Economic Self-Sabotage Continues With Crazed Net-Zero Pursuit

A drone picture shows a residential rooftop solar unit on a house in Canberra, Australia, on March 3, 2023. AAP Image/Lukas Coch

Commentary

The burgeoning cost of Australia’s pursuit of net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050 has just increased even further with the announcement of yet another bureaucracy.

To be known as the “Net Zero Authority,” it will be lavished with taxpayer funds to pursue a hugely questionable policy and seek to mitigate its devastating impact.

Officially, the task of this new monolith is to ease the consequences of this dubious net-zero-by-2050 policy. As such, it is charged to identify and access new employment opportunities for those who will be unnecessarily losing their jobs because of this determination to decarbonise the Australian economy.

Good environmental stewardship is to be commended and pursued. Economic suicide in the name of so-called good environmental stewardship is not to be so commended and pursued.

Nevertheless, the Authority has a threefold task.

It is to pursue employment opportunities for the displaced workers. It is to coordinate progress and policies across government to support those areas hardest hit by this “transition,” especially in Australia’s regions. Finally, our investors and companies are to be the beneficiaries of this Authority’s expertise to engage with the net zero transformation.

A supplied image obtained on Nov. 27, 2020, of a wind farm at Granville Harbour in Tasmania, Australia. AAP Image/Courtesy of Granville Harbour Wind Farm

At this stage, no chair of the board, let alone the composition of the board, has been announced, so there is hope for some sanity to be injected into an authority that is tasked to help undermine Australia’s economy and the jobs it provides.

As many countries around the world are waking up to the consequences of the zealotry that has underpinned the net-zero mantra, it seems Australia is still proceeding full steam ahead if that metaphor is still allowed.

No Lessons Learnt From Net-Zero Transition Failure

As Europe and the United Kingdom are literally reeling from the net-zero obsession with about faces on their Paris and other commitments, it seems Australia’s policy settings are not so flexible to adapt to realities and changed circumstances.

In the month after the closure of the Liddell coal-fired power station, we have this new Authority. One suspects the government hopes the closure will provide it with a scapegoat in the event things go pear-shaped as predicted.

Even the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has expressed serious doubts about having enough generators at the ready to step in to avoid the risk of blackouts.

The basis of the concerns by AEMO may well be founded on the lived experience in the state of Victoria. After the closure of the Hazelwood power plant, it was no coincidence that the average spot price for electricity shot up by 85 percent.

Workers hang their hard hats on the fence outside of the Hazelwood Power Station on the final day of operation in Hazelwood, Australia, on March 31, 2017. Scott Barbour/Getty Images

If the market is working as it should be, then the price increases being experienced throughout the national energy market are an indicator that the cost of providing energy from alternate sources is more expensive or the reduction in the supply of electricity has driven up prices.

Whatever the explanation, and it may be a bit of both, the people holding the higher energy charges in their hands are Australian households and manufacturers when they receive their bills.

The cost of living and inflation is devastating household budgets, with surging electricity costs being a substantial yet unnecessary contributor.

In the meantime, Australia is busily selling its high-quality coal to other countries, enabling those countries to deliver low-cost, reliable energy to their people and manufacturers.

Make no mistake. The reason our Australian coal is bought is not out of love and affection, it is for the reality that cheap and reliable energy supplies are vital for any modern economy.

Why Do We Shoot Ourselves in the Foot?

The first agenda item for the Authority to contemplate is why we are embarking on this “transformation” that is devastating Australian households and jobs while other countries are still buying our coal as the cheapest source of energy.

Keep in mind that in Australia, we can place our energy generators right next to the coal source, whereas those buying our coal have the substantial extra expense of taking the coal by train to a port, having it shipped across the ocean, and then delivered to the power station. Burning tonnes of bunker fuel as they go.

Given our rich resource base, Australia should be enjoying the cheapest energy prices in the world. But because of government policies, we instead suffer under some of the highest.

Given the lengthy delays being experienced with the delivery of alternate power sources, such as with Snowy2.0, the Authority might contemplate recommending a re-think of the government’s agenda.

And under that agenda item, the board chair could give all board members the opportunity to write a quick critique of that font of all CO2 knowledge and Greta Thunberg’s prediction in 2018 that within five years, all humanity will be wiped out unless the world stopped using fossil fuels. Like all the cataclysmic environment predictions, it too has failed to materialise.

The dislocation and devastation foisted on the Australian people and its economy by the net zero by 2050 mantra are benignly described as a “transformation.”

Next time you need to visit the panel beater, just say you “transformed” your car, and any talk of a crash is highly offensive. The only difference being people tend to crash cars accidentally and not deliberately.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.