But right now, it is a strategy failing all Australians, and if we lose sight of the end goal of doing more about, and for, reducing emissions, because of those failures the potential damage could be even worse
Yes, we have to change the way we power our country — our lives, our industry and our future.
But it needs to be a managed process keeping power affordable, the lights on and industry running, as we get there.
That is the one absolute which must come out of the rhetoric, the divisiveness and the overheated emotion, which is creating nothing but chaos and confusion around the way forward.
The latest Page Institute report on delivering a high-energy Australia does not make encouraging reading about how successful we have been addressing the long-term challenges we all face.
Since committing to net zero, household electricity prices have soared 39 per cent – the Australian Energy Regulator shows average power bills up between $576 and $806 per household.
The government cost — your taxes — to net zero already has spending at around $140 billion and climbing.
Both the report and headlines increasingly show industry at every level in Australia in retreats as energy costs makes operations unviable.
Figures show we’ll need 200,000 more square kilometres of prime agricultural, high-rainfall country for the trees still required for the current strategy – that’s three times the size of Tasmania.
The Page report, in line with all credible scientific evidence, proves Australia is responsible for barely one per cent of global emissions yet is being dragged down an accelerated path we can neither afford nor sustain at twice the pace of comparable economies — and more than four times the pace of global averages.
If we want a genuinely technology-neutral framework to power our future, it needs to be competing on a level playing field so all power sources — coal, gas and nuclear and not just wind and solar or other unproven pipe dreams — are available.
As many of the world’s major economies step back from the brink of net zero and its inherent short-term dangers, Australia should be in line, not trying to outpace them in a rush of ideology and ego.
There is no prize to hit the net-zero line first because we will have turned our economy into ashes to get there.
All this progress has to be funded by a mix of the private and public purses, but in an economy as small as ours, we cannot tax our way there, and if we continue to drive major investment out of our country with our out-of-control power prices, Australia will be the first major victim.
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