Climate change is no longer a serious problem, apparently.

In the 2010 Intergenerational Report an entire chapter was dedicated to the topic. This time around, references to the subject have been reduced to a handful of paragraphs.

"It is difficult for individual governments to control or affect the collective and cumulative impact of human activity globally, but there is a role for the Australian government to continue in its efforts in leading and co-ordinating domestic environmental policies to drive better environmental management and economic growth for the generations to come," the 2015 report says.

The 2010 report says something different:

"Climate change is the largest threat to Australia's environment and represents one of the most significant challenges to our economic sustainability. Failure to address this threat would have severe consequences for weather patterns, water availability in cities, towns and rural communities, agricultural production, tourism, infrastructure, health and Australia's unique biodiversity. The social and economic consequences of failing to act would be severe."

The contrast between the two documents represents an obvious difference in ideology, as well as policy.

Intergenerational Reports are inherently political documents, with successive governments using them to justify their fiscal policy settings.

Former Treasurer Wayne Swan used his report in 2010 to warn of the dangers of climate change to promote the use of his government's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (the 'cap and trade' emissions trading scheme) that it wanted to place at the centre of its fiscal policy.

But the Abbott government has criticised Labor for using the document in that way.

It says this 2015 Intergeneration Report focuses primarily on government expenses that are affected by "demographic change", and the level of Commonwealth government spending on the environment "is not directly linked with demographic changes."

So it has pulled the environment out of the centre of fiscal policy and pushed it to one side. It focuses attention on demographic changes only.

But the concept of environmental refugees is not considered in that discussion.

The discussion this time around is all about an ageing population, the future costs of health and education programs, and the sustainability of the Aged Pension.

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