So, this is where we’ve ended up after the so-called “climate election”. The likely passage, thanks to the Greens, of a Tony Abbott-era policy that can’t actually guarantee real emissions reductions from the industries it covers.

The Greens-amended safeguard mechanism policy doesn’t ensure Australia is doing its part to meet the Paris Agreement target of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees, and it doesn’t stop new fossil fuel projects, despite the Greens doing their best to spin otherwise when announcing their deal with the government.

As such, it represents a pretty comprehensive political victory for Labor who, after a decade on the back foot on climate policy, have regained the upper hand by successfully browbeating the Greens – a party whose fundamental reason for existence is the environment – into supporting their election policy with only minor changes.

It’s a significant shift for the Greens who had previously felt confident holding firm on their raison d’etre, often reaping electoral spoils in return. Most analysis of the 2009 decision by the Greens to reject Kevin Rudd’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme presents it as albatross around their neck, preventing them from being seen as serious political contenders.

In reality, the decision contributed to a massive swing towards the Greens at the 2010 election, helping elect current leader Adam Bandt to the House of Representatives and led to the biggest Senate vote the party has ever seen. The party leveraged that result into passing the Clean Energy Act, the most serious climate legislation in Australian history.

Following the 2013 election and Tony Abbott’s dismantling of that legislation, Labor and Greens embarked on different paths. The former chose to minimise the gap between its policy ambitions and those of the Coalition, adopting a small-target strategy and avoiding making climate policy a battleground.

The Greens doubled down, made the end of coal and gas a key policy plank, and continued to make inroads by winning more seats in both houses of parliament, including at the most recent election. Over the past decade, there’s been little evidence that by “refusing to compromise” the Greens have been electorally punished.

So, what happened this time around? Why, despite raising the stakes and forcefully arguing for their platform of no new coal and gas, did they throw their support behind a bill drafted by a party they themselves refer to as the “political wing of the coal and gas lobby”?