Net Zero Impossible: Tony Abbott By James Reed
Former Liberal prime mister, Tony Abbott has hammered the Labor government’s net zero agenda as impossible. Back in 2009 he was more colourful with his turn of phrase saying that the climate change alarmist position was “absolute crap,” which is a bit rough, but true. Abbott predicted that the renewable energy targets were too unrealistic to be met by 2050. He said at the launch of an Institute of Public Affairs report on Australian energy security, “The climate cult will eventually be discredited, I just hope we don’t have to endure energy catastrophe, before that happens.” Yet with the shutting down of coal-fired power stations, and following Europe down the road of highly uncertain solar and wind energy, that could very well be Australia’s short-term fate.
Abbott is spot on about the impossibility of the Labor zero net goals which would involve “in the words of the incoming energy minister, the construction of 22,000 solar panels every day, and the erection of 14 large wind turbines every month for eight years, plus the construction of up to 10,000 kilometers of new transmission lines.”
That is why it is important to keep hammering the climate change alarmist position, which is widely accepted by young voters. Attacking both the science, and policies recommendations is equally important.
“Former prime minister Tony Abbott has slammed the government’s plan for net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 as “not just utterly irrational but actually impossible”, in his most critical comments on climate policy since declaring climate change science was “absolute crap” in 2009.
Speaking at the launch of an Institute of Public Affairs report on Australian energy security, Mr Abbott predicted Australia would not meet any of the Albanese government’s legislative targets for renewable energy supply recently enshrined in legislation, for both scientific and political reasons.
“The climate cult will eventually be discredited, I just hope we don‘t have to endure energy catastrophe, before that happens,” he told an audience in Westminster, London on the sidelines of the inaugural Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference.
Launching a report by engineer and economist Stephen Wilson entitled Energy Security is National Security, Mr Abbott said Australian voters had and would continue to put their economic well-being ahead of demands to slash emissions in line with government plans to lift renewable energy to 82 per cent of national supply by 2030.
“The anthropogenic global warming thesis, at least in its more extreme forms, is both ahistorical and utterly implausible,” he said, arguing periods of significant climate change throughout history, including the Roman warm period and the Medieval Warm period followed by the Little Ice Age, had nothing to do with human activity.
Mr Abbott led the coalition to federal election victory in the 2013 on a promise to reverse Labor’s emissions trading scheme, which has not been reintroduced since.
The former Liberal party leader and prime minster until 2015 also decried how Australia exported large quantities of coal, gas and uranium, but was reluctant to use them for its own domestic energy needs.
“My country should be an energy superpower, not a green energy superpower, but an energy superpower,” he told the supportive audience, including senator Matthew Canavan.
Last year the government legislated to reduce Australia’s net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050, without recourse to nuclear power, including a reduction in emissions by 43 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030, in line with internationally agreed plans.
Over 150 countries have committed to net zero by 2050, including almost all major economies and the majority of Australia’s trading partners, the government said in May, as it legislated to create a National Net Zero Authority to coordinate the shift to majority renewable power.
Mr Abbott said the infrastructure requirements to meet Labor’s 2030 targets were unrealistic, requiring “in the words of the incoming energy minister, the construction of 22,000 solar panels every day, and the erection of 14 large wind turbines every month for eight years, plus the construction of up to 10,000 kilometers of new transmission lines”.
The ARC conference featured speakers who similarly criticized the likelihood and desirability of moving towards net zero emissions by 2050, including from President Obama’s former undersecretary for science professor Steven Koonin, who denied there was a “climate emergency”.
“There is scant support for the notion of a climate catastrophe, climate emergency… we need to cancel the climate crisis,” he said.
“The notion of an emerging energy revolution is just an oxymoron if you try and push things too fast,” he added, warning governments not to repeat the mistakes of Germany, which has spent trillions of euros in its quest to shift to renewable energy without obvious success.”
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