'The Fight Is Not Over,' Say Groups, as Coal Lover Wins Re-Election in Australia

Climate activists in Australia called for escalated pressure after the surprise re-election of conservative Prime Minister Scott Morrison over the weekend

"The fight is not over," said Greenpeace Australia.

Calling the results "horrifying," NYU professor Kate Crawford said on Twitter: "We're on the brink of climate catastrophe. Australia is one of the top carbon emitters per capita in the world. The new leader has no climate change policy, and walked into parliament waving a chunk of coal. Not even kidding."

As Reutersreported,

Battered by extended droughts, damaging floods, and more bushfires, Australian voters had been expected to hand a mandate to the Labor party to pursue its ambitious targets for renewable energy and carbon emissions cuts.

Instead, they rejected the opposition's plans for tax reform and climate action, re-electing a Liberal-led center-right coalition headed by Morrison, a devout Pentecostal churchgoer who thanked fellow worshippers for his win at a Sydney church early on Sunday.

"A coalition of a small number of bad actors now threaten the survivability of our species," Michael Mann, atmospheric science professor and director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center, told ThinkProgress. He pointed to "the fossil fueled Murdoch media empire, which saturated the country with dishonest right-wing campaign propaganda."

Morrison's win drew praise from extractive industries, perhaps unsurprisingly due to his status as a "coal-cuddler."

The Minerals Council of Australia welcomed Morrison's re-election, and said the result reflected "a clear mandate for resources projects that have lawful approvals to proceed, such as the Adani coal mine in central Queensland and the Yeelirrie uranium mine in Western Australia."

Groups advocating for a stable planetary system, however, said that projects like the Adani coal mine are exactly the wrong path to pursue given the climate crisis.

Australian Conservation Foundation's CEO Kelly O'Shanassy called it "a problem that the major political party that won this election did not put forward substantive climate change policies at the same time the scientific evidence is very clear that only a rapid transition, including halting the expansion of coal exploitation like the Adani mine, is needed to keep global warming at relatively safe levels."

"And it is a problem that the major political party that won this election did not put forward substantive nature protection policies just weeks after a landmark global scientific report warned biodiversity is declining at such a rapid rate it risks human society," said O'Shanassy.

"At some point," she added, "Australia must reconcile the action needed to halt the climate crisis and crash of nature with our deficient national plans and policies."

Grassroots actions have underscored the nation's need to transition to a zero-carbon economy, said Friends of the Earth.

"People across the continent rallied alongside school strikers and their clear demands for action and their calls to stop the Adani coal mine, for no new coal, oil and gas projects, and for 100 percent renewable energy by 2030," the group said in a statement.

"We know this is what is needed."

The Australia-Pacific branch of Greenpeace, for its part, responded to the election results with a lengthy Twitter thread laying out the fight ahead.