Some 90 per cent of the world’s carbon pollution comes from burning coal, gas and other fossil fuels.
Family farmers typically survive one extreme weather disaster, but the second is much harder.
The cost of climate change is enormous, especially for family farmers.
Climate change is sending farm insurance bills through the roof.
The Insurance Council of Australia said: “Industry and governments need to continue to tackle the underlying driver of worsening extreme weather, climate change, by maintaining a focus on achieving net-zero by 2050 with a focus on driving down emissions this decade.”
Insured losses from extreme weather events reached $22.5 billion over the past five years, up 67 per cent from the previous five years.
The 2022 Lismore floods alone cost $6.4 billion.
Nearly all of the countries we trade with have net-zero commitments.
Some 200 countries each produce less than two per cent of the world’s carbon pollution, so we all need to do our bit.
China’s emissions have been coming down since 2024, because it built so many renewables projects.
Axing net-zero wouldn’t stop the renewables’ rollout.
Investors are building energy projects to replace old coal-fired power stations which are being shut by their owners. Clean energy with storage is the cheapest and fastest form of electricity generation to build.
Renewables done right make farmland more productive, because it creates two incomes from that land: traditional farm income and drought-proof clean energy income.
Farmers are on track to make between $900 million and $1.1 billion from clean energy rent by 2030.
Farmers now tend to make around $40,000 per turbine per year or up to $1500 per hectare for year for solar.
Our member Tony Inder at Wellington states his wool take is 20 per cent better from his sheep running under solar panels.
Another official poll by a member of the Australian Polling Council confirmed this week that the opposition to clean energy projects in regional Renewable Energy Zones is steady at 17 per cent, with support at 62 per cent and 21 per cent saying they don’t know.
Some of the behaviour of transmission proponents has been completely unacceptable.
Farmers must be respected and well paid — and maybe those payments should be tax-free.
We’ve seen transmission done well in Gippsland and we hope for a complete reset in western Victoria with a new proponent taking over VNI West.
A little-known fact is that capital city households now have 20 gigawatts of solar — the equivalent of 10 coal-fired power stations — on their rooves.
We’re all doing our bit and we’re all in it together — the Australian way.
– Peter Holding, Harden beef and wheat farmer and Farmers for Climate Action
