Australia finally caught the ‘Net Zero’ bus – Frustrated with that?

From Dr. Jennifer Marohasy’s Blog

Jennifer Marohasy,

After years of harmony here in Australia, we have finally chosen a government that ‘will act on climate change’. Penny Wong said so as she welcomed Australia’s new prime minister, Anthony Albanese, onto the stage last night. I think it’s an illusion to think we can change the climate – but the political desire for ‘climate action’ has been gathering for perhaps 4 decades and last night it was realized .

It is always about politics. It started in the 1980s when Margaret Thatcher wanted to close the coal mines because of her growing impatience with Arthur Scargill, then president of the National Mining Workers’ Union. That’s when the first silly connections were drawn between coal mining and the likelihood of climate catastrophe. She has seen local advantage turned into geopolitical advantage through the Kyoto Protocol.

Mail-in votes are yet to be counted in this 2022 election, but it looks like the big winners are the Teal Independence Party backed by billionaire climate activists Simon Homes à Court – I understand there could be 10 of these Teal Independents in the new parliament, representing Australia mostly university educated and privileged living in inner-city Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.

These are all women. I would argue the extent to which their election will favor the fortunes of white men who are already wealthy enough to invest so much in so-called renewable energy and the carbon business that they can’t let it fail. These men don’t actually produce much, instead they mainly make money from corporations that depend on government-funded programs, missions and grants, including renewable energies. specific output. For example, I know someone who campaigned for Allegra Spender, the daughter of fashion designer Carla Zampatti, one of the so-called Independent Teal. Spender seems to have earned a spot in Wentworth’s inner city Sydney. This Wentworth resident and Spender supporter made his money selling insurance, then bought property in the New South Wales area, which now has a wind farm that pays him $250,000 a year in rent. He sold all the cattle that used to live on the farm because they gave off carbon. He doesn’t build a wind farm, and he doesn’t sell wind, he only gets paid because he owes land.

Previous Australian governments have included enthusiastic climate warningers, but the difference with this new Labor government is likely to run with the support of Homes climate activists. Court, theoretically, doesn’t have the brakes for them to hastily shut down all manufacturing. produce carbon emissions like cows and coals. Except, I’m not really sure that anyone would be able to make a lot of money from wind farming and carbon trading, without coal to underpin it all – to take advantage of.

At least two of the prominent Liberals defeated by the Teal Independents – Josh Frydenberg in Kooyong and Tim Wilson in Goldstein – claim to want action on climate change and make ‘zero emissions’ goals ‘. Indeed, there is little real difference in what Zoe Daniel (Teal Independent) versus Tim Wilson (Liberal) at Goldstein, and Josh Frydenberg (Liberal) versus Monique Ryan (Teal Independent) in Kooyong claim to support. in this last election campaign. But the Teals won perhaps because there was more faith in their eloquence.

Over the past decade, I have had the opportunity to discuss climate change with both Frydenberg and Wilson. Both are aware of the extent to which the climate emergency narrative – which is fine and indeed underpinning Alban’s new government election – is based on mixed science, but both are want to refute my evidence and run for fervor. It’s an easy thing to do – it makes political sense for them. It made political sense to Margaret Thatcher and it underpins so many people’s wealth now, but is it really sustainable in the future? How will everything be used in the end? At what point will the house of cards be overthrown, or will it just be wind turbines?

Australia has really caught the zero bus.

It will be interesting to see how the new Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, makes it work, as he now has the clear mandate of achieving ‘net zero’ and starting to shut down specific industries.