The 2025 election defeat should have been a wake-up call for the Liberal party on the issue of climate and young people, yet it it seems like the message is still not getting across.

As it meets today to determine the future of its net zero policy, the party seems hellbent on accelerating itself further towards irrelevance among the growing cohort of voters demanding stronger action on climate change.

Even before the latest stoush over net zero, young Australians – in fact, anyone under the age of 45 – were moving away from the Coalition. In the May election, it attracted just one in five millennials (born after 1980) and only 27% of gen Z (born after 1996) – a drop from 2022. This reflects a deeper failure of the parties to connect with a critical, and growing, demographic, while holding on to a shrinking base of older, whiter, more regional and largely male voters.

At the same time, young Australians are remaining more progressive as they age and are increasingly taking climate to the polls. Yet inside the Coalition, you’d struggle to find any strategy to address this.

After three decades of climate wars, toppled leaders and carbon tax theatrics, Australia remains a wealthy nation with the capacity to act, yet we are still one of the

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