What makes Labor think that its uncosted emissions target will dial down the temperature of the planet?
More than a decade and billions of untold billions of taxpayers’ money have been wasted on so-called climate policy.
Leaders have risen and fallen. It is the poison chalice of Australian politics.
For ordinary people the bitter fruit has been a doubling in their electricity prices and the new territory of unreliability of supply.
The generators of our biggest sources of national wealth – coal and gas – are in the cross hairs. Our nation’s comparative advantage of abundant and cheap energy is being frittered away.
Political dysfunction has become the norm as both major parties have chopped and changed their leaders in response to an increasingly hysterical climate debate.
Last year’s “climate election” should have settled the issue, with Labor’s uncosted 45 per cent emissions reduction policy by 2030 rebuffed by voters.
Having learned nothing from the kicking it got north of the Tropic of Capricorn and in the Hunter Valley, Labor’s Shadow Cabinet has signed off on a new policy of zero net emissions by 2050.
There are no costings and no pathway. Just a Greta Thunberg-type anxiety vibe that we have to “take climate action now”.
Penny Wong intones that the cost of not acting is greater than the cost of acting.
How does she know?
There is a logical argument that adapting to a slightly warmer world is far cheaper than prematurely upending our economy. Did Shadow Cabinet do any economic modelling on that?
What makes Wong think that if Australia closes its coal, gas and intensive animal industries that we will have turned down the temperature of the planet by 2050?
The cost of doing this is eye-watering for a hope that our virtue will be emulated by the rest of the world and the temperature will drop.
Labor leader Anthony Albanese will today justify Labor’s decision because that is where the world is heading.
But is it?
Queensland Senator Matt Canavan has been pointing out the lie of this for anyone who would listen.
In an article in The Australian this week, Canavan wrote:
According to the environmental activists at Global Coal Plant Tracker, China is building 105 more unicorns (coal-fired power plants), India 31 more, Indonesia 24 more and Japan 14 more. Around the world 223 coal-fired power stations are being built, including seven in Europe, and there are 343 coal-fired power plants in the “pre-construction” planning stage. Coal-fired power is imaginary only in Albanese’s mind.
That’s more than 500 coal-fired power stations being built or planned as we speak. Canavan also points out that these plants will have a lifespan that takes them to 2070.
Tiny Australia can cut its emissions all it likes. Globally emissions will still go up, making Labor's policy an exercise in futility and self-harm.
In yet another article, this time in yesterday’s Spectator Australia, Canavan details how Russia is building a rail line to India to export coal and a pipeline to China to export gas.
India and China are key export markets for our resources and they underpin thousands of jobs in regional Queensland.
Canavan says the United States is also constructing coal export facilities on its west coast and could become an exporter of gas, challenging Australia’s dominance.
As Labor walks away from emissions-producing coal and gas, it must tell us what will replace the jobs and wealth.
It also has to tell how we will get reliable and affordable electricity. No one in the warming alarmist camp can answer that basic question.
Wong demonises coal saying wind and solar is cheaper and governments must not subsidise coal power.
The reality is that taxpayer subsidies have bastardised the energy market to the point where the government will have to intervene with baseload fossil fuel generating capacity to keep the lights on.
Windmills and solar panels cannot power a modern industrialised economy, despite the assertions to the contrary every day in the mainstream media.
Young people and wealthy inner city virtue signallers actually believe this propaganda.
Christ Kenny on Sky News shreds the claim that wind and solar saved South Australia last week when the interconnector with Victoria’s coal-fired power fell over again.
It is worth watching his analysis. Wind and solar did not save South Australia, emissions-producing gas did.
The technology does not exist to run air conditioners, charge electric cars and power manufacturing on renewable energy alone (hydro is the exception).
Maybe by 2050 it will. But wouldn’t it be better to work this out first rather than taking what could quite well be a literal walk into the dark?