The planet is burning
Mr Morrison, how do you sleep while our planet is burning? The time has come to face the facts. You do not own the planet Earth, you are a caretaker, a very poor caretaker. When markets fail, governments are obliged to intervene and find ways to help the price mechanism find equilibrium at a more efficient quantity of the product. Surely you understand that when the price is too low, too much of that product is consumed.
The chorus from Midnight Oil’s Beds Are Burning says it clearly
The time has come
To say fair’s fair
To pay the rent
To pay our share
The time has come for Australians to take into account the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the production of the goods they consume and export.
The time has come for you to govern by reason, Mr Morrison. The international community is not impressed with your track record, with your lack of ambition in dealing with the reality of an overheating planet, and they will turn up the wick at COP26 in Glasgow in November.
Carbon tariffs are now being considered an appropriate climate strategy in countries that are ambitiously targeting emissions reductions. Countries such as Australia that lack adequate climate policies, will soon have a tariff slapped on the price of goods they export to reflect an estimate of the greenhouse gases emitted during their production and transport.
As an example, the European Union of 27 members recently raised its 2030 emissions reduction goal from 40% to 55% from 1990 levels; and one of their key proposals to help achieve this target is a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, essentially a carbon tariff, on certain imports from countries with lax climate-protection rules.
While you sleep Mr Morrison, the EU is further proposing to extend their Emissions Trading Scheme, Europe’s Carbon Market, beyond steel, cement and energy industries to heating and fuel. To ensure a just transition they plan to create a Social Climate Fund so that the costs of decarbonisation can be shared equitably.
You bring shame on us Mr Morrison. You are the enemy of climate action, dismissing the reasoning of school students better educated than you on the facts of global warming, and being the puppet of the people responsible for your current political power.
Further reading
Steven Erlanger and Somini Sengupta, July 14, 2021, Europe Unveils Plan to Shift From Fossil Fuels, Setting Up Potential Trade Spats, New York Times
Paul Krugman, July 16, 2021, Wonking Out: Two cheers for carbon tariffs, New York Times
Uniting the world to tackle climate change, https://ukcop26.org/
Counting Down 
Very well said, julzlovell! You rightfully sound frustrated and worried, as I am — and every global citizen should and needs to be. …
Whether it is unprecedented heat waves/’domes’ and Westcoast wildfires, an exodus of sea life due to warming waters, Europe’s wettest/hottest year on record, off-the-chart poor-air advisories, unprecedented stalling hurricanes, the mass deforestation and incineration of the Amazonian rainforest, record-breaking floods, single-use plastics clogging life-bearing waters, a B.C. (2019) midsummer’s snowfall, the gradually dying endangered whale species or geologically invasive/destructive fracking or a myriad of other categories of large-scale toxic pollutant emissions and dumps — there has been discouragingly insufficient political courage and will (a.k.a. ‘gonad and fortitude’) to properly act upon the cause-and-effect of manmade global warming and climate change. Yet, stupid-sounding catchphrases are frequently uttered, like “It’s the economy, stupid!” (Seriously, what exactly is that line supposed to mean?)
‘Liberals’ and ‘conservatives’ are overly preoccupied with vociferously criticizing one another for their politics and beliefs thus diverting attention away from the planet’s greatest polluters, where it should and needs to be sharply focused. Clearly there has been discouragingly insufficient political courage and will to properly act upon the cause-and-effect of manmade global warming and climate change.
To me, general human existence has for too long been analogous to a cafeteria lineup consisting of diversely societally represented people, all adamantly arguing over which identifiable person should be at the front and, conversely, at the back of the line. Many of them further fight over to whom amongst them should go the last piece of quality pie and how much they should have to pay for it — all the while the interstellar spaceship on which they’re all permanently confined, owned and operated by (besides the wealthiest passengers) the fossil fuel industry, is on fire and toxifying at locations not normally investigated. And/or those locations are occupied thus claimed and controlled by one narrow-mindedly possessive party.
But there’s still some hope for spaceship Earth and therefor humankind due to environmentally conscious and active young people, especially those who are approaching/reaching voting age. In contrast, the dinosaur electorate who have been voting into high office consecutive mass-pollution promoting or complicit/complacent governments for decades are gradually dying off and making way for voters who fully support a healthy Earth thus populace.
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