Scott Morrison tours Toyota's hydrogen plant in Melbourne, ahead of
the electric vehicle announcement. Photo: AAP
Electric vehicle groups have lashed out at the federal government’s long-awaited
future fuels policy, labelling the proposal a “fizzer”.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison unveiled his government’s electric vehicle
strategy at the Toyota plant in Melbourne’s west on Tuesday morning.
It aims to put 1.7 million zero-emission vehicles on the road by 2030.
“Allowing consumers to lead this process is really important,” he said.
“The customer is always right and the customer wants to buy electric vehicles at
a cheaper price and get longer duration from these vehicles.”
The abrupt backflip comes after the Prime Minister derided electric vehicles in
the lead-up to the last federal election as “ending the weekend”.
On Tuesday, Mr Morrison said he had opposed Labor’s electric vehicle policy
because it wasn’t a good one.
“I don’t think that policy was a good policy. I still don’t think it is a good
policy,” he said.
As part of the $500 million Future Fuels strategy, the government anticipates
$250 million will be used to build charging stations and commercial fleets.
However, Electric Vehicles Council chief executive Behyad Jafari said the
strategy ignored important initiatives to boost uptake.
“There’s no sugar coating it, Future Fuels is a fizzer,” Mr Jaafari said.
“If it contained fuel efficiency standards and rebates, it would give
Australians more choice.”
Mr Morrison also expects $250 million in Future Fuels funding will be matched by
private investment, with as many as 2600 jobs to be created.
“We want the customers to be able to drive the incentive for these vehicle
companies to drive their costs down. We don’t want to drive those costs down by
writing off the checks to multinational companies. That is not the way you do
this,” he said.
As part of the government strategy, 50,000 households and 400 businesses would
have access to charging stations, with 1000 public stations being built.
But Mr Jafari said there were no subsidies or tax incentives included in the the
government’s strategy to boost electric vehicle uptake, while fuel efficiency
measures were needed to allow more choice for customers.
“[The policy] addresses 5 per cent of what’s needed, and the 5 per cent of what
it does is good,” he told ABC radio.
“It’s now 2021 and we have been waiting two years for this policy … it’s far too
little, too late.”
Some 84 per cent of the population will have access to a charging station, under
the government’s plan.
Labor has accused the government of copying the policies it took to the last
election, which was attacked by the Coalition in the lead up to the poll.
“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery in politics,” former opposition
leader Bill Shorten told morning TV on Tuesday.
“Mr Morrison must read my policy book at night-time for ideas.”
Labor leader Anthony Albanese said Australia was falling behind globally on
electric vehicle uptake.
“What we would do is eliminate the taxes, but also to make sure that companies
could take up electric vehicles,” he told the ABC.
“[This is] a government that had a violent opposition to electric vehicles and
now we would have it believe that have converted.”
In a separate environmental announcement, Labor is promising to spend $200
million fixing up urban waterways if it wins power in the next poll to be held
by May 2022.
The program, which involves local governments and community groups, is aimed at
improving water quality, reducing localised flooding and restoring habitats.
“Urban waterways are so important for quality of life,” Mr Albanese said.
“More people who live in cities and higher density housing need parks around our
waterways right around our cities to engage in recreational activity.”
Scott Morrison, who in 2019 suggested EVs would ‘end the weekend’, says he
now expects them to make up only 30% of new sales by 2030
The Coalition’s $178m policy will extend funding for hydrogen
and EV charging stations, but falls short of mandating targets
for uptake or providing subsidies.Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters
The Morrison government has ruled out subsidising the expansion of electric and
hybrid vehicles, and expects only 30% of new sales to be EVs by 2030 – a date by
which some countries plan to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars.
The government’s “future fuels and vehicles strategy” instead
includes $178m of new funding, mostly for new EV and hydrogen refuelling
infrastructure and to help businesses set up charging stations for fleets.
Scott Morrison –
who in 2019 said Labor’s EV policy would “end the weekend”
– emphasised the government would not “be forcing Australians out of the car
they want to drive or penalising those who can least afford it through bans or
taxes”.
“Australians love their family sedan, farmers rely on their trusted ute and our
economy counts on trucks and trains to deliver goods from coast to coast,” he
said in a statement released to some media on Monday and obtained independently
by Guardian Australia.
“Just as Australians have taken their own decision to embrace roof-top solar at
the highest rate in the world, when new vehicle technologies are
cost-competitive, Australians will embrace them too.”
The expansion of rooftop solar – which, according to the Clean Energy Council,
has now led to 3m systems being installed across the country – was encouraged
for more than a decade through federal and state incentives and subsidies.
The government expects its approach to EVs will have only a limited impact as a
climate policy, projecting it will cut greenhouse gas emissions by just 8m
tonnes – less than 2% of the national annual total – by 2035.
Transport emissions are nearly 20% of the national total and were increasing
rapidly before Covid-19 lockdowns. They are projected to rebound in the years
ahead.
The energy and emissions reduction minister, Angus Taylor, said the government
would work with the states to ensure the electricity grid was ready for an
increase in EVs.
The government’s strategy of helping install
charging infrastructure – including “co-investing with industry to roll-out an
estimated 50,000 new smart chargers in Australian households” – was about
“helping motorists embrace the increasing range of technologies available to
keep them moving in an informed and fair way”, he said.
He claimed credit for the number of low emissions vehicle models available in
Australia increasing by 20% over the past eight months, but did not explain how
the government’s policy had contributed to this.
Car manufacturers across the globe have released a wave of new EV models as
governments have announced emissions limits for passenger cars and future bans
on fossil fuel cars. Industry representatives say Australians have fewer options
than comparable countries due to a lack of policy support.
Taylor said voluntary adoption of EVs was “the right pathway for reducing
transport emissions over the long term”.
“Stringent standards, bans or regressive taxes will limit choice and increase
the upfront costs of cars for Australians,” he said.
The chief executive of the Electric Vehicle Council, Behyad Jafari, said the
government’s strategy addressed only “roughly 5% of the electric vehicle issue”.
He said it ruled out the two “most important and efficient measures” to
encourage EV uptake – fuel efficiency standards that would require cars to
become cleaner over time, and rebates.
He said EVs were a “monumental opportunity” for Australia that could cut
emissions while “creating an innovative industry in manufacturing, technology
and services”.
“It’s disappointing that, against the overwhelming advice of the industry and
experts, the government continues to peddle its false line that doing nothing
increases choice,” Jafari said. “For a strategy that has taken years to write,
this leaves much to be desired.”
A study has suggested future uptake of EVs will be driven by state policies.
Taylor said “many Australians” were choosing new technology vehicles, citing
Electric Vehicle Council data that 8,688 battery and plug-in hybrid vehicles
were sold in the first half of 2021, an increase on last year.
EVs were just 0.75% of new car sales in Australia last year, compared with 10.2%
in Europe and 15% in the UK. They are
nearly 80% of new sales in Norway.
Norway and South Korea have announced a ban on new petrol and diesel car sales
from 2025, followed by a list of countries – including the UK, Germany, India
and Israel – in 2030. Japan and California will phase out new fossil fuel
vehicle sales in 2035, and China, Canada, Singapore and Sri Lanka in 2040.
The Morrison government announced plans for a national EV strategy before the
last federal election, but changed direction after accusing Labor of wanting to
“end the weekend” by setting a target of 50% of new sales being EVs by 2030.
It has rejected introducing fuel efficiency standards, which would involve
setting a target to lower the average emissions from the national vehicle fleet,
despite a departmental analysis in December 2016 finding the benefits in savings
on fuel and reduced emissions
would outweigh the costs under all scenarios examined.
Several countries and car manufacturers have plans to go all
electric by the end of the decade. (AP: Jon Super)
The electric vehicle conversation has been recharged by the government's
announcement it will invest $250 million in car charging infrastructure in
Australia.
But the government's "future fuels strategy" has arrived with missing
pieces, in particular a target for electric vehicle sales that has
been long sought after by the industry.
At the COP26 international climate summit in Glasgow tomorrow, the United
Kingdom and several other nations will pledge to ban the sale of petrol cars
in developed countries by 2035 and in developing nations by 2040.
And there are more than 20 nations that have already announced plans to
phase out petrol cars even sooner.
Car manufacturers themselves are turning their fleets electric, with Volvo,
Ford in Europe and even Rolls Royce committed to selling all-electric vehicles
by 2030, and many other makers, including General Motors and Volkswagen,
soon after.
The race is on to get off the gas.
But Australia is just leaving the starting line.
Leading car markets are already selling mostly electric
Just 0.8 per cent of new light vehicles sold in Australia so far this year
have been electric, according to the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries.
And while that is double the number sold last year, it is behind the global
trend of 4 per cent of new cars sold being EVs, and even further behind trends
in Europe and the UK, where one in 10 cars being bought are electric.
In Norway, the world leader, three-quarters of new cars sold last
year were electric.
And EV sales have continued to grow and outpace petrol car sales. Even
through the pandemic, electric car sales have grown as petrol car sales
have fallen.
Many of the nations planning to sign the pledge to ban petrol cars also have
more developed charging infrastructure.
According to The Blueprint Institute, as of last year Australia had fewer
than 100 public charging stations per million people, compared to more than 400
chargers per million people in Europe.
Australia needs more car charging infrastructure to be able to
support a growing EV market. (AP: Ng Han Guan)
Even the United States, which is similarly behind on EV adoption and does not
intend to sign on to the 2035 petrol car ban, has roughly twice as many chargers
for its population as Australia does.
Why won't Australia sign on?
Getting petrol vehicles off
Australian car lots by 2035 would require a serious increase in Australia's
ambitions.
The government has pointedly refused to set a policy that
could appear to force Australians to adopt zero emissions cars, instead saying
people should be able to buy what they want.
"We're not going to tell them what to buy, we're not going to tell them where to
drive, we're not going to tell them how to live their lives," Prime Minister
Scott Morrison said.
"Australians will make their own choices."
Federal Labor has also not committed to introducing a sales target, though its
now-dumped 2019 election policy had advocated for half of new cars to be
electric by 2030.
But several states have set goals to go electric. The ACT, which leads the
country in electric car sales based on population, has set a goal for all new
cars to be zero-emission vehicles by 2030.
More than one in 10 cars on European roads will be electric by
2030, but Australian projections are less ambitious.
(Supplied: Infrastructure Victoria)
While the federal government will not follow the states' lead by setting a
formal sales target, it did quietly set a forecast in a February discussion
paper on its future fuels strategy that it expects one in four cars sold in 2030
to be electric.
Industry groups say on its current policies, Australia is unlikely to see those
sorts of figures.
The Electric Vehicle Council has advocated for discounts, tax exemptions, and
emissions targets to drive a change in the car market.
The EV Council says without those, Australia's car market will continue to lag
behind the rest of the world.
High-profile experts cast doubt over the bulk of the country’s touted
reductions in greenhouse pollution
Land clearing in northern New South Wales. Expert analysis of
satellite imagery has called into question the Australian
government’s claims of a reduction in carbon emissions.Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian
Australia is likely to be releasing more emissions from deforestation than
reported to the United Nations, new analysis indicates, stoking calls for an
independent review of the sector that has delivered the bulk of the country’s
claimed reductions in greenhouse gas pollution in recent decades.
An assessment of satellite imagery of more than 50 properties in
Queensland
by Martin Taylor, an adjunct senior lecturer at the University of Queensland,
has identified significant discrepancies between what is treated as cleared land
by Australia’s National Carbon Accounting System (NCAS) and the Statewide
Landcover and Trees Study (Slats) used by the state government.
“It flummoxes me – what’s going on in their models when they are missing such
obvious land clearing,” Taylor said. “How can you possibly say that’s still
forest … it’s so glaringly obvious something is wrong.”
How countries have treated emissions from the land sector – clumsily known as
Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LuluCF) – has been contentious for
decades, partly because of the challenges of accurately measuring and monitoring
what can be subtle changes in vegetation even between seasons and periods of
drought and wet spells.
Martin Taylor compared how the federal government and the
Queensland government assessed vegetation changes of more than 50
properties of at least 100 hectares in size. NCAS (left) says there
was forest 2017-20 but Slats (right) shows what was cleared by the
winter of 2018.
An accurate estimate of changing vegetation cover also underpins the veracity of
carbon offsets, with the majority of claimed cuts paid for through the federal
government’s emissions reduction fund going to the land sector. Its new
long-term emission reduction plan
to reach net zero by 2050 also relies heavily on it.
“Emissions from [LuluCF] have fallen by 114m tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent
since 2005, and in 2019 the sector represented a25 Mt
CO₂-esink for Australia,” the government’s net zero plan
report states. Australia reports annual emissions of about 500m tonnes.
Martin Taylor says he is ‘flummoxed’ that models are missing
obvious vegetation change.
Accounting rules agreed to under
the UN framework convention on climate change
help countries minimise loss of their forests. Under those rules, tree crown
cover needs to amount for only 10% to 30% of an area of less than one hectare
for it to be treated as a forest. Australia takes the mid-point of the range at
20%.
Before and after images of land clearing north of Injune,
Queensland, in 2017 and 2018. NCAS (left) claims there is forest
from 2017-20 but Slats (right) picks up the clearing by winter
2018.
Taylor said the 20% estimate was “a fundamental issue” that meant NCAS “just
completely misses” land clearing.
“Where forest tree cover gets reduced down from 100% to 30% or 20%,
to them it’s still a forest and nothing’s changed,” he said. “That’s huge.”
Taylor and other researchers said even 20% coverage could be understating actual
clearing because the models used are less accurate than the Slats detection used
by Queensland and other states, including NSW.
Before and after images of land clearing north-east of St George,
Queensland, in 2017 and 2018. NCAS (left) shows the area as still
forested 2017-20 but Slats (right) picks up land clearing by the
winter of 2018.
It isn’t clear what land-clearing is
Questions over the reliability of Australia’s land sector emissions accounting
are not new.
As far back as 2007, Andrew Macintosh of the Australian National University law school called for
an independent review of NCAS, without which the “federal government’s claims
about Australia’s performance against its Kyoto target should be treated with
scepticism”.
Glenn Walker, then with the Wilderness Society, also compiled
a report highlighting how Queensland’s land clearing rates
rocketed after the LNP under Campbell Newman came to power in 2012, yet
Australia’s emissions continued to fall during that period.
Excluding the years from 2007 to 2012, the National Carbon Accounting
System has underestimated land clearing in Queensland compared with the
Statewide Landcover and Trees Study (Slats) compiled by the state
government.
Excluding land use, national emissions had risen by more than 5%
since 2005 – the base year picked by the Abbott government for Australia’s Paris
climate goal – before Covid-19 lockdowns began. Carbon pollution in other rich
economies fell in that timeframe.
When land use emissions are removed, Australia’s carbon pollution path
shows a rise, unlike many other major developed economies.
Researchers say there are “millions of anecdotes” to illustrate areas where
land-clearing has been picked up by Slats, but not by NCAS. One case involved
NCAS identifying a dam as a forest because of its dark colour.
Don Butler, an ecologist formerly at the Queensland Herbarium and now a
professor at ANU, worked with the Slats program for years. He said NCAS used
Landsat imagery at 25m to detect vegetation and alterations, while Slats used
10m pixels.
“Just that change alone will change the estimate of the area cleared,” he said.
Stuart Phinn, a professor at the University of Queensland specialising in the
use of remote sensing to measure environmental changes, said Newman’s policies
“did have a large impact on clearing” that were picked up by Slats.
Reports at the time
estimated Queensland landholders were clearing 10 sq km a day in 2015-16. The
environment minister, Steven Miles, estimated carbon emissions at 45m tonnes
over that year.
Slats doesn’t itself calculate emissions. As with NCAS, the emissions are
inferred by the vegetation change identified in satellite images that is
assessed using complex algorithms. The next Slats report for 2018-19 will be
released on November 30.
Despite the revival of land clearing in Queensland after 2012 and a rise in
NSW in recent years, Australia has continued to book falls in emissions from
the land sector since 2007. From the June quarter of 2015, the sector has
been negative, implying more sequestration than emissions.
Butler said: “The reason Slats is more accurate is that a human looks at every
bit of clearing that’s reported and decides that it is clearing, and that’s not
something that NCAS is resourced to do.”
Phinn, Butler and other researchers do not suggest there is any intent by NCAS
to mislead on emissions, but stress the need for more transparency.
“It would be good to go more public with their modelling validation,” Phinn
said. “I don’t think it’s open enough.”
The emissions reduction minister, Angus Taylor, passed a request for comment to
the energy department, which said any suggestion that the Australian government
had underestimated land clearing was “misplaced”.
“The Australian government prepares the national greenhouse accounts in
accordance with Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change guidelines,” a
department spokesperson said, citing the approach
detailed in the national inventory report.
“The methods and data are reviewed every year by teams of international experts
assembled by the UNFCCC secretariat in Bonn. The international architecture that
governs the National Greenhouse Accounts is designed to give confidence that the
data are accurate, comparable and time-series consistent.”
‘It’s hard to understand and it’s hard to explain’
Martine Maron, professor of environmental management at the University of
Queensland, said the complexity of the processes was one reason emissions from
land clearing had not drawn as much public scrutiny.
“It’s a huge issue in Australia,” Maron said. “It’s been a problem for a long
time. It’s really, really hard to understand and it’s hard to explain.”
“Essentially [NCAS and Slats] are using the same input data but they’re
classifying change in different way,” she added. “I’ve spent years trying to get
my head around it.”
Why Australia is accused of cheating during climate talks 4min 24sec
Butler said there were reasons to question the accounting even after recent
revisions, including the increasing area assessed to be regrowth on previously
cleared land.
“It’s now worth about 10-12m tonnes [of CO2] of sequestration a year,” he said.
“That’s the bit … I have the least faith in I suppose, and it is a significant
part of the story.”
Head of consulting at Ndevr Environmental, Matt Drum, and also formerly with the
federal department of climate change, said land use changes were not reliably
calculated, so his firm focused on tracking carbon emissions by the rest of the
economy.
“It’s not a bit of a black box, it’s a massive black box,” Drum says. “It’s at
the point where you report without LuluCF – it’s much more reliable.”
The Greens leader, Adam Bandt, said Scott Morrison “boasts of meeting and
beating terrible targets, but his claimed 20% emissions cuts [since 2005] rely
on accounting changes that the experts now question”.
“Take out the land sector and it’s unstable greenhouse accounting and the
Liberals haven’t reduced emissions since 2005 at all,” Bandt said.
Phinn and Butler said space-based remote sensing was rapidly advancing and
systems would soon be available that more precisely detected height and density
of vegetation, so that regrowth of grass, for instance, was not treated as if it
were more woody plants. Whether governments use the technology to adjust and
even reinterpret past data is another matter.
With the land sector also accounting for more than 60% of Australian carbon
credits and more than three-quarters of contracted abatement under the ERF,
potentially billions of dollars of offsets and sequestration claims are riding
on good data.
Will Steffen, a researcher at ANU, helped advise the Labor government under
Julia Gillard on how to nudge companies to reduce their emissions rather than
rely on offsets to do their work.
“[We wanted] to make sure that there wasn’t a get out of jail free card by using
land offsets in place of actually reducing fossil fuel emissions,” Steffen said.
“The land sector screamed up and down that that wasn’t fair because then as now
there are companies in those industries who make money off offsets.”
Steffen said: “I think we need a really thorough review of the entire land
clearing process. That’s not just accounting, but how we use land carbon
vis-a-vis fossil fuel emissions.”
World leaders must be honest about the cost of climate change,
writes Alan Kohler. Photo: TND/AAP
Author
Alan Kohler
writes twice a week for The New Daily. He is also editor in chief
of Eureka Report and finance presenter on ABC news.
The name of the climate change conference in Glasgow betrays its failure:
COP26.
It’s the 26th of them.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has been
plugging away since 1995, and the only declines in greenhouse gas emissions over
that time have been during recessions, oil shocks and the collapse of the Soviet
Union – nothing to do with the COP(out)s.
Maybe No.26 will be the one, but you’d have to be an incurable optimist or a
politician, or have not paid close attention to what’s been going on in Glasgow,
to think that.
The International Energy Agency’s executive director, Fatih Birol, says the
pledges made over the past week will bring global warming to below 2 degrees for
the first time, which seems to be an achievement.
But apart from the sheer inadequacy of it, Dr Birol is confused about the
meaning of “pledge”, as is everybody else at the meeting.
The dictionary describes a pledge as a binding promise, but these promises are
not binding, and we have learnt over 26 years that they barely qualify as
promises at all.
“Best efforts”, or “let’s see how we go” would be a better description.
Since 1995, there have been five American presidents, six British prime
ministers, seven Indian PMs and eight Australian PMs.
It simply isn’t possible for them to make a binding long-term promise, or rather
they only make long-term promises that are likely to win them short-term votes.
And making the sort of binding promise necessary to achieve 1.5 degrees of
warming would be guaranteed to lose any election.
PIIE goes on: “The impact of such a shock is familiar because it resembles the
oil shocks of the 1970s, when a previously under-priced resource was suddenly
revalued.”
“If priced at $75 a tonne, the aggregate value of the 36.4 gigatonnes of carbon
emissions in 2019 would amount to 3.1 percentage points of 2019 world GDP,” the
study says.
“[T]he 1974 oil shock resulted in the repricing of 19.7 billion barrels of oil
from $3.3 to $11.6/barrel; the corresponding shock amounted to 3.6 percentage
points of the 1973 global GDP.”
Can we imagine any national leader saying: “Right, everyone, what we need now is
another oil shock”?
The IMF wrote in June that carbon pricing is needed and would have to be
supported by measures to enhance its effectiveness and acceptability, including
public investment in clean technology networks (like grid upgrades to
accommodate renewables) and measures to assist vulnerable households, workers,
and regions.
It says these things would be equivalent to a carbon price of $US75 a tonne.
And finally, the Bank of England has published what it called a “2021 Climate
Biennial Exploratory Scenario”, in which it went much further, and much scarier.
“In the Early Action scenario, carbon prices increase from roughly $US30 per
tonne of carbon dioxide-equivalent today, to just under $US900 by 2050 in the UK
and EU (abstracting from general inflation over the time period).
“In the Late Action scenario, carbon prices remain at $US30 until 2030, and then
rise steeply to over $US1000 in 2050.”
Even in today’s money, that sort of carbon price would make the oil shocks of
the 1970s seem like a picnic.
So the capitalists, not the politicians, will have to save the planet, and that
is starting to happen.
Private sector leading the way
Last Wednesday a
press release
was issued in Glasgow with this first paragraph: “Today, through the Glasgow
Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) over $US130 trillion of private capital
is committed to transforming the economy for net zero. These commitments, from
over 450 firms across 45 countries, can deliver the estimated $100 trillion of
finance needed for net zero over the next three decades.”
But that is not money sitting in a fund ready to invest in clean energy.
It refers to the total assets managed by members of the Glasgow Financial
Alliance for Net Zero, which is a group of concerned banks and financial
institutions.
Banks account for roughly half the $US130 trillion ($174 trillion).
Their assets are mostly loans to people and businesses, which can’t be used by
the banks to invest in renewable energy. They can decide not to lend money for
new coal mines, which they have already done, but they can’t tell their
customers what to do.
Also, banks count single assets several times through chains of loans, which are
deposited and lent again.
Investment management also involves double-counting by subcontracting other
managers to look after some of the money, and both are counted.
So the double-counting means it’s actually less than $US130 trillion ($174
trillion).
That press release was just another piece of COP26 puffery. But it is fair to
say that the investment and business world are trying to pick up leadership of
the fight against global warming.
That’s because investors have a longer-term focus than politicians, and are
genuinely worried about what happens in 2050. Most CEOs are like politicians, of
course, but their shareholders are calling the shots.
But can investors and businesses do this on their own? Absolutely not.
There has to be a global price on carbon if 1.5 degrees is to be achieved.
There is a very active voluntary carbon market of companies and investors trying
to do the right thing, which pushed the spot price of Australian Carbon Credit
Units to a record high of $36.75 on Friday and has lifted other carbon prices
around the world, but it’s not enough.
If it stays voluntary with just a few emissions trading schemes dotted around
the world, then the companies and households choosing not to cut or offset their
emissions will be able to freeload, and the cost of the climate change project
would not be equally shared.
That’s why it has always broken down – if everyone is not sharing the burden, it
can’t work.
So the only way global warming will be defeated is if political leaders are
prepared to come clean on the cost of it and oppositions don’t use that as a
platform to lie their way into office.
Winner of the Earthshot Prize for Fix the climate
- CopyrightEarthshot
Emission-free hydrogen could, one day, entirely replace fossil fuels - and a
start up in Germany believes it has the key ingredient to make it accessible
to all.
Born in a climate-change affected South Pacific Island, Vaitea Cowan believes
deeply in green hydrogen technology. She co-founded Enapter more than three
years ago.
"I wanted to replace all the diesel generators in New Caledonia and all the
remote areas that didn't need to rely on dirty diesel, " she says.
"But then realising the potential for green hydrogen to replace fossil fuels,
I wanted to be part of this change."
Green solutions will only be adopted if they are the most economically attractive. And that's our mission at Enapter to make green hydrogen cost-competitive with fossil fuels. Vaitea Cowan Co-founder, Enapter
With headquarters in Germany, the company has deployed its ion exchange
membrane electrolysers in over 100 projects across 33 countries. The
technology turns renewable electricity into emission-free hydrogen gas.
Developed more quickly and cheaply than once thought possible, the AEM electrolyser already fuels cars and planes, powers industry and heats homes.
Enapter's hydrogen generators have recently won Prince William’s Earthshot Prize in the 'Fix Our Climate' category.
What is green hydrogen?
Much of the planet's hydrogen is locked up in water. So-called 'green'
hydrogen is an emission-free way of extracting it. This extraction
relies on renewable energy, which is used to power electrolysis.
Electrolysis is the chemical process needed to separate the hydrogen and
oxygen atoms in the water.
Extracting hydrogen this way has been facing criticism, because of its
low efficiency and high cost. Enapter says, however, that their AEM
Electrolyser solves these problems and provides a quick and easy way to
produce green energy, even at home.
Half of the water used to flush a toilet can power a home for days
Enapter says its electrolyser uses about 2.4 litres of water
to generate enough hydrogen for a couple's home for several days.
However, the exact number of days depends on the power storage capacity.
This amount of water is equal to half of the water used for flushing a
toilet once (5 litres), and eight times less than the water consumption
of a dishwasher (20 litres).
The Earthshot Prize will help Enapter to start mass production.
"The production site, we started to build six weeks ago, will go into
mass production at the beginning of 2023", says Vaitea.
By 2050, Enapter’s hopes to produce 10% of the world’s hydrogen.
While world leaders met behind closed doors at COP26, it’s been the relentless
leadership of First Nations people that gives me strength and ignites a fire in
my belly.
This global climate conference, labelled the one to save humanity, has been
frustrating to say the least. Yet again, we’ve seen political power holders
together with their fossil fuel donors, turn a blind eye to the consequences of
their poor leadership and decision-making.
Protestors dressed as US President Joe Biden and British Prime
Minister Boris Johnson who were among the world leaders to
attend the summit. Credit: Getty Images
But as the oceans are rising, so too are First Nations people. We are the
first scientists, the first innovators, and we have cared for our lands and
waters for thousands of generations.
It was the words of
India Logan-Riley, a young Māori activist, who said what many of us have been thinking, “in the face of mediocre
leadership Indigenous people shine through … This COP, learn our histories,
listen to our stories, honour our knowledge and get in line, or get out of the
way.”
What many people don’t realise is that Indigenous people have been paving the
way since before world leaders started these global gatherings to address the
climate crisis.
It was Eriel Deranger, Dënesųłiné woman and the Executive Director at
Indigenous Climate Action Canada, who reminded the conference again of the
leading role Indigenous leadership has played in making space for civil
society contributions at COP negotiations, which at its core, is a forum
designed for state leaders.
Indigenous leaders from the Global Alliance of Territorial
Communities meet the Prince of Wales at the Glasgow
summit. Credit: Getty Images
Deranger shared how world leaders came together in 1992 to talk about the
climate crisis, but preceding this was a gathering of Indigenous peoples who
wrote the
Kari-Oca Declaration, a submission to the United Nations demanding that civil society and
Indigenous leaders had a say in these spaces.
It was Indigenous
peoples that demanded a place, lobbied, and brought perspectives from the
world to the official negotiations.
Across the world, Indigenous people make up less than 5 per cent of the
world’s population, yet we protect 80 per cent of global biodiversity. We have
looked after our land sustainably for over 60,000 years.
As a proud Torres Strait Islander woman, already in my lifetime I have seen
the impacts of climate change on our islands.
I travelled to COP26 in Glasgow for my people and to stand up for First
Nations people, as a representative of both
Seed Indigenous Youth Climate Network
and
Our Islands Our Home, a campaign calling on the Australian Government to do more to protect the
Torres Strait Islands.
A fisherman, whose livelihood relies on his catch, casts his
net from a boat off Hammond Island in the Torres
Strait. Credit: Kate Geraghty
As Indigenous people, we don’t just see the climate crisis, we feel it. Our
land is a part of who we are, a part of our identity. This connection to our
land and one another stems far and wide, across the oceans and seas.
It’s these connections and knowledge of our homelands that is absolutely
critical in the collective fight for climate justice.
But while world leaders sit on their hands, going round and round in circles,
making empty and misleading commitments, it was a young Samoan woman, Brianna
Fruean of the
Pacific Climate Warriors, who issued a caution of the power of the words, noting there is no place
for pity in the fight against climate change.
Brianna pointed out, “...how climate action can be vastly different to climate
justice, how two degrees could mean the end, and 1.5 could mean a fighting
chance.”
She shared a chilling message with world leaders that,
“in your words, you wield the weapons that can save us or sell us out.”
When I return to Australia, I return with a message I have
delivered many times, but now I’m further fuelled by the many First Nations
communities I know are fighting with me.
What I say to Australia is this: get behind First Nations communities. Stand
alongside us in our fight for climate justice, for land rights, and for
self-determination. These are critical pieces in our fight against the climate
crisis. Because colonialism and capitalism have caused the climate crisis, but
Indigenous leadership can solve it.
For now, the state leaders have left Glasgow, but we will stay and fight.
There is an Indigenous people’s action planned over the weekend, and make no
mistake, we are rising.
