Plasticide: a crime against humanity - Julian Cribb

Surviving the 21st Century - Julian Cribb

AUTHOR Julian Cribb AM is an Australian science writer and author of seven books on the human existential emergency. His latest book is How to Fix a Broken Planet (Cambridge University Press, 2023)

Aside from taking down humanity by baking the Earth or sparking nuclear war, the oil industry is now advancing the human end-game by poisoning everyone with plastic – a crime increasingly known as plasticide.

The horrific toxicology of ingested plastics has become more apparent with the release of a scientific paper about their impact on wildlife.

The researchers, led by Erin Murphy of the Ocean Conservancy, investigated 10,000 deaths covering 1,300 ocean species. Among these, 35% of seabirds, 12% of marine mammals, and 47% of sea turtles had swallowed plastic. They found 23 pieces of plastic were enough to kill a bird and 29 pieces a mammal.

Thoughtless people might be inclined to shrug and say “So what? I’m not a seal.” – but humans are far more heavily exposed to plastics than sealife through food packaging, bottled drinks, cutlery, clothing, furniture, cars, city air etc. Less than 0.5% of human plastic waste ends up in the ocean – the rest stays in our living environment. What this study basically says is: it doesn’t take a lot of plastic to add up to a lethal dose for any living creature, ourselves included.

Next time your credit card expires, don’t just cut it up. Imagine eating it. That will give you a fair idea how much plastic you consume every week. This amounts to 250 grams of plastic per person per year – the equivalent of two whopper burgers made up from 52,000 pieces of minced plastic.

In total, humans now eat at least two million tonnes of petroleum-based plastics annually – and that’s on top of all the pesticides, mineral oils, paraffins, preservatives, synthetic dyes and other petrochemical ingredients that are now a legalised part of the filthy modern food chain (and incorporated in most so-called ‘snack foods’).

Reflect on this: a significant part of the human diet now consists of processed petroleum.

The oil industry makes vast profits by getting you to eat its toxic output, and getting parents to feed it to their kids. And there is very little the average person can do to avoid it.

Plastics fall into two main categories – microplastics, where the pieces are 5mm or less and which generally pass through the human digestive tract depositing their toxins on the way, and nanoplastics, fragments a few microns or less in size which can easily slip through the skin and into the bloodstream, brain, liver, kidney and unborn babies.

Plastics can be toxic in themselves – many contain ‘forever chemicals’ - but also act as delivery vehicles for other toxic substances, which can thus enter parts of the human body they would never normally reach. Ultrafine plastic particles can penetrate the body at cell level, and so damage your genes – meaning the harm caused by plastics is both immediate and may also last for generations.

Food that has been wrapped or packaged in plastic or in plastic bottles is a primary source of plastic fragments in the diet – but so too, increasingly, are the actual meat, seafood and plants we consume which have all, in their turn, absorbed plastics from water, soil and air during their life cycle. You inhale microfibres shed by synthetic clothing every minute of your day like a poison gas and, if small enough, they pass directly into your bloodstream and brain. Household dust, office furniture and city air are also major sources of airborne plastic pollution.

Once it became clear the world was moving to electric transport, the international oil industry panicked. The loss of their fuels business to EVs has led vast refineries worldwide rapidly switching production from fuels to plastics.

Fossil fuels were bad enough, killing an estimated 8 million people a year through urban air pollution. Plastics will be worse, as they infect the entire global food chain – and some never go away - they can just go on killing and killing and killing. Those that do break down, turn into CO2 and contribute 4% to global warming.

The death toll from plastics is unknown, because no credible scientific body has yet attempted to estimate it. Global oil is seeking to corrupt scientific inquiry to hide the toll and risks of plastics. It is mounting a huge effort to sabotage the Global Plastics Treaty, the same as it is mounting to sabotage all climate progress.

Essentially, Big Oil is fighting for the right to kill more people.

“Plastics are a grave, growing, and under-recognised danger to human and planetary health. Plastics cause disease and death from infancy to old age and are responsible for health-related economic losses exceeding US$1·5 trillion annually,” states The Lancet’s latest report on human health and plastics. The World Health Organisation adds plastics are of “intense public concern” from a health perspective.

World industrial plastics production started in the 1950s at 2 million tonnes a year. Today it is approaching 500 million tonnes a year – and is forecast to explode to 1.3 billion tonnes/yr by 2060. This is in spite of the Global Plastics Treaty, tabled in 2022 and still being negotiated, which was intended to restrain the monster. Total world plastics output since the start is estimated at 8.3 billion tonnes. An estimated 95% of it is still in circulation.

Optimistically, The Lancet considers “Plastics’ harms can be mitigated cost-effectively by evidence-based, transparently tracked, effectively implemented, and adequately financed laws and policies,” but cases of countries passing such laws are few and far between. As things stand the oil industry has unfettered access to every human brain and body, to all our babies and to the health of each person and every living creature on Earth.

The term ‘plasticide’ has not yet achieved a legal definition – the law remains decades behind the advance of human technology in this, as in so many other developments. Without such a definition, the killing of humans by plastic will remain a non-issue. Most countries still see plastics as an inconvenient waste disposal problem – not as the mass poisoner of their citizens and wildlife that they truly are.

The term appears to have been first used by renowned British underwater sculptor Jason de Caires Taylor, who exhibited an installation entitled ‘Plasticide’, depicting a family at the beach being poisoned by plastics, made from melted soft-drink bottles in 2016. The word was then used by Credit Suisse in a report describing the global plastic waste crisis, but which did not dwell on the human health impacts of the plastics flood. So far, these continue to be ignored by policymakers.

Plasticide is death by plastic. It is a crime as much as any other premeditated form of murder. But it is being perpetrated at global level for earnings of $1 trillion a year.

The shareholders of Big Oil are making a killing that, quite likely, will exceed all the wars in history.

Julian Cribb Articles

• Our Rising Oceans
• Will climate change put women in the ascendant?
• When the water runs out...
• The great dying
• Australia issues ‘terrifying’ climate warning
• 'Died of a delusion': the fate of modern civilisation?
• Collapse is near, scientists warn
• De-icing the Earth: a fatal human choice. 
• Rivers of Death
• Unlike politicians, thermometers do not lie
• Welcome to BunkerWorld: Home of the rich and fearful
•  Wisdom of the elders
•  The black work of Big Oil
•  Stealing the Breath of Life
•  The Earth Uncloaked - a catastrophe in slow motion 
  
•  Military experts warn of climate wars
•  Tackling the Earth Emergency
•  A distracted world marches steadily towards catastrophe

War’s Carbon Shadow: How Conflict Fuels the Climate Crisis - Lethal Heating Editor BDA

Key Points

Military activity produces a significant but poorly measured share of global emissions [1] Recent conflicts are generating measurable environmental damage [3] War-related fires and industrial destruction release pollutants and create “black rain” effects [2] Destroyed infrastructure releases vast carbon stores [2] Reconstruction can produce a long carbon tail [4] Military emissions remain largely invisible in climate reporting [5]

On a satellite map at night, war often appears first as fire.

Infrared sensors capture the glow of burning fuel depots, damaged refineries, shattered factories and forests set alight by artillery.

The plumes rise into the atmosphere, where carbon dioxide, soot and chemical particles disperse across continents.

In a century defined by climate change, warfare has become an underexamined driver of the planetary crisis.

Global scale of the problem

Researchers estimate that global military activity may account for roughly five to six per cent of total greenhouse gas emissions ^[1].

This places the military sector alongside major civilian emitters such as aviation and shipping.

Quantifying this footprint remains difficult because governments often classify fuel use data ^[2].

Current conflicts and climate consequences

Recent conflicts are producing measurable emissions and environmental damage across multiple regions.

Forests burn, infrastructure collapses and industrial facilities release pollutants into air and water systems.

The Ukraine war alone has generated emissions comparable to some countries ^[3].

Ecosystem damage and black rain

Industrial fires release toxic particles that drift through the atmosphere before returning to earth.

This can result in contaminated rainfall sometimes described as black rain.

These processes are linked to combustion pollution identified in military emissions research ^[2].

Destruction of infrastructure

Urban destruction releases carbon stored within buildings and industrial systems.

Concrete and steel embody large amounts of energy from their production.

When destroyed, this carbon cost is effectively doubled during reconstruction ^[2].

Reconstruction and the long carbon tail

Rebuilding after conflict requires enormous volumes of cement and steel.

These materials are among the most carbon-intensive in the global economy.

Historical reconstruction has driven prolonged emissions increases lasting decades ^[4].

Military emissions and reporting gaps

Military emissions often fall outside standard climate reporting frameworks.

International agreements have struggled to enforce transparency in this sector.

As a result, significant emissions remain uncounted in global inventories ^[5].

Conclusion

The climate crisis is usually framed through energy, transport and industry.

Yet warfare leaves a substantial and often invisible carbon footprint.

From active conflict to long-term reconstruction, emissions accumulate across decades.

Recognising this hidden carbon economy is essential for a complete understanding of global climate dynamics.

References

1. Conflict and Environment Observatory: Military Emissions and Climate Change
2. Scientists for Global Responsibility: The Carbon Bootprint of the Military
3. Environmental Impact of the Ukraine War
4. World Bank: Reconstruction After Conflict
5. UNFCCC: Kyoto Protocol Overview

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Australia's Climate Reckoning: The Numbers the Government Released, and the Questions It Left Unanswered - Lethal Heating Editor BDA

An investigative analysis of Australia's first National Climate Risk Assessment
and what it demands of governments, insurers and communities

Key Points

Australia's continental landmass warms faster than the global average, compressing the country's adaptation timeline beyond what global projections alone suggest. 1 Under 3°C warming, heat-related deaths could increase by 444% in Sydney and 423% in Darwin, exposing gaps in hospital surge planning and aged care standards. 2 Up to 1.5 million people face coastal inundation risk by 2050, yet no national managed retreat program with binding timelines or committed funding yet exists. 3 Insurance catastrophe losses have more than tripled as a share of GDP since the late 1990s, and the NCRA projects disaster costs reaching $40.3 billion annually by 2050. 4 The report flags national security and defence as facing severe risk by 2050, raising unanswered questions about Australia's capacity to fulfil Indo-Pacific obligations. 5 The government approved a 40-year extension to Woodside's North West Shelf gas project in the same period the NCRA was released, a contradiction critics say remains unaddressed. 6

Findings in Australia's first comprehensive national climate risk assessment are so stark the Federal Government's own framing could not fully contain them.

The country faces a future of cascading, compounding and concurrent disasters, and the window for meaningful adaptation is narrowing faster than most policy timetables acknowledge.

Released by the Australian Climate Service, a partnership of CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology, Geoscience Australia and the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the National Climate Risk Assessment identifies 63 nationally significant risks across eight systems, from health and housing to defence and First Nations peoples.¹ 

It is the first document of its kind at national scale. The United Kingdom produced comparable assessments in 2017 and again in 2022. The United States has been running iterative assessments for more than fifteen years.

Australia commenced this work in 2023.

A Continent That Heats Faster Than the Planet

The NCRA's most consequential scientific finding receives relatively little prominence in the Government's public communication. 

Australia's continental landmass warms significantly faster than the surrounding oceans, meaning the country will reach any given global temperature threshold ahead of the broader international timeline.¹ 

In practical terms, this compresses Australia's adaptation window compared to global projections.

The report also states, with notable directness, that historical weather observations are no longer a reliable guide to future climate risk. Flood mapping, building codes and insurance actuarial tables built on historical data are, by the NCRA's own logic, operating on obsolete assumptions.¹ 

No Government agency has publicly committed to a mandatory review of those systems in light of that finding.

The assessment models impacts under three warming scenarios: 1.5°C, 2°C and 3°C above pre-industrial levels. Based on current global policies, the world is tracking toward 2.7°C of warming by 2100, making the 3°C scenario the most likely outcome.³ 

Yet the Government's public communication consistently emphasised 1.5°C as a reference point, a framing critics argue creates a misleading impression of what is achievable under present trajectories.

The Coastal Reckoning

Even assuming no population growth, 597,000 Australians will live in areas directly exposed to coastal hazards by 2030, a figure that rises to more than 1.5 million by 2050 and exceeds three million by 2090.³ 

The 2030 figure represents less than five years from today. No national managed retreat program with binding timelines or committed funding has been announced for those communities.

Queensland bears the heaviest exposure, with 18 of the 20 most-at-risk coastal regions concentrated in that State.³ 

Those same regions have seen billions of dollars in coastal development approved over the preceding decade. The legal exposure of State and Local governments that continued approving construction in zones now classified as high-risk has not been formally tested, but the NCRA's findings make that reckoning harder to avoid.

Consider the position of a retired couple in a Gold Coast canal estate, a scenario representative of hundreds of thousands of Australians. They bought in the 2010s, drew down their superannuation on the deposit, and assumed their council would not approve a development in a zone that would one day become uninsurable. 

The NCRA projects that up to one million Australian homes will sit in areas deemed very high risk or effectively uninsurable by 2050.⁴ 

The question of who holds the financial residue when private insurance withdraws, whether it falls to homeowners, councils or the Commonwealth, has not been answered by any authority on the record.

Property value losses across at-risk zones could reach AU$611 billion by 2050 and AU$770 billion by 2090 under a low-adaptation scenario.⁴ 

The Investor Group on Climate Change has called for mandatory guidance from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority requiring financial institutions to stress-test their real estate exposure against NCRA projections. No such binding directive has been issued.

Heat, Death and the Limits of the Health System

Under 3°C of warming, heat-related deaths are projected to rise by 444% in Sydney and 423% in Darwin, compared to current conditions.² 

The NCRA notes, with clinical understatement, that the relationship between temperature increases and mortality is "not linear". This is a significant qualifier. Non-linearity means there are thresholds above which mortality rates accelerate sharply, not gradually, and current hospital surge capacity models have not been designed for that kind of discontinuous demand.

Darwin presents a particular challenge. It is simultaneously a key Australian Defence Force hub, a regional economic centre and, according to the NCRA, a city that faces very high to severe climate risk by 2050, including extended periods when outdoor activity would be functionally dangerous.⁵ 

 The long-term implications for Northern Australia's economic and strategic role have not been subject to any published Government reassessment.

Vector-borne diseases, including dengue fever and malaria, are projected to expand their range southward under warming scenarios.² 

Australia has no tropical disease infrastructure at the scale a sustained northward expansion of dengue would demand. The report does not identify a lead agency responsible for building that capacity, nor a timeline for doing so.

The NCRA is explicit that the burden of these health risks will not be distributed equally. The elderly, the very young, people with existing health conditions and outdoor workers, including emergency responders, face disproportionate exposure.² 

Sweltering Cities, the national community advocacy group focused on heat safety, described current protections in social housing and aged care facilities as inadequate against projections of this scale. State housing authorities have not publicly committed to minimum mandatory cooling standards informed by NCRA data.

Defence, Volunteers and the Cost of Concurrent Disasters

The NCRA's risk matrix ranks defence and national security second only to the natural environment in immediate vulnerability, ahead of public health and primary industries.⁵

This ordering reflects a documented problem the report draws directly from the Defence Strategic Review 2023: the Australian Defence Force is increasingly being deployed to domestic disaster relief, and that deployment is already detracting from its primary strategic mission in the Indo-Pacific.

The problem is expected to worsen. Repeated disasters are projected to erode volunteer capacity in fire and emergency services, at precisely the moment that demand for those services accelerates.⁵

Rural and regional fire services, which are heavily volunteer-dependent, face a compound problem: they are losing population to urbanisation and internal climate migration while simultaneously confronting longer and more intense fire seasons. No Government agency has published a workforce modelling study addressing the gap between projected volunteer decline and career firefighter recruitment.

The report explicitly acknowledges the risk of multiple simultaneous disaster events. A major cyclone, a significant bushfire and a coastal flooding emergency occurring within the same week would strain resource allocation and coordination across defence, emergency services and State governments in ways that no current exercise has stress-tested at national scale.⁵

The Insurance Equation and the Fiscal Trajectory

Losses from declared insurance catastrophes have grown from 0.2% to 0.7% of GDP between the late 1990s and 2024, a more than threefold increase in two decades.⁴

The NCRA projects disaster costs totalling AU$40.3 billion annually by 2050, with Government disaster recovery spending potentially five to seven times higher by 2090.

The Investor Group on Climate Change assessed the National Adaptation Plan released alongside the NCRA as a plan that lacks firm commitments, legislated timelines and flagship actions with funding attached.⁶

The Government committed $354 million in new adaptation funding in the 2025-26 budget, with $632.5 million allocated over the medium term, figures that sit in marked contrast to the scale of projected losses.

The Government released its 2035 emissions reduction target in the same week as the NCRA, setting a goal of a 62% to 70% reduction below 2005 levels. The Australian Conservation Foundation, the Climate Council and a coalition of leading corporations called for at least a 75% reduction, arguing that target could add AU$370 billion to national GDP by 2035.⁶ 

The Government's chosen range falls below that threshold.

In the same period, the Albanese Government approved a 40-year operational extension for Woodside Energy's North West Shelf gas project, running to 2070.⁶

Critics and environmental groups noted that the project is expected to generate emissions equivalent to at least 13 times Australia's total annual output over its operational life. No minister has been asked to formally reconcile that approval with the findings of the Government's own landmark risk assessment.

First Nations Communities and the Unsettled Question of Managed Retreat

The NCRA identifies Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as facing "unique impacts" from climate change, including loss of Country, disruption of cultural practice and saltwater intrusion into freshwater systems.³

The assessment's First Nations chapter was developed through a culturally adapted face-to-face engagement process, with participants drawn from desert, sea country, freshwater, rainforest and urban settings.

Torres Strait community leaders have stated publicly that coastal and island communities are at immediate risk of losing their homes, their cultural practices and their traditions. The concept of "managed retreat," which involves relocating communities away from inundation risk, carries profound weight for peoples whose cultural identity, native title and intergenerational knowledge are bound to specific Country. 

No Government body has commissioned an Indigenous-led assessment of what managed retreat would mean in practice for cultural heritage, native title or identity. The National Adaptation Plan references a AU$15.9 million Torres Strait and Northern Peninsula Area Climate Resilience Centre, a figure that many analysts consider inadequate given the scale of documented risk.³

Accountability and the Adaptation Gap

The NCRA is Australia's first nationally comprehensive climate risk document. The United Kingdom's first comparable assessment was published in 2017, followed by an updated version in 2022. The United States has been producing iterative national assessments since the early 2000s, building progressively more granular datasets over each cycle.¹

Australia's commencement of this work in 2023 means decisions made across the preceding two decades, including development approvals, infrastructure investments and building code settings, were made without a nationally consistent risk baseline.

The Investor Group on Climate Change has called for legislative requirements to regularly update the NCRA, arguing the current plan lacks enforceable milestones, clear timelines and mechanisms to incorporate feedback from the communities most affected by the assessment's findings.⁶  

Without those structures, the risk is that Australia's first serious national reckoning with climate risk produces a document rather than a decision-making framework.

A Warning the Country Cannot Afford to File Away

The NCRA states with rare directness: "We are living climate change now. It is no longer a forecast, a projection or a prediction. It is a live reality, and it is too late to avoid any impacts." This is not a hedged scientific formulation. It is a statement of present conditions, not future contingency.

What the report demands, and what the policy response has not yet delivered, is a commensurate shift in the scale and urgency of institutional action. The National Adaptation Plan acknowledges an adaptation action shortfall across all systems, risks, jurisdictions and geographies in Australia. 

Local councils, which bear the closest exposure to climate risk, face the largest per-capita adaptation costs with the smallest revenue base. Federal adaptation funding of $354 million across a year when projected annual disaster costs approach $40 billion reveals the scale of the gap.

The science behind the NCRA is produced by some of Australia's most credible institutions. Its findings on heat mortality, coastal inundation, insurance markets and First Nations exposure are not contested. 

What remains contested, or more precisely, unanswered, is the question of governance: who is responsible, with what funding, on what timeline, accountable to whom, for delivering the adaptation that the assessment makes unavoidable.

Australia has produced its first honest national inventory of climate risk. The harder question is whether the political system can match the urgency of what that inventory contains. 

The communities most exposed, remote, coastal, Indigenous and low-income, are precisely those with the least capacity to wait for the answer.

References

1. Australian Climate Service: Australia's First National Climate Risk Assessment (2025)
2. SBS News: No Australians immune: What 2050 and beyond will look like for your city (September 2025)
3. Climate Council: Compounding climate risk: Briefing Paper on the NCRA (September 2025)
4. Climate Council: Scary numbers as government tallies the catastrophic cost of climate delay (September 2025)
5. Australian Geographic: Is the latest climate report Australia's final wake-up call? (September 2025)
6. Investor Group on Climate Change: Australia's First National Climate Risk Assessment and Adaptation Plan: What Investors Need to Know (September 2025)
7. Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water: Assessing Australia's Climate Risks (2025)
8. Grant Thornton Australia: NCRA and National Adaptation Plan Sustainability Reporting Alert (September 2025)
9. The Conversation: Is this Australia's climate wake-up call? (September 2025)
10. PMC / CSIRO: Insights on the process to develop Australia's first national climate risk assessment (2025)
11. OnImpact: Australian first National Climate Risk Assessment warns of widespread impacts (September 2025)
12. DCCEEW: National Adaptation Plan (2025)

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Twelve Years in the Making: How Goulburn Became the Nation's Community Energy Pioneer - Lethal Heating Editor BDA

Key Points

Goulburn's community solar farm, opened 21 March 2026, is Australia's first community-owned solar and battery project. 1 The Goulburn Community Energy Cooperative raised $3.2 million from 288 local investors alongside a $2.3 million state government grant. 2 A dedicated Community Fund directs profits to residents experiencing energy poverty, raising equity questions about access and administration. 3 The proposed 400 MWdc Gundary Solar Farm by Lightsource bp awaits a NSW planning decision, highlighting tensions between corporate and community energy models. 4 Australia lags Germany and the UK in community energy development, largely due to weak policy frameworks and grid access barriers. 5 Goulburn's project challenges assumptions about conservative regional resistance to renewable energy and offers a replicable national template. 6

In a paddock on the outskirts of a regional New South Wales city better known for its giant merino sheep statue than its clean energy ambitions, Australia quietly crossed a threshold it had been approaching for over a decade.

On 21 March 2026, the Goulburn Community Solar Farm was officially opened, becoming the country's first community-owned solar farm paired with a battery. ¹ 

The project is modest by utility standards: 1.4 megawatts of generating capacity, roughly 2,300 panels and a 4 megawatt-hour battery capable of powering approximately 500 homes. But its significance extends well beyond those numbers.

Twelve Years, One Cooperative

The path to that opening ceremony was neither straight nor smooth. The Goulburn Community Energy Cooperative began organising more than a decade ago, navigating a regulatory environment that had not been designed with community ownership in mind.

Grid connection rules, licensing requirements and the sheer complexity of establishing a cooperative energy company in Australia created friction at every stage. Financing was equally fraught: the project required patient capital from local residents, many of whom committed funds years before a single panel was installed.

In the end, 288 local investors contributed $3.2 million. ² 

A $2.3 million grant from the NSW state government bridged the remainder of the $5.5 million total cost. Without that public subsidy, the cooperative's financial case would have been precarious.

That dependence on government support raises a pointed question: if NSW policy settings shift, what happens to the business model? The grant appears structured as a one-off capital contribution rather than ongoing operational support, which offers some insulation. But the cooperative's long-term revenue depends on wholesale electricity prices and network tariffs, both of which remain subject to regulatory change.

Who Holds the Power?

Governance inside the GCEC follows cooperative principles: members hold voting rights, and the board is accountable to investors through annual general meetings. But with 288 members spread across varying levels of financial literacy and engagement, the practical exercise of oversight can be uneven.

Investor protections under Australian cooperative law are real but limited. If the cooperative underperforms or faces insolvency, members' recourse is broadly similar to that of shareholders in a small unlisted company. There is no government guarantee on returns.

The 4 MWh battery introduces a further technical risk. Battery storage systems degrade over time, typically losing capacity at a rate of one to two per cent per year. Whether the cooperative has set aside a replacement reserve, or built degradation into its financial projections, is not publicly disclosed.

Energy Poverty and the Limits of Community Benefit

One of the project's most distinctive features is its Community Fund, which directs a portion of profits toward residents experiencing energy poverty. ³ 

The intention is admirable: a clean energy project that explicitly addresses the affordability crisis affecting low-income households.

But the mechanism raises substantive questions. Energy poverty is not uniformly defined in Australian policy. Whether eligibility is tied to concession card status, household income thresholds or energy expenditure ratios appears to be determined internally by the cooperative rather than by an independent standard.

There is also a structural tension at the heart of the model. The residents most harmed by high electricity prices are typically renters, people in social housing, or those without the capital to invest in rooftop solar. Those same residents are unlikely to have been among the 288 investors who funded this project.

The Community Fund partially addresses that gap, but the proportion of profits allocated to it has not been made publicly explicit. Whether that figure is locked into the cooperative's constitution, or subject to annual discretion by the board, matters considerably for accountability.

Gundary: A Different Kind of Solar

Just to the southeast of Goulburn, a very different kind of solar project is working its way through the NSW planning system. Lightsource bp, a renewable energy company jointly owned by the oil major BP, has proposed the Gundary Solar Farm: a 400 megawatt project that would be roughly 280 times the generating capacity of the community farm. ⁴

A referral decision from the NSW Department of Planning is expected in the first half of 2026. The project is classified as a State Significant Development, a planning category that streamlines assessment but can limit the avenues available to local objectors.

The contrast between Gundary and the GCEC project is instructive. One was built from within the community over 12 years. The other is being developed by a multinational with a corporate community benefit framework that, while not without substance, is qualitatively different from a cooperative whose profits legally belong to its members.

Community engagement processes for large-scale commercial developments typically involve consultation periods, benefit-sharing agreements and local employment commitments. Whether those translate into genuine community ownership of outcomes, rather than managed community acceptance, is a distinction energy policy researchers have debated for years.

Scale, Reach and the Urban Export Question

Further north in the Upper Hunter, the Goulburn River Solar Farm, developed by Lightsource bp and constructed by DT Infrastructure, represents the utility end of the spectrum. At 585 megawatts of peak capacity, it is projected to supply enough electricity for 225,000 homes annually. ⁵

But how much of that power actually reaches households in regional NSW, rather than being dispatched into a grid serving Sydney and other urban markets, is a question the project's developers do not publicly address in detail. Australia's electricity grid does not work like a local circuit: power flows where prices and transmission capacity direct it, not necessarily where generation occurs.

This dynamic has fuelled a persistent frustration in regional communities: they host the turbines and panels, bear the visual and land-use impacts, and then watch the electricity move elsewhere. The community cooperative model directly addresses this grievance by ensuring that at least some of the economic benefit stays local.

Why Australia Lags

Community energy cooperatives have flourished in Germany, Denmark and the United Kingdom for decades. Germany alone had more than 800 energy cooperatives by the mid-2010s, many of them rural. Australia, by contrast, has struggled to develop the policy infrastructure to support equivalent growth.

The barriers are well-documented. Feed-in tariff structures have historically favoured large generators. Cooperative legislation varies by state and can be poorly suited to energy businesses. Grid connection rules impose costs that are prohibitive for small projects. ⁶

The fact that it took Goulburn 12 years to open what is described as the country's first project of its kind is itself a measure of how high those barriers remain. Advocates argue that three changes would make the most difference: standardised grid connection terms for community projects, a national feed-in framework that rewards local ownership, and federal co-investment vehicles modelled on the UK's community energy fund.

Politics, Place and a Shifting Electorate

Goulburn sits in a region that has historically returned conservative candidates to both state and federal parliaments. The fact that nearly 300 local residents chose to invest their own money in a solar cooperative, and that the project attracted bipartisan support in the lead-up to its opening, signals something about how the politics of energy is changing in regional Australia.

"What this farm shows is that Goulburn is not a backwards, conservative, country city," one of the project's proponents told the ABC. The remark was pointed, and deliberate. ¹

The CORENA fund listing for the GCEC notes that the farm sits on Gundungurra Country. Whether formal processes of free, prior and informed consent with the Gundungurra people were undertaken during the project's development is not addressed in publicly available material. That omission is notable, particularly as reconciliation and land rights frameworks become more central to infrastructure approval processes in NSW.

A Template, If the Policy Follows

Goulburn's community solar farm is genuinely significant: a proof of concept that resident-led clean energy is achievable in regional Australia, even against formidable structural headwinds. Its 12-year gestation is a caution, not a blueprint. The next community to attempt something similar should not need to wait as long.

Whether the NSW government will respond to Goulburn's milestone with the policy changes needed to make replication faster and cheaper remains unclear. A formal community energy strategy, dedicated co-investment funding, and reformed grid connection rules would each reduce the barriers substantially.

For now, the 2,300 panels southeast of Goulburn are turning sunlight into electricity, and directing a portion of the proceeds back to the people who paid for them. In a national energy market where households have often felt like passive consumers of decisions made elsewhere, that is not a small thing. 

The question is whether it remains a curiosity, or becomes a model.

References

1. ABC News: 'Electrons to the people' -- Neighbours build commercial solar farm (27 March 2026)  

2. Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals: Goulburn community celebrates Australia's first community-owned solar farm and battery (23 March 2026)  

3. Goulburn Community Energy Cooperative: What is community energy?  

4. Lightsource bp: Gundary Solar project page  

5. DT Infrastructure: Goulburn River Solar Farm 

 6. CORENA: Goulburn Community Energy Cooperative, NSW  

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Australia’s Climate Truth Gap: How Misinformation Shapes Policy, Trust, and the Path to Net Zero - Lethal Heating Editor BDA

In Australia, the battle over climate change is about science.
It's also about who controls the story.

Key Points

Climate misinformation in Australia persists through energy cost and reliability narratives1 Media ecosystems and political actors shape public understanding unevenly2 Digital platforms amplify misleading content faster than corrections3 Government responses remain fragmented and partially effective4 Public trust varies sharply across demographics and regions5 Misinformation risks undermining long-term climate policy and economic transition6

The Persistence of Climate Misinformation

Climate misinformation in Australia often centres on claims that renewable energy is unreliable, expensive, or insufficient to replace fossil fuels¹.

These narratives persist despite evidence from national energy markets showing growing renewable penetration alongside stable grid performance¹.

Research indicates that repeated exposure to misleading claims can erode public understanding of climate science, even when individuals encounter corrective information¹.

One prominent example involves debates over electricity prices, where rising costs are frequently attributed to renewables despite data linking price volatility to fossil fuel markets¹.

Media Influence and Information Ecosystems

Australia’s media landscape plays a decisive role in shaping climate narratives, with varying editorial approaches influencing public perception².

Analyses of coverage trends have shown that some outlets emphasise scientific consensus, while others amplify uncertainty or economic risk².

Differences in media consumption patterns, including commercial television, digital platforms, and independent journalism, create fragmented information environments².

These fragmented ecosystems allow misinformation to circulate within specific audiences, reinforcing existing beliefs rather than challenging them².

Political Actors and Industry Messaging

Political actors often play a central role in legitimising or contesting climate narratives, particularly during election cycles².

Statements that frame climate policy as economically harmful can resonate strongly in regions dependent on coal, gas, or mining industries².

Industry groups and lobbying campaigns have also contributed to messaging that emphasises energy security concerns while downplaying emissions impacts².

While some misinformation appears organic, investigations suggest that coordinated campaigns and strategic communications amplify certain narratives².

Digital Platforms and Algorithmic Amplification

Social media platforms have accelerated the spread of climate misinformation by prioritising engaging and emotionally charged content³.

Algorithmic systems can amplify misleading posts more rapidly than fact-checked material, increasing their reach and visibility³.

Short-form videos and influencer-driven content have further changed how climate information is consumed, often reducing complex issues to simplified claims³.

Data from international studies show that misinformation frequently outperforms factual content in engagement metrics, raising concerns about platform accountability³.

Government Response and Regulatory Gaps

The Australian government has introduced measures to counter misinformation, including public information campaigns and support for scientific communication⁴.

However, existing regulatory frameworks struggle to keep pace with the scale and speed of digital misinformation⁴.

Questions remain about whether climate misinformation should be treated as a distinct category due to its long-term societal risks⁴.

Transparency in government communication also affects public trust, with unclear policy messaging sometimes creating space for misleading interpretations⁴.

Public Trust and Climate Consensus

Public trust in climate science remains relatively high in Australia, yet varies across regions, age groups, and political affiliations⁵.

Surveys show strong overall support for climate action, though disagreements persist over the pace and economic implications of policy⁵.

Trust in scientists generally exceeds trust in politicians, shaping how different messages are received by the public⁵.

In resource-dependent communities, economic concerns often outweigh environmental priorities, influencing attitudes toward climate policy⁵.

Emerging Risks in a Digital Age

Artificial intelligence and synthetic media are expected to intensify misinformation challenges by enabling more convincing false content⁶.

The speed of digital information flows continues to outpace efforts to verify and correct misleading claims⁶.

International comparisons suggest that coordinated strategies, including regulation and public education, can reduce misinformation impacts⁶.

However, overemphasis on misinformation risks overlooking structural barriers such as economic dependence on fossil fuels⁶.

References

1. CSIRO Climate Science and Energy Systems
2. The Guardian Climate Coverage Analysis
3. IPCC Sixth Assessment Report Synthesis
4. Australian Government Misinformation Framework
5. Lowy Institute Climate Poll
6. OECD Misinformation and Digital Policy

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Australia’s Climate Crossroads: Policy Instability and the High Cost of Uncertainty - Lethal Heating Editor BDA

Australia’s climate ambitions are colliding
with a decade of political volatility that continues to shape
investment, industry decisions, and global credibility.

Key Points

Policy reversals have increased perceived sovereign risk for investors1 Political polarisation limits durable climate policy agreements2 Business faces conflicting signals on fossil fuels and net zero3 State and federal policies often diverge or compete4 Uncertainty raises costs for clean energy and industrial transition5 Delays risk more abrupt economic adjustment later6

A Decade of Reversals and Investor Memory

Australia’s climate policy landscape has been defined by abrupt reversals, most notably the repeal of the carbon pricing mechanism in 2014¹.

That decision continues to echo in boardrooms, where investors assess not only economics but also the durability of policy frameworks.

Financial institutions now routinely factor in what analysts call sovereign policy risk, the likelihood that governments may alter or dismantle climate policies before projects reach maturity.

This risk premium can increase the cost of capital for long-lived assets such as renewable energy infrastructure or green hydrogen facilities⁵.

Pricing Policy Risk Against Global Benchmarks

In the United States, the Inflation Reduction Act has provided long-term tax incentives that reduce uncertainty for clean energy developers¹.

Similarly, the European Union’s emissions trading system offers a stable carbon pricing signal, supported by cross-party political backing.

By contrast, Australia’s shifting safeguard mechanism baselines and evolving emissions targets have created a more complex risk environment.

Global investors increasingly compare jurisdictions not only on resource potential but on policy reliability over decades.

The Cost of Constant Redesign

Repeated adjustments to mechanisms such as the safeguard mechanism have forced heavy industry to revise decarbonisation strategies multiple times⁵.

Each redesign introduces regulatory uncertainty, which can delay final investment decisions on major projects.

For sectors like steel, aluminium, and LNG, these delays translate into higher financing costs and slower emissions reductions.

Executives describe a planning environment where long-term capital allocation must remain flexible, often at the expense of efficiency.

Projects Waiting for Certainty

Several large-scale renewable and hydrogen projects have progressed slowly, not due to technological barriers but because of unclear future policy settings.

Transmission infrastructure, critical for integrating renewable energy into the grid, faces similar delays tied to regulatory complexity.

Investors seek consistent signals from Canberra, including stable emissions targets, predictable carbon pricing, and clear approval pathways.

Without these signals, capital often flows to jurisdictions perceived as more stable.

The Weight of Long-Lived Fossil Assets

Australia’s economy remains deeply tied to coal and liquefied natural gas exports, both of which involve infrastructure designed to operate for decades.

This creates a structural tension between existing investments and future decarbonisation goals.

Policy volatility complicates decisions about whether to extend, retire, or replace these assets.

Investors must weigh the risk of stranded assets against uncertain timelines for global energy transition.

Political Polarisation and Climate Policy

Climate policy in Australia has remained politically polarised despite rising public concern about climate change².

The issue has become intertwined with broader ideological divisions over economic management and regional development.

Electoral geography plays a role, with resource-dependent regions often resisting rapid transitions.

Media fragmentation and party dynamics further reinforce divergent narratives about climate action.

Party Positions and Internal Divisions

The Australian Labor Party has committed to net zero emissions by 2050 and introduced reforms to the safeguard mechanism.

The Liberal Party of Australia supports net zero in principle but differs on policy mechanisms and timelines.

Internal divisions within both parties often shape policy outcomes as much as inter-party conflict.

These divisions can lead to incremental policy changes rather than comprehensive reform.

Election Cycles and Long-Term Planning

Election cycles introduce a layer of uncertainty that complicates infrastructure planning over 20 to 30 years.

Projects such as transmission networks or industrial decarbonisation facilities require stable policy horizons that extend beyond electoral terms.

Frequent policy shifts can discourage long-term commitments from both public and private sectors.

This dynamic reinforces a cycle of cautious investment and delayed action.

The Case for Independent Oversight

Some analysts advocate for an independent climate authority with binding powers to provide continuity across political cycles.

The United Kingdom’s Climate Change Committee is often cited as a model for such an approach.

However, critics argue that even independent bodies operate within political constraints.

The debate reflects broader questions about how democracies manage long-term challenges.

Conflicting Signals for Business

Major emitters face conflicting signals as governments approve new fossil fuel projects while committing to net zero targets³.

This dual approach creates uncertainty about the future role of fossil fuels in the economy.

Companies must navigate regulatory frameworks that can shift with political priorities.

The result is often a cautious approach to investment and innovation.

Corporate Strategy Under Uncertainty

Businesses respond to policy ambiguity by diversifying investments across both traditional and emerging energy sources.

Some firms continue to invest in gas as a transitional fuel, citing unclear long-term policy direction.

Others accelerate investment in renewables to hedge against future regulatory tightening.

This divergence reflects the absence of a clear and consistent policy pathway.

Carbon Markets and Political Scrutiny

Australia’s carbon market and offset frameworks have faced increasing political scrutiny in recent years.

Questions about the integrity of offsets have prompted reviews and potential reforms.

For businesses, changes to these frameworks can alter the economics of emissions reduction strategies.

Uncertainty in carbon markets adds another layer of risk to corporate planning.

A Household and Regional Perspective

In regional communities dependent on coal mining, policy uncertainty translates into real economic anxiety.

Workers face questions about job security and the pace of transition.

At the same time, households across Australia experience rising energy costs linked to infrastructure investment and market volatility.

These human impacts illustrate the broader consequences of policy inconsistency.

Federal and State Policy Tensions

State governments have often moved ahead with their own climate initiatives, creating a patchwork of policies across the country⁴.

New South Wales and Victoria have set ambitious renewable energy targets and established state-based schemes.

These efforts sometimes diverge from federal approaches, particularly in energy planning and project approvals.

The result is a complex regulatory environment for investors and developers.

Multiple Climate Regimes

Australia effectively operates multiple climate regimes, with differing targets, timelines, and mechanisms across jurisdictions.

This fragmentation complicates national coordination, particularly for transmission infrastructure.

Developers must navigate varying rules and approval processes in different states.

Such complexity can increase costs and delay project delivery.

Competition for Investment

States increasingly compete to attract clean energy investment through incentives and policy frameworks.

While competition can drive innovation, it can also lead to duplication and inefficiency.

Coordination through forums such as National Cabinet aims to address these challenges.

However, its effectiveness depends on political alignment across jurisdictions.

International Credibility and Structural Tensions

Australia’s position as a major fossil fuel exporter raises questions about its role as a climate leader⁶.

International observers assess not only emissions targets but also underlying policy consistency.

Participation in global forums such as UN climate negotiations places additional scrutiny on domestic policy coherence.

Inconsistencies can affect diplomatic influence and economic opportunities.

The Risk of Delayed Transition

Delays caused by political and policy friction may lead to more abrupt transitions in the future⁶.

Rapid policy shifts can impose higher economic costs and greater social disruption.

Early and consistent action is generally more cost-effective than delayed adjustment.

This dynamic underscores the importance of policy stability in managing long-term change.

Conclusion

Australia’s climate policy landscape reflects the tensions of a nation balancing economic legacy with environmental necessity.

The past decade has shown that policy reversals carry lasting consequences, shaping investor perceptions and influencing the pace of transition.

While recent reforms have sought to restore confidence, the underlying challenge remains: creating durable policy frameworks in a political system defined by change.

Businesses, communities, and governments must navigate this uncertainty while making decisions that will shape the economy for decades.

International experience suggests that stability, transparency, and bipartisan support are critical to attracting investment and achieving emissions targets.

Without these elements, Australia risks falling behind in the global transition to clean energy.

At the same time, the country’s abundant renewable resources and technical expertise offer significant opportunities.

Realising those opportunities will depend on whether policymakers can provide the certainty that investors and communities increasingly demand.

References

1. IEA Australia Energy Policy Review
2. Lowy Institute Climate and Politics in Australia
3. Climate Council Fossil Fuels and Net Zero
4. Australian Government Energy and National Cabinet
5. Clean Energy Finance Corporation Investment Insights
6. UNFCCC Paris Agreement Overview

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