Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Australia can embrace entirely painless Net Zero 2050 commitments without closing coal mines or imposing new taxes.
OPINION 26 Oct 2021 Prime Minister
Australians want action on climate change. And so do I.
But they also don’t want their electricity bills to skyrocket, the lights to go off, for their jobs to be put at risk or for the way of life in rural and regional communities to be sacrificed.
Australians want a 2050 plan on net zero emissions that does the right thing on climate change and secures their future in a changing world. They also want a plan that is fair and practical.
People in rural and regional areas know the impacts of climate change far better than those of us living in the cities. But the burden of taking action on climate change should not fall unfairly on rural and regional Australians, especially those dependent on traditional industries such as mining and agriculture.
Only the Liberals and the Nationals working together can be trusted to get this balance right.
We understand the threats faced but also the opportunities that can be realised.
There have been few issues more challenging for the Liberals and Nationals during the past twenty years than addressing climate change and its impact on rural and regional communities.
Our decision to now agree to a plan to achieve the target of net zero emissions by 2050 has not been taken lightly.
We didn’t just agree to this without carefully thinking through all the consequences and impacts, especially in rural and regional areas.
We have not and would never make a blank cheque commitment or impose new taxes, as Labor has, to achieve net zero. That would leave Australians footing the bill.
Decisions overseas are bringing about major changes in the global economy that will impact on Australia’s future prospects, both positively and negatively.
As Prime Minister I am determined to shield our nation from the negative impact of these changes while positioning us to take advantage of the many opportunities presented, especially for rural and regional Australia.
At Glasgow I will confirm that Australia will continue to play our part. We will set a target to achieve net zero by 2050, and have a clear plan for achieving it. I always said I would not set a target to achieve net zero by 2050 unless we had a plan to achieve it. We now have that plan.
We will do this the Australian way. Through technology, not taxes. By respecting people’s choices and not enforcing mandates on what people can do and buy. By keeping our industries and regions running and household power bills down by ensuring energy is affordable and reliable. By being transparent about what we are achieving, and expecting the same of other countries.
And we will invest in rural and regional Australia to ensure they succeed and are protected under our plan.
I will remind the world that emissions in Australia have actually fallen by more than 20 per cent on 2005 levels. That is more than New Zealand, Canada, Japan and the United States. We have beaten our 2020 emissions reduction target and are well on our way to meet and beat our 2030 target.
We won’t be lectured by others who do not understand Australia. The Australian Way is all about how you do it, and not if you do it. It’s about getting it done.
We will also not be breaking the pledge we made at the last election by changing our 2030 emission reductions targets. I said we would meet and beat this target and we will. So at Glasgow I will update what we now believe we will achieve, demonstrating that performance is worth more than empty ambition. That’s the Australian way.
The path to net zero is also not a straight line. In fact, as Bill Gates argues, forcing outcomes by 2030 with unrealistic targets can divert resources from technologies with longer lead times that will be essential to achieving 2050 objectives. So we will keep making sensible commitments and doing our best to exceed them.
Key to this approach is investment in new energy technologies, like hydrogen and low cost solar, to ensure our manufacturing, resources, agricultural and transport sectors can secure their future, especially in rural and regional areas.
These technologies are set out in our Technology Investment Roadmap.
We want our heavy industries, like mining, to stay open, remain competitive and adapt, so they remain viable for as long as global demand allows.
We will not support any mandate – domestic or international – to force closure of our resources or agricultural industries.
We have taken the time to deal with the hard issues that need to be confronted to get it right. We have listened carefully and understand both the concerns and the strong aspirations that Australians have when it comes to dealing with climate change.
At the end of the day it all comes down to whether you have a credible plan to get the job done. It’s no longer about the ‘if’, but the ‘how’, and Australians can always trust the Coalition to have the right economic plan to enable Australia to deal with the challenge of climate change.
Read moore: https://www.pm.gov.au/media/australian-way
In my opinion Prime Minister Scott Morrison just signed his coalition government’s political suicide note, with National Party Leader Barnaby Joyce standing in as his co-signatory.
How can Australia “invest in new energy technologies, like hydrogen and low cost solar”, without imposing new taxes, higher costs, or borrowing more money?
As our Willis recently pointed out, even if we were to attempt to hit net zero by building nuclear reactors, it would require an utterly implausible rate of deployment, and cost trillions of dollars.
There is no imaginable zero carbon technology which could significantly bring down that cost. There is no means by which the Australian economy or the global economy can absorb costs of that magnitude without someone feeling the pain.
Greens and COP26 participants will denounce ScoMo’s plan to hit Net Zero without explicitly shutting down coal, or increasing ambition on Australia’s 2030 target, as an empty charade.
Climate skeptics like myself will reinforce green denunciations, by pointing out the utter absurdity of Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s zero cost technology claims.
The implicit argument “vote for us, or you will get something worse”, simply won’t carry, in an Australian political arena dominated by mistrust of establishment politicians, and bursting with small parties offering credible alternatives to the Net Zero omniparty position.
I now equate Morrison and Joyce with Australia’s infamous PM of the early 1970s, Gough Whitlam. Whitlam tried to destroy Australia’s economy with his socialist ideas and he lost the 1975 election, a few months after Whitlam was controversially sacked. The election result was a landslide. Morrison and Joyce will suffer the same fate as Whitlam for exactly the same reason; their policies are dangerous for the Australian economy. And NO Mr Morrison, Australian DO NOT want action on climate change.
I wonder if Tirath Kkemlani is still alive? Probably not, but maybe his son can step in and lend Morrison and Joyce all the money they need to build their mythical wind and solar farms so tax payers don’t foot the bill for technology that is not up to scratch.
You can’t fuel all of the people, all of the time!
Net “zero” emissions will cause rationing.
I was wrong about Morrison. He is as gutless as the rest. Is he unaware that the UK/EU green policy geniuses have put their citizens in very serious and imminent harm’s way with a cold winter, low fuel/power empty store shelves, shuttering industries … because of their war on fossil fuels, and the stupid choices they made? I truly fear for the wellbeing of 10s of millions of their citizens. this winter.
They turned down Russia’s offer of $3/million BTUs of gas (that’s what Serbia, Hungary and a few others negotiated against against the wishes of the EU). Spot prices are now $40/million BTUs. All other fuels are in short supply and high priced vis à vis demand and though food may be abundant grace of the Great Greening bumper harvests, it can’t be delivered at a reasonable cost. I think the brainwashed and the woke are going to discover they are awake in a world that doesn’t exist.
So Australians want a plan that is fair and doesn’t cause skyrocketing energy prices. They actually think that is possible?
Yes, and inflation will be transitory.
Is Morrison taking his lead from China, not in explicit details but in general strategy?
Australia has a long history of picking the “next big thing” for our Government to favour, meanwhile getting rid of the unfavourable. Some Elite group of experts say it can’t be done, another country comes along and dumps cheap subsidised product, and hey presto. This is just another example.
Industries where Australia was once at the cutting edge, or at least competitive. Computers, Space, Batteries (non lithium fully recyclable), solar panels, nuclear, car manufacturing (including hybrids), ship building, software, aircraft industry, other electronics, all eliminated by high taxes, poor policy design, red tape, green tape and more taxes.
Industries slated to be closed under either the Left or Conservative parties are nearly all export orientated our extravagant lifestyle. Aluminium, alumina, coal, agriculture, other mining, associated workshops, steel,magnesium, timber, agriculture and the list goes on.
Australia is proud to have amongst the highest company taxes in the world, the most generously paid unemployed, some of the highest personal taxes, and and unbelievabley byzantine system of red and green tape. Totally ignored by all governments is the almost unbelievable size of capital flight, going anywhere but Australia. Support from this is bipartisan.
I love my country but Australia does not have a great future.
Nah, Scomo is doing the right thing, and in fact it is all he can do under these circumstances.
That is, pay lip service to these grand demands, produce grand and meaningful sounding plans on the world stage, and then, behind the scenes, play the same game as everyone else is playing: dodging, weaving, ducking, diving and doing everything possible to keep an economy afloat in some sensible manner.
That was my take on it as well. He has kicked the can down the road and there is no can more deserving of a good kicking than climate fraud.
I think, and certainly hope, that Scott Morrison is being a lot smarter than people here are giving him credit for.
He has to have a plan, in order to avoid being the whipping boy at the Glasgow conference. Please note the definition of a whipping boy: someone or something that is blamed or punished for problems that are caused by someone or something else (Cambridge Dictionary).
He has a plan. That is all he has to have. He doesn’t have to implement it.
There are all sorts of things that I would like to see in Scott Morrison’s statements, but I do understand that he can never say them while the international scene is so toxic.
I agree, adding to consider that the two major allies who recently signed a new defence agreement, AUKUS, are both pushing Australia to do more to reduce emissions while ignoring that Australia is a tiny 1.3% source of global emissions and since 2005 via the Kyoto and now Paris Agreements has lowered emissions in line with targets set and is on track now to achieve the 2030 target.
The Morrison Government (I am very much opposed to net zero emissions politics and exercise in futility) if we listen carefully sticks to the Paris Agreement 2030 target goal.
What a clown! Why should anyone believe him. Isn’t this the same jester, who assured us a few weeks ago, that there is no forced vaccination in Australia?
I was not forced to get vaccinated, I know of no person that has been forced, but I do know many people who understand and support vaccination of the whole community as a precautionary measure, and not about death so much as not suffering from the onconvenient discomforts of being hospitalised and probably after recovery suffering long term medical problems like heart and lungs damage.
And where I live in New South Wales the benefits are now becoming obvious.