SYDNEY -- Global warming is becoming a major campaign issue in Australia, one of the world's biggest coal exporters, as the nation moves closer to federal elections due by the end of May.
Extreme weather has been battering Australia for years, but in 2018 the country's farms came in for particularly harsh punishment. Droughts, wildfires, floods and heat waves also persuaded the largest opposition party to come up with an ambitious renewable energy plan. And that convinced the ruling Liberal Party-National Party coalition to promise adding 2 billion Australian dollars (U.S.$1.4 billion) to a previous government's anti-climate-change spending initiative.
