Australia’s Liberal and National Party Coalition has once again cemented its reputation as a global climate vandal, after agreeing to abandon net zero and repeal the meagre 2030 emissions target, while somehow also remaining a signatory to the Paris agreement.
The shadow Liberal ministry emerged from a four-hour long meeting in Canberra on Thursday having agreed to continue the party’s singular focus on complaining about electricity prices, without any semblance of a plan to reduce them.
This will apparently involve decoupling energy policy from climate and emissions, despite the timely reminder from CSIRO-based Global Carbon Project that the use of fossil fuels accounts for about 90 per cent of the world’s emissions, and are this year projected to rise.
“The Liberal Party will remove a net zero target from our policy, and if elected, we will remove the 43% 2030 target and its net zero by 2050 target from the Climate Change Act,” opposition leader Sussan Ley told reporters on Thursday afternoon, adding that it remained committed to the Paris agreement.
Asked how these two positions could possibly coexist, it became clear very quickly that the Liberal Party has its own take on what the Paris accord actually requires of signatories – and that it sees net zero by 2050 as a “nice to have,” rather than urgent, science-backed target.
“Our commitment is that we will reduce emissions on average, year on year … and we will do that in line [with] doing our fair share with comparable countries, and we’ll do it as far and as fast as technologies will allow,” she said.
“While it’s not our policy … to set long-term targets, net zero would be welcome if we can get there with technology, with choice and with voluntary markets,” she told reporters.
“Make no mistake, we are not pursuing net zero.
“Paris is about a global agreement to bring down temperatures and reduce emissions …This is a plan to bring down emissions and to provide affordable energy … and if there are reasons why people in Paris or in some United Nations Organisation don’t like it, I can deal with that.”
Perhaps Ley also believes she can “deal with” science and physics of climate change.
On energy, the Liberal Party’s logic was just as confounding. And the first order of business would seem to be trashing anything and everything federal Labor has put in place.
“We’re very happy to dismantle the structures and the regulation and the policies, if you can call them that, that this Labor government has put in place that are doing nothing to make energy and your electricity bills affordable, very happy to dismantle them,” Ley said.
Except for the Capacity Investment Scheme, which shadow energy minister Dan Tehan seemed to suggest would stay, but be adjusted to be “technology agnostic,” including to support state governments in “sweating coal assets.”
“So when it comes to the Capacity Investment Scheme, yes, we will support the state governments … who are already sweating their coal assets… we will support them … to make sure we keep capacity in the system, we will take a technology agnostic approach,” Tehan said.
Ley also suggested she is done with Big Business running the show on energy and electricity prices. How refreshing!
“There’s a lot of talk about what investors want,” she said, after a reporter raised concerns that a complete gutting of federal energy policy might send mixed messages to investors. “I actually think, what do the Australian people want? What do they deserve?” she said.
What Australians deserve is probably a government that has a basic grasp on how the rapidly changing energy market works and what it needs to keep working, and which listens to experts like the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) and CSIRO.
From the Liberal Party, this is not yet forthcoming.
“What Australia’s grid really needs is baseload power,” Ley said. “You need it in the right place, you need it at the right time. You need it to provide inertia to the grid, and it is what keeps the lights on.”
She must have missed the May speech by AEMO CEO Daniel Westerman – just before the federal election – in which he declared baseload ‘dead, buried and cremated’ in the running of modern electricity grids.
“So the paradigm shift underway in our power system is from the economics of baseload and peaking, to renewables and firming,” AEMO chief executive Daniel Westerman said in an address to a CEDA event in Melbourne.
“And there is no going back.”
From here, three Liberals and three Nationals will be chosen to negotiate a joint position on climate, which will be put to a joint party-room meeting on Sunday for endorsement.
Guardian Australia says it has confirmed the three Nationals representatives will include Matt “Mr Coal” Canavan and Ross Cadell – both of whom led the party’s net zero revolt – as well as Susan McDonald, the shadow resources minister.
Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese said on Thursday morning that the federal Coalition was walking away from climate action “because they fundamentally do not believe in the science.”
“The … lesson that the Liberals have learnt from their defeat at the last two elections, and the last election where they had their worst result since 1943, is that they need to be more right wing, more sceptical, more in denial about climate change and continue to engage in those climate wars,” he told reporters.
“They’re also walking away from reliable and affordable energy – renewables backed by storage and backed by gas for firming capacity.
“In spite of the rhetoric of those opposite and some of the people marching into the Liberal Party Room in order to deny the existence of climate change, the fact is that there haven’t been new coal fired power stations built because of the economics of that.
“When 24 out of 28 coal fired power stations announced their closure on the Coalition government’s watch and there was no replacement of supply because of the Coalition’s engagement in climate wars.
“The failure to have a certain climate policy and to provide that investment environment meant that you haven’t had the replacement,” Albanese said.
“What we know is that renewables are the cheapest form of energy. We’re making sure that we back that up with batteries and with gas as well for firming capacity. And that is the way to deliver the path that Australia needs.”
Federal independent MP Zali Steggall says the Coalition’s decision this week on climate and energy makes it “unelectable.”
“Today’s announcement shows the federal Liberals, just like the Nationals, are now even further removed from community expectations over climate action in Australia,” Steggall said on Thursday.
Fellow “Teal” independent Allegra Spender said the Liberal Party was “playing culture wars with energy policy” and that Australia was the worse for it.
“Let’s be clear – the Libs have abandoned climate action and the need of businesses having certainty to invest,” Spender said on Thursday.
“They have no serious plans to reduce household power bills, or business energy costs and have refused to provide a stable political environment for businesses to make investments.”
More to come
