And
so it is with the extraordinary attack launched on Australia’s future
by its incumbent fossil fuel industry, and the gas lobby in particular.
Its casus belli is the Covid-19 pandemic, and the fossil fuel
industry has been enabled to do this after being invited by the Morrison
regime to do more or less at it pleases and design its own future.
The
reach and sheer audacity of the proposals unveiled over the past week
is extraordinary, and the lasting impact on Australia’s future may dwarf
anything that Tony Abbott and his Far Right cheerleaders may have done;
notwithstanding his white-anting of the Carbon Pollution Reductions
Scheme more than a decade ago, the scrapping of the carbon price in 2014
and the unceasing campaign against science and engineering.
This
is the critical decade. Scientists tell us, repeatedly and with a near
unanimous voice, that serious emissions reductions must be achieved in
the next 10 years if the world is to flatten the emissions curve and
give itself half a chance of capping average global warming at less than
2°C. A target of 1.5°C may already be out of reach.
Australia finds itself at a critical juncture. It benefits from the
stunning cost reductions in solar, wind and battery storage, and key
institutions have mapped out a path to a high renewable energy grid. Experts are shining the light on a future of green manufacturing and “green energy exports” that could enhance the position of the country as a significant energy superpower.
But
the fossil fuel industry and its backers, with their focus almost
entirely on short-term profits and ideological claptrap, have other
ideas. They have decided to throw a live grenade into Australia’s own
economic bunker, and its environment, and put the future of the current
and emerging generation at risk.
Consider
the list of what has emerged from the government-appointed gas-industry
led reviews in the past week, including the King Review, the Covid
Commission, the technology investment roadmap, and from the intense
pressure being put on energy regulators.
– Bastardising the remit of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency
in an attempt to to force them to invest away from renewable and smart
and enabling technologies and into gas and carbon capture and storage
– Polluting the already controversial and ineffective Climate Solutions Fund by creating a “base-line” that industry experts suggest will allow big polluters to increase their emissions and get paid for doing so.'
– Delaying critical energy market rule changes and reforms
that might have encouraged smart new technologies such as battery
storage and demand management, and end the rorting of the current system
by incumbent coal, gas and hydro generators.
– Pushing the case for gas and CCS in a “technology investment roadmap”
that otherwise clearly identifies wind, solar, storage and other
technologies such as EVs, heat pumps, energy efficiency and demand
management as the cheapest and most reliable options.
However,
none of these quite reaches the breadth, depth and cynicism of the
so-called Covid-Commission, which appears entirely possessed with the
narrow interests of the gas industry, from where many of these
commissioners have emerged.
Read more of this Renew Economy story
Steep falls in emissions have been the pandemic’s immediate effect. But what’s needed is a green recovery
So
far, discussions of a coronavirus exit strategy have mainly focused on
the steps that could bring an end to the lockdown. In the short term,
both in the UK and elsewhere, there is nothing more desirable than
letting people resume their lives, once it is safe to do so.
But the speed of the “return to normal” is not the only thing that
matters. The manner in which the world’s leaders manage the colossal
economic and political shocks caused by the virus is also of the utmost
importance. And at the top of their list of priorities, alongside human
welfare, must be the biosphere and its future.
