So, the Liberal party of Australia has dropped its commitment to net zero, marking an even bigger delineation between them and the Labor party.

Speaking yesterday the party's leader Sussan Ley, ably supported by the likes of Dan Tehan and Anne Rushton, revealed that the while she would welcome reaching net zero, it was no longer party policy and that if returned to power her party would promise cheaper energy bills for homeowners and an all-in technology approach, including the possibility of taxpayers underwriting new coal and gas generation and carbon capture and storage.

On Sunday the party's leaders will meet with the Nationals – who last week also ditched net zero as a policy – in a bid to formulate a joint climate and energy policy and re-ignite the Coalition which has teetered on a knife edge until yesterday's proclamation.

The effect of this decision will work itself out over the next three years when Australian's will vote in a federal election.

But in a world in which politics has become decidedly more partisan and divisive (thanks in no small part to the man in the White House), this hardening of battle lines will surely create an unhelpful, binary debate.

If an election were called today, there's no doubt the discussion on the issue of energy policy would be a simple one: "are you pro or anti-renewables" or "are you pro or anti-fossil fuels" (depending on your political persuasion).

In the last election, the debate came down to support or opposition of nuclear energy and this polarisation dumbed down the debate and created two entrenched opponents, firing cheap shots and jibes at each other across no man's land.

And this sort of political point-scoring is in no one's best interests.

The Liberals have said they will be targeting the so-needed urban voters they have lost in recent years, but even this statement underlines how factionalised and simplified Australian politics is perceived to be.

The assumption is that city dwellers are progressive and more environmentally conscious, while rural and regional Australian's are all pro-fossil fuel conservatives.

Now, all generalisations have a degree of truth, but they also have a considerable amount of over-simplification.

But that – sadly – is what political discourse has been relegated to in recent years in so many western democracies, both in the northern and southern hemispheres.

In the UK, the States, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand and certainly in Australia it's all about them and us – if you're not with us, you're against us, as another former White House tenant once said (albeit on a different issue).

Of course, political parties have to have a point of differentiation – that's the whole crux of a democracy – a power to choose. But when the general perception is that both sides are migrating further and further to the left and right, a more centrist approach becomes an appealing prospect.

And when the stakes are as high as the future welfare of our planet and the human race, it would be nice to hope that ideology would be wound down and simply doing the right thing would come to the fore.

I need a lie down.

Yours, 

Russell Yeo