The fossil fuel sector is using “tobacco industry tactics” to maintain a bipartisan commitment to supporting gas expansion in Australia, former South Australian premier Mike Rann warns.

Rann told the Australia Institute’s annual Hugh Saddler Memorial Lecture late last week that, for fossil fuel polluters, “gas has become the lifeline that vaping was for the tobacco lobby”. 

The comments stand in stark contrast to the publicly pro-gas position of multiple state governments and the federal Liberal opposition, which officially abandoned its net zero policy last week. 

Rann, who was SA premier from 2002 to 2011 and strongly supported early renewable energy investment in the state, detailed how the influence of the fossil fuel lobby is leveraged and how its impact is felt in international climate negotiations, such as the United Nations’ annual climate summit, known as the COP. 

“Every COP attracts a swarm of many hundreds of fossil fuel lobbyists corralling delegates,” Rann said. 

“Politicians might say they can’t be bought, but over the years some have clearly been rented when donations were big enough.” 

Rann said there were “battalions of lobbyists” in Brazil for COP 30 this week, “desperate to avoid any commitment to phase out the cause of the problem that threatens billions of people on our planet”. 

Lending his support to an Australia Institute petition calling for a ban on fossil fuel lobbyists at a potential Australian COP next year, Rann said the outsized influence of the sector in Australia caused some to question the level of this country’s commitment to tackling climate change on the international stage. 

“Australia’s continued approval of new and expanded coal mines and its massive embrace of a gas industry continuing well beyond 2050 means Australia is often seen internationally as walking both sides of the street on climate,” he said. 

Calling out the central objective of the fossil fuel industry as being continued governmental support for gas exploration, production, and almost tax-free exports, Rann said it was the right time for the federal government to act on the issue. 

“Like the Australia Institute, I am appalled that multinational gas companies are making massive, multibillion-dollar profits from exporting Australian resources while paying little or no tax. Fixing this could be a big, first step in the second-term tax reform agenda of the Albanese government.” 

Speaking in Adelaide, where the 2026 UN will be held if Australia wins hosting rights, Rann was unequivocal about the corrosive impact of fossil fuel lobbyists in Australian and international climate negotiations, such as COP. 

“Essentially, they just want to get a hold of any delegate and try to convince them – I’m going to be polite here – convince them to say ‘look, not yet. Great idea, but not yet’,” he said.  

“And they’re constantly promising there’s a new solution.” 

Rann said when he was premier, “people from various energy organisations were saying to me … ‘you don’t need to be quite so aggressive about this because there’s going to be carbon capture and storage just around the corner’. 

“That was in 2004 I was being told that, and that’s exactly the line that is being used today,” he said.

This article first appeared in The Point. Read the original here.