob, recent years have sorely tested us* as drought has pushed many farms to the wall, and floods appear to be breaking all historical precedents in terms of frequency and intensity. And the science tells us much worse is to come.
Climate change is now real and present to most Australians. It’s no longer an academic debate about possible futures. We can see and feel its impacts on our lives, economy and environment. And we’re prepared to say so. According to a recent Ipsos survey, more than half of Australians believe urgent action is needed to combat climate change, or we risk failing future generations.
However, when asked if we think the government has a clear plan in place for how it, businesses and the population are going to work together to tackle climate change, only 28% of Australians surveyed agreed that the government did, whereas 34% disagreed, with the remainder uncertain. (The survey, by the way, was held across 32 nations and on this question on whether you believe the government has a plan, Australia was below the global country average of 32%.)
So, a majority of people want change but only a minority believe government will enable it. What’s the story?
Delivering change
What actually brings about change? In my last blog I listed a few categories of possible change agents.
We change…
…when a majority of the population want change
…when the evidence suggests we need to change
…when the economics provide an overwhelming case for reform
…when an environmental advocate (person or group) galvanizes us into action
…when a sudden shock shakes us out of complacency
But, as I hope I demonstrated, while these factors may lead to change, there’s good evidence to suggest that they often (usually?) don’t. Clearly, the context of the change agent is important.
To explore this, consider the context of how government policy is usually developed. Because, ultimately, if meaningful deep change is to occur it has to involve government action.
Muddling through
How do government’s develop policy to meet the changing demands of the electorate, say in response to a demand to do something about climate change?
We are often told by the government that a ‘rational’ and ‘comprehensive’ approach is applied. In other words, they apply logic and reasoning to addressing a problem and consider a wide range of options. Read policy theory and this usually involves policy makers addressing a particular policy issue by ranking values and objectives. Next, they identify and comprehensively analyse all alternative solutions, accounting for as many potential factors as possible. Finally, decision makers choose the alternative that is evaluated as the most effective in delivering the highest value in terms of satisfying the objectives identified in the first step.
Which all sounds very ‘rational’ and ‘comprehensive’, and sensible; it’s just that it rarely happens like this in the real world. In the real world, it’s too difficult to identify the values and objectives of too many stakeholders; and the full range of alternative policies are never analysed because, besides taking too much time, policy makers know new policies have to operate fairly closely to existing policies to be acceptable by decision makers (our elected representatives). Change is permissible but only incrementally; don’t rock the boat too much.
This real-world approach was given the unflattering title of “muddling through” by policy analyst Charles Lindblom who, way back in 1959, published what is now regarded as a classic on the topic of policy development: The Science of Muddling Through. In this article, Lindblom outlined how the US executive bureaucracy uses limited policy analysis, bounded rationality, and limited or no theory at all in formulating policy, something he described as ‘successive limited comparison’.
Which is not to say Lindblom thought that incremental muddling through was a bad thing. It’s simply how the real world operates. It’s also efficient in that it analyses practical options much more quickly than the comprehensive branch and root method and, in the end, it is responsive to the goals of a sufficiently broad set of stakeholders.
So, muddling through is all about building on existing policies, tweaking them here and there in a continuous, evolutionary process.
Boundaries to environmental policy
Which might explain the frustration and pessimism most Australians have when asked if they believe the government has a plan for climate change. Our politicians talk big but all we ever see is incremental or zero progress on climate change policies while the toll we’re paying for climate damage is growing all the time.
Above and beyond policy efficiency, as described by Lindblom, what is the driving force behind this hesitancy on big policy reform? Could it be the fear of change itself, and the consequent loss of influence (power) that comes when big changes are foisted on the country.
One policy scientist, Andrew Macintosh, believes that when it comes to environmental issues, policy wins are possible but only within narrow boundaries. There are many reasons for this but most of them boil down to three rules of thumb. Governments only intervene on environmental issues where the intervention:
-does not involve significant impact to the economy;
-does not cost too much (politically, financially, socially); and
-does not upset vested interests too much.
As I observed with policy in general, change is permissible but only incrementally; don’t rock the boat too much.
Breaching boundaries
A good example of what happens when these boundaries are breached occurred when the Australian Labor Government (under Julia Gillard) put a price on carbon emissions in 2012. The policy was economically rational and highly successful in that it reduced Australia’s emissions by 2% in the two years it was operating. However, implementing the policy probably broke all three of Macintosh’s rules, and it definitely came with a high political cost and upset vested interests in the fossil fuel sector.
Subsequently, indeed consequently, that Labor Government under Julia Gillard was emphatically voted out of office at the next election (for a number of other issues as well but this attempt at climate reform was definitely one important reason), the reforms were reversed and no government since has attempted to put a price on carbon.
Which is a pity because subsequent analysis by the Australia Institute suggests the reforms would have seen reductions in carbon emissions of many millions of tonnes with the added benefit of Australia would have experienced less volatility in wholesale electricity prices and cheaper electricity if the carbon price was still in place due to more business certainty leading to greater investment in electricity generation.
Richie Merzian from the Australia Institute said: “the Gillard Government’s carbon price was one of the most effective policy reforms in lowering Australia’s emissions. Not only was it a major mistake to repeal this legislation, no Federal Government has managed to implement a reform quite as successful since.”
Which is not to say that governments can’t implement meaningful and deep policy reforms on the environment and sustainability, it’s just that it’s difficult and goes against the grain of the way policy is normally developed.
Breaking through
So, how does big change take place given the standard policy inertia afflicting business as usual? I believe it involves several of the change agents I listed above (and discussed in my last blog post). In my next blog I’ll discuss how they sometimes come together in our complex world to produce truly transformative results.
* Testing times: As I write this (in May 2025) I peer out at yellow brown skies coloured by gale force winds bringing dust from drought ravaged rangelands to the west. It’s a strange scene because my landscapes are currently sodden from the unprecedented flooding rains that ripped apart communities on the NSW north coast. Many people in those flooded communities can no longer afford to insure their dwellings against flood events and face a very uncertain future. This is merely this month’s climate challenge. It’ll be something new next month. Australian’s are crying out for leadership as climate change rips apart our certainty while governments of all persuasions just seem to muddle through.
Banner image: Floods are increasing in frequency and intensity across many places in Australia, tearing communities apart. People want action on the growing climate chaos but governments only seem to deliver incremental change. (Image by David Salt)
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