Report Finds Net-Zero and Ban on Coal, Gas Projects Will Cost Southwest Queensland $47 Billion

A general view of the Loy Yang power plants in Traralgon, Australia, on Aug. 17, 2022. Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images

Australians living in the rural and regional areas of Queensland will be bearing the brunt of the net-zero agenda and green legal activism, which is putting coal and gas projects at risk of cancellation, costing up to an estimated $47 billion, according to a new paper.

It comes as Australia’s major power providers are looking to shut down coal-fired power plants due to increased pressures from the government and investors.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said in September that the state will end its dependence on coal-fired power by 2035 under a 10-year $62 billion energy plan which will see 70 percent of the state’s electricity come from renewables.

But this proposed ban is being questioned by a new report published on Dec. 15 by researchers Daniel Wild and Kevin You from the Australian think tank the Institute of Public Affairs.

The paper, “Estimating the Employments and Economic Consequences of Net-Zero and Environmental Activism in the Darling Downs“ looks into the impact of the net-zero emissions target by 2050 on the resource sector in Southwest Queensland, an area that consists of Toowoomba, Darling Downs-Maranoa and immediately adjacent areas. 

It analyses two sets of coal and gas projects in the region, with the first being those likely to be shut down under net-zero, which have gone through the federal government’s environmental approval process. The second set is resource projects that are undergoing the environmental approval process but which are at risk of being cancelled by the Environment Council of Central Queensland and its lawyers, Environmental Justice Australia.

Abandoned Gas and Coal Projects Will Cost 77,000 Jobs

The authors concluded that if coal and gas projects are abandoned, the total economic impact on Southwest Queensland would be up to $47 billion, which is the equivalent of over 220 percent of the region’s annual gross regional product or more than two years’ worth of economic activities.

The proposed ban would also see the loss of over 77,000 jobs, which is the equivalent of 56 percent of the current workforce in the local area.

“From the year 2000 to 2015, on average, approximately 115 new jobs were created every month in the region. Since 2015, this has collapsed by more than half to just 50 jobs per month. By contrast, total number of working-aged people has increased by 135 per month, which is more than double the number of jobs being created,” the report said.

“Average employment to population ratio between 2000 and 2015 was 62 percent. By 2022, this number has declined 58 percent.”

The authors argued that net-zero and “green legal activism” have “contributed to escalating electricity prices, increasing cost of living pressures, and job insecurity in rural and regional areas.”

“Achieving net-zero CO2 by 2050 necessitates a complete ban on all new coal and gas projects and would affect those projects which are in the publicly announced and feasibility stages,” the paper noted.

“The investment values of these projects inform key assumptions made in this study.”

The authors added that a permanent ban on all new projects will also affect “all future projects that would otherwise have been considered but would not proceed as a result of the ban.”

The report uses the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Input-Output Table and the New South Wales Treasury’s Employment Calculator to estimate “the multiplier effects of the economic output and job creation” that are at risk of cancellation due to the proposed ban on coal and gas projects.

“The multiplier effect refers to the economic activities and job creation generated as a result of the flow-on effects of the commencement of a project, for example, through higher wages and more spending power,” the report noted.