The Nordic Edge: Policy Possibilities for Australia
Andrew Scott and Rod Campbell (editors)
Melbourne University Press: 2021
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Defining failure in the world of policy is a challenge. Is it when a set of policies fails to meet stated targets? At what point can something be painted as a failure? And who gets to define it? Despite huge cost overruns, the Sydney Opera House ended up with inadequate facilities, yet it is an icon regularly ranked among the greatest buildings of the twentieth century. Some issues come into perspective only after decades, and then success takes a form nobody expected.

We are starting to see clearly now that the greatest failure of the past fifty years has been the unleashing of market forces in such a way as to ruin our future. Ceaseless warnings that now is the time to act to prevent a climate emergency have gained no purchase since they first surfaced more than four decades ago. We have just gone on ignoring the warnings from scientists and nature itself. Instead we have ploughed ahead, relentlessly pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Few countries have done this with such enthusiasm as Australia, which has stepped back from its limited attempts to reduce emissions in the seven years since the Paris Accord.

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