The Guardian - Simon Holmes à Court*
Australia could be a post-carbon superpower – but the energy minister must seize the day
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| ‘Has Angus Taylor ever set out a vision for Australia’s energy future that’s even remotely compelling?’
Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian |
The worst part about being lied to is knowing that you weren’t worth the truth. — Jean-Paul Sartre
Australia’s emissions have increased four years in a row. Excluding the land sector, our emissions have never been higher.
As the gravity of the unfolding climate emergency begins to dawn upon
Australians, instead of lies and obfuscation from our elected
representatives, we urgently need leadership capable of navigating our
economy to a prosperous, zero-emissions future.
Cynically, the prime minister, Scott Morrison, has designated Angus
Taylor as the minister for emissions reduction and, unfortunately,
telling the truth doesn’t seem to be Taylor’s strong suit. (“You’re
wrong, Barry,” interjected Taylor when the former host of ABC Insiders
correctly pointed out that emissions were on the rise.)
Taylor
never did deliver on his last posting, as the minister for reducing
power prices. In his latest derogation of duty, he held back publication
of the national emissions accounts. When he did finally
front the media
he falsely claimed seven times in two and a half minutes that the
government’s plans to reduce emissions by 26% to 28% were “laid out to
the last tonne” — when the government has no such plan.
In 2005 Australia’s total carbon emissions were 610 megatonnes.
Reducing emissions by 26%, the lower end of our “ambition”, would mean
annual emissions of 451 Mt. In 2015 our annual emissions reached their
lowest point since 2005 at 530.7 Mt, some 13% below 2005 levels. They
have
increased every quarter thereafter. With LNG production set to increase 12.9% in 2019, there is no reversal in sight.
Change in annual Australian emissions 2015-18
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| Source: Quarterly Update of Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory, December 2018 Table 1C derived
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Since our 2015 emissions nadir, the land sector and a slew of new
wind and solar projects have delivered welcome emissions cuts. But
all
this progress has been wiped out by large increases from other sectors,
especially from the “fugitive gas” released during gas extraction and
processing.
There may come a quarter soon where the clean energy boom delivers
such standout emissions reduction that increases in other sectors are
temporarily offset. It would have come sooner if Taylor hadn’t worked so
hard behind the scenes in 2014-15 to slash the renewable energy target,
in a move that has cost Australia thousands of jobs, gigawatts of cheap
power and up to 6 Mt of carbon abatement a year.
Australia’s carbon deficit and the climate solutions package
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| Photograph: Department of the Environment and Energy |
The Morrison government’s weak commitment to reducing emissions is
evidenced by its climate solutions package (CSP), with its largest
proposed “reduction” through an accounting trick – claiming credit for
past tree-clearing that didn’t happen and that won’t avoid a single
tonne of future emissions.
The second biggest proposed reduction is the carbon reduction
fund, which was set up to buy $200m of carbon offsets annually. In the
treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s first budget,
he slashed the program to just $47m a year over the forward estimates.
Even if funding were restored, the CRF’s total efforts would be swamped
by the emissions of just one or two of our 10 operating LNG projects.
The third biggest proposed reduction is the amorphous category named
“technology improvements and other sources of abatement”, ie, crossing
our fingers and hoping that emissions fall through no efforts of our
own.
The CSP even includes 10 Mt abatement via an “electric vehicle
strategy” – awkward, given Taylor’s derision towards EVs during the
election. Regardless, the government has conceded that the strategy
won’t be released until mid-2020.
The
figure below shows several emissions trajectories. The government’s CSP
scenario (the orange line) sees emissions almost flatlining through the
Paris agreement period, eventually reaching zero in 2980! Clearly the
CSP does not deliver 26% emissions reductions (the green line) by 2030,
or deliver Australia’s share of decarbonising the economy.
1.5C emissions pathways for Australia after 2030
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| Photograph: Tim Baxter, Climate and Energy College,
Melbourne University based on analysis by Professor Ross Garnaut and
data from the Department of Environment and Energy. |
For Australia to do our fair share of meeting the Paris budget, the CSP leaves us with the impossible task of decarbonising the economy in just three years from 2030. A steeper trajectory before 2030 gives us breathing room for a more realistic trajectory afterwards.
It’s important to remember why reducing emissions is so important. As
Joelle Gergis told RN Breakfast on Tuesday,
in terms of climate, Australia is the most vulnerable nation in the
developed world. At 2C we effectively lose the Great Barrier Reef, the
natural wonder, the biodiversity and the tens of thousands of jobs.
We’re on track for 4C of warming, which would make much of the country a
living hell.
This month I travelled to
China
as part of a “Smart Energy” delegation. In Shenzhen, where every bus
and taxi is fully electric, we toured the factory of BYD, where many of
its 250,000-strong workforce are building the energy storage and
transport systems of tomorrow. Our tomorrow, their today.
We toured the highly advanced factory of Jinko Solar. With 10.5
gigawatts of annual production, Jinko is the largest solar panel
manufacturer in the world. These “factories of the future” are no longer
dependent upon cheap labour, but on big investments, smart
manufacturing, world-leading quality systems and highly skilled
researchers and engineers. As we dither, China zooms past.
Prof Ross Garnaut
paints a picture
of Australia as a superpower of the post-carbon world economy. Our
world-leading wind and solar resources can and should be harnessed into
making the world’s lowest-emissions steel, aluminium and lithium,
instead of just exporting ore. Our cheap clean energy can be turned into
hydrogen, the “God molecule” of the post-carbon industrial era, and the
economics are shifting such that it may soon make sense to export
electricity by subsea cable to our south-east Asian neighbours.
Has
Angus Taylor
ever set out a vision for Australia’s energy future that’s even
remotely compelling? Anything other than caretaking a highly polluting
20th century energy system while we push civilisation further into
climate chaos?
No. Taylor ducks and weaves around the bad news in our quarterly
emissions data, suggesting that Australia should be applauded for
exporting gas. As
experts have pointed out,
claims about the environmental benefits of gas are “grossly
exaggerated” and “likely to be wrong”, and, if we want praise for small,
potential emissions reductions overseas, we must also take
responsibility for the large, actual footprint of our coal exports.
Ask Taylor in which year emissions will fall to 451 Mt — 26% below 2005 levels — and you’ll get no straight answer.
History won’t be kind to this energy minister for approaching the
climate challenge with all the care and subtlety that Captain Smith of
the Titanic approached the fatal iceberg.
History will be doubly harsh on Taylor for his failure to navigate a
course that captures the economic opportunities of the global energy
transition.
*Simon Holmes à Court is senior adviser to the Climate and Energy College at Melbourne University
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