And now for something completely different – why we should drop our focus on achieving Net-Zero carbon emissions in Australia. In fact, not only do I believe that net-zero is all but impossible, but what if I said it will make no difference to stop climate change?
Why are we hell-bent on achieving net-zero? Do we really know what it is and the impact achieving it will have on our nation and our personal living standards?
And even if we did achieve net-zero in Australia, is it a waste of time? The rest of the world is all increasing its carbon emissions.
So will we end up in the worst place possible? An unstable, expensive energy system, significantly impacted living standards – while still dealing with major climate change issues anyway?
Yes, this is quite a contrarian blog post. But I do believe we are looking at the issue of climate change all wrong and missing a massive opportunity to build unbelievable wealth for our country.
Let me explain….
What is Net Zero?
Let’s start with what Net-Zero actually is. Actually, I cover it in detail in this blog post here. But just a quick recap…
According to the United Nations:
“‘Net zero’ means cutting carbon emissions to a small amount of residual emissions that can be absorbed and durably stored by nature and other carbon dioxide removal measures, leaving zero in the atmosphere.”
In other words, the push to achieving net-zero is trying to reduce the devastating impact of burning fossil fuels for electricity, transport, manufacturing, etc.
How Will We Get There?
To make certain that we hit net-zero, 185 countries, including Australia, have signed theParis Climate Accords, or simply the Paris Agreement. This commits us to targets like:
- Keep global warming to less than 2% of pre-industrial levels.
- Achieve net-zero across the globe by ‘mid-century’ – which is adopted differently across each nation.
Australia has also committed to:
- Achieving net-zero by 2050.
- Reducing carbon emissions by 43% against the 2005 amount produced, by 2030.
- Setting the 2035 targets by 2025 (yeah, that’s like saying we’ll tell you when we get there…)
Again, check this blog post here where I go into the targets set in more detail.
The important thing here is that Australia has committed to net-zero 10 years before China, and 20 years before India!
Are We Slowing Carbon Emissions?
Across the globe, we are yet to even slow our carbon emissions. Not only that, we are still increasing the carbon emissions each year at a staggering rate!
Who are the Biggest Polluters?
Firstly, let’s start with the naughty kids. The top five carbon-producing countries make up more than 60% of the total emissions. The remaining 195 countries make up less than 40%. Simple maths tells us that the remaining countries are tiny compared to the top five.
The worst carbon producers are China ( 33%), the US ( 13%), and India ( 8%).
China – Just Keeping up with Growth
China is working super hard on its green energy programs, and in fact, they are likely to become the next green energy powerhouse. Unfortunately, their renewable programs are simply keeping up with new energy requirements. Given the size of their population and the growing middle class, their carbon emissions aren’t likely to slow down anytime soon.
India – Coal is Increasing in Living Standards
India is interesting as they are going through an industrial revolution that most Western countries have already been through. Access to cheap energy, mostly in the form of coal-fired power stations, is making a huge impact on their standard of living.
This has led in recent times to a doubling of the average age expectancy across the Indian population. How can we tell them to turn off the very thing that is completely changing their lives for the better?
US – Drill Baby Drill!
Then there is good old, crazy, and chaotic Trump in the US. I think we all know his administration’s view on climate change. One of the first things he did in office, for the second time, was to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accords.
So the US will certainly not be lowering emissions and is likely to increase them.
More Coal Required
In fact, the top five major contributors to carbon emissions are unlikely to slow down over the next decade or so, let alone reduce to anything close to zero. All three, China, the US, and India, have stated plans for increasing their use of coal-fired power stations!
And given that China and India have committed to net-zero 10 and 20 years after Australia, there is no need to do things at such a drastic rate. Why would you disrupt your economy and change things now when you have 45 years to reach your goals?!
If all the other countries drop to zero emissions, the world will still increase its carbon footprint at an alarming rate. And climate change will still be hitting us like a coal-driven freight train!
How Much Carbon Does Australia Produce?
Where does Australia rank in carbon emissions? Have you ever thought about it? If we are going to put ourselves through all this pain to get to net-zero emissions, then shouldn’t we know what that actually means to the planet?
Australia only produces a measly 1% of the global carbon emissions – just 1%! Can anyone else see that we can’t affect anything that is happening on a global scale?
Even if we get to zero, any one of the top three is likely to increase their contribution by much more than we save.
What are Australia’s Energy Requirements?
The energy use in Australia can be broken down as:
- Transport – 28%
- Electricity Generation – 23%
- Manufacturing – 17%
- Mining – 15%
- Residential – 8%
- Commercial – 5%
- Other – 4%
Unfortunately, as of 2024, we are only at 9% of renewables, or green energy, in the total energy we use. We need to increase our renewable energy use by over 10 times to get anywhere near net-zero.
First alarm bell goes off….
Aren’t we Making Progress with Green Electricity?
The only positive impact so far is in the generation of electricity. In 2024, around 35% of Australia’s electricity grid uses renewables.
We could strike this up as a win and feel that we just keep repeating this approach and we will make it to 80% plus. However, the sticky point is the easy wins have mostly been taken.
Rooftop solar makes up over half of the 35%, and ageing hydro-electric schemes make up another chunk. So the government hasn’t really begun to change the energy grid at all yet.
This is where the biggest challenges remain.
Given the end-consumer is paying for the solar panel installs, this will be limited to those who can afford it. The rate of solar panel take-up has already peaked and is now slowing. The slowdown started when the power rebates on excess energy were dropped.
Even if we have our electricity grid up over 80% renewables, that still leaves 75% of our total energy usage in Australia being fossil fuel related. Oh shit!
Second alarm bell goes off….
What About Transport?
Of all the 21 million vehicles registered in Australia today, only 2.5% are electric. The remaining are all burning oil in some way. Can you imagine what it would take to shift Australia’s fleet of cars and trucks to electric?
How many years would it take? Where would we get the resources from to build them? Remember how much mining and carbon emissions are required to get the raw materials just for the batteries!
Say we did magically replace significant amounts of petrol cars with EVs. Now we have to significantly increase the capacity of the electricity grid to cater for all those cars to plug in and draw down the power to charge.
How about our planes and aviation? How many people would be willing to jump on the first fleet of electric planes to go on their overseas holidays? Hmmm…don’t see many hands up…
We are years (decades maybe) away from commercial use of long-haul electric vehicles, ships and planes. Even long-distance trains, freight and passenger, are still diesel.
And there’s the third alarm bell….
This is Much Harder Than We Think!
Are you starting to see the picture here? Even with all the best intentions, we simply do not have the technology and the ability to achieve anything close to net-zero.
Wait, have our politicians been lying to us? (oh, the shock!)……yep!
Our politicians have been telling us a lie to make us feel better. By our own actions, none of us are willing to make real changes in our lives to fix climate change. So we want someone to tell us, “don’t worry, we’ve got you covered”.
But it’s a lie…one that will be uncovered in the next few years as we start to miss our emission reduction targets.
There is Not Even a Plan!
I challenge you to find any information anywhere covering how we will actually hit our targets. There isn’t one!
Truly, I’m not making this stuff up. There isn’t a government plan for how we are going to achieve Net-Zero, let alone any of the upcoming targets in 2030.
Go to the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water website and you will find the usual masterful run-around you can only find in government agencies trying to hide the fact that they don’t have a clue.
I can only conclude that they are either giving us punters lip service to win votes, or they know that achieving these targets is way harder than anyone can imagine.
We Need to Rethink Net-Zero
I simply cannot see how we can achieve anything close to net-zero, at least in the short to medium term. And as individuals, we are not changing our lifestyles at all to help the cause.
To truly achieve net-zero, we would need to drastically drop our living standards, as we channel significant government funds into making all the necessary changes. We need to remove public services (health, education, police, defence, etc.), and increase taxes to pay for the removal of fossil fuels from our lives.
And we also need to hope that a number of technological advances occur first, as we do not have all the answers to solve many inherent problems with renewable, green energy.
Even if we did achieve net-zero by some miracle in Australia, we would have only affected the global carbon emissions by 1%. So we are still well and truly neck-deep in the brown stuff when it comes to facing the impact of climate change.
To achieve net-zero, we will have to:
- Send the country broke
- Completely disrupt our way of life like never before
- Significantly lower living standards
- Push a significant number of Australians below the poverty line
- And still face all the climate change issues anyway!
But what is the alternative?
Focus on What Makes Sense
I believe we need to drop the focus on trying to achieve net-zero!
I am not saying that we should stop the move to renewables, and we should reduce fossil fuels where we can. But we should do it where it makes sense.
Until the top five, or at least the top three, carbon polluters (China, the US, and India) begin to make significant headway to their own net-zero, we need to look at things differently.
Why would we put our backs to the wall and seriously damage Australia’s social balance if what we do makes no difference on a global scale?
Make Better Use of the Resources We Have
Australia is absurdly rich, in all the wrong things. We have vast reserves in significant mining assets and coal and gas reserves.
Climate change has clearly demonised our resources and fossil fuel industry, which is a really bad thing for Australia. Over 70% of Australia’s exports are related to fossil fuels or the mining industry.
In fact, it is these industries that have directly given us all a standard of living that is the best in the world. On a per-person basis, Australia is the second wealthiest nation on the planet, 100% due to our natural resources and our fossil fuel industries.
Our Energy Should be the Cheapest!
Because of our abundance of fossil fuels, we should have the cheapest electricity, but we don’t. Again, because coal and gas are now dirty words.
So while we are the biggest exporters of coal and gas in the world, we are refusing to use these resources to our own advantage. Only Western Australia has a scheme where the first 15% of extracted gas must be made available to the local supply at a significantly discounted rate.
This needs to be expanded to the whole country by the federal government. It would give the whole country much, much cheaper electricity prices, which would impact so much of our lives in a positive way.
We should be using our energy resources to maintain a very high standard of living for all Australians. Not turning it off and sending the country broke.
Build Our National Wealth
It just so happens that many countries need Australia’s minerals and energy products, and are willing to pay huge dollars for them. We have to accept that the countries choosing to continue the use of fossil fuels will do so regardless of what we do.
So should Australia take a high moral stand on climate change and not sell these resources, or should we use them to significantly increase Australia’s national wealth?
I believe we should be selling our natural resources, coal and gas reserves, etc, but at a premium. We are not putting the right prices on these things, given what they are worth. So if you want to use it, you need to pay big-time!
Countries like Norway have done it, and have built amazing wealth for their country and its people. Through the correct charging of their natural resources, they have built the largest pension fund in the world, currently valued at almost $3 trillion Aussie dollars! That’s over $500,000 per citizen!
Unfortunately, no matter what we do, climate change is already coming and we will be affected – big time! We need to prepare for what’s coming, knowing it’s going to be expensive!
So What is the Future?
I am very sceptical about us achieving anything near net-zero. While we fight among ourselves as to the best path to achieve net-zero, we move further away from actually achieving it.
All the best experts agree, no matter what their belief on climate change, that we are way behind on achieving any of our targets. And until the top five carbon producers in the world get on board, it all appears to be a complete waste.
Then at an individual level, we are not prepared to make the changes to our lifestyles to make a difference anyway. We are still driving the big cars, travelling everywhere, and consuming like crazy.
So I feel we are in for a very rough time as climate change hits more and more.
Ask yourself this – should we send the country broke, lower our living standards, and still have to deal with the impact of climate change?
Or, should we utilise what we have as a nation, our natural resources, massively increase our nation’s wealth, and put it to better use!
Even through my cynicism, I do have a belief that we humans are incredibly resilient. When our backs are to the wall, we are at our best, and our true ingenuity shines. So we will solve this.
But it requires a much different approach than our current one, and it will be much more expensive than we can imagine.
For now, we need to become more informed of the situation. We need to take the time to understand it, so we make better decisions in our lives and how we choose our leaders.
Until next time…
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