On Australia’s climate and extinction crises, the major parties both have questions to answer

A gas project in Western Australia. ‘A key question for Anthony Albanese and his ministers is: how will they meet their climate targets while the state’s carbon pollution – up 20% and counting since 2005 – continues to soar?’ Photograph: Greg Wood/AFP/Getty Images

Federal parliament is back for the next fortnight and I have a wishlist. Not for things that will happen – let’s not get ahead of ourselves – but for questions that could be addressed if the country is to treat the climate and extinction crises as seriously as our leaders claim they do.

There is no shortage of discussion about nuclear energy due to the Coalition’s much-hyped but yet-to-appear plan to overturn a national ban and bring it to Australia. The issue won plenty of attention after a CSIRO-led assessment that it would be far, far more expensive than wind and solar backed by energy storage and new transmission lines.