PM Commits To Zero Emissions By 2050 With Zero Practical Steps To Achieve It

Yesterday at the National Press Club, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the following:

“Our goal is to reach net-zero emissions as soon as possible, and preferably by 2050.”

My response was, “Thank god for that.” Twenty-nine years to get our emissions down to zero is a lot more time than we should be spending, but it looked as though our PM had come a long way from the days he pranced around Parliament, lovingly cradling a lump of coal.

Unfortunately, it soon became clear the PM’s prancing days were far from finished. He was instead busy dancing a deceptive two-step designed to hide the fact he clearly wasn’t willing to do a damned thing to hasten our transition away from fossil fuels. The only exception being to shovel money towards industry to pay for new “advances”. Using technology we already have — such as rooftop solar — that can provide energy at a lower cost than coal and gas did not get a mention. Instead, Morrison boasted about expanding gas extraction.

Clearly he wants credit for making zero-emissions a goal while being unwilling to take any immediate action to reduce fossil fuel use.

Bad Politics

This weaseling around looks like a terrible political decision to me. It lets Labor take the high ground because they can point to concrete plans to reduce emissions as soon as they’re in power¹.

Meanwhile, the crazies in the Coalition will still be looking to depose Morrison because he has dared to speak the truth that coal is on its way out.

A Good Call

But despite the refusal to lay out a practical plan of action, it is still a good thing the PM has committed to zero emissions by 2050 at the latest. While it’s clear he intends to do the absolute minimum he can get away with, now the cat’s out of the bottle, it’s not going to be easy to put that genie back in the bag.

The Coalition must now pretend they want to reduce net emissions to zero, and — as the cost of renewables, energy storage, and electric transport decline further and international pressure mounts — it will soon become easier for them just to stop lying.

Nitpicking With Pliers

If you want to see exactly what the PM said, the transcript of his entire speech is here. I’ll go over the most relevant parts where he promised to stop at nothing to cut Australia’s emissions to zero, provided it requires doing next to nothing. I’ll address my remarks directly to the PM, since he clearly needs help from someone with charisma.

I’ll start by again quoting the best sentence of the entire speech:

“Our goal is to reach net-zero emissions as soon as possible, and preferably by 2050.”

This great, Scott. I’m really impressed here. I have to admit, when I heard you were going to make an announcement about the environment, I was scared you would say you’d discovered “super clean” coal that only emits carbon monoxide when burned.

But when the leader of a political party announces a big new goal, it’s helpful to mention some of the steps that will be taken to achieve it. However, you only left us with prayers and angel farts. You gave zero practical steps that will be taken to reduce emissions now and only said technological advances would fix the problem.

Let me tell you a little saying of my grandfather’s:

“Hope is not a plan. It’s merely a method of separating suckers from their money.”

Rather than give details of the technology you think needs to be developed, you instead spent time saying what you won’t do, which appears to be undertaking any effort what-so-ever. It really wasn’t a “Fight on the Beaches” kind of speech. It was more “Eh, we’ll fight the Germans if we think it will be easy.”

In 1962, US President Kennedy said, “We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” While you’re like, “We choose to cut emissions, but right from the start, we’re ruling out doing anything difficult to achieve that goal.”

The next thing that came out of your mouth was:

But when we get there, when we get there, whether in Australia or anywhere else, that will depend on the advances made in science and technology needed to commercially transform not just advanced economies and countries, but the developing world as well.

WTF? Are you saying we don’t have the technologies required right now? South Australia already generates more than 60% of its electricity from wind and solar, and we know exactly how to increase it further. Over 50% of cars sold in Norway are now electric. Two out of three of the best selling cars in Europe in December were fully electric. It’s not as if they have future technology in Norway or Europe. They have the same tech we do. They have simply made the effort to ensure it’s used.

Technology has already given us renewable generation and energy storage that is cheaper than coal and gas and works just fine in the developing world. What are you waiting for? Lunar panels and wave power that’s even cheaper? Technological advances are great, and many more will occur, but we need zero new advances to cut emissions now. Any insistence on some magically perfect solution wastes time while the climate situation worsens.

Science and technology will, as it always has in these areas, set the pace and in the developing world this is important because it is in those countries that dominate the emissions horizon.

Goddammit, man! Didn’t you listen to your own speech as it came out of your mouth? Just a few minutes ago, you were boasting about the country’s response to COVID. When a pandemic threatened us, you didn’t decide to let technology set the pace and do nothing until vaccines were developed. Instead, after Australia’s medical professionals convinced you there was a real threat², a huge public health response was enacted despite the expense because lives were at risk and waiting for a cheap fix could result in tens of thousands dying.

Right now more than tens of thousands of lives are at risk from climate change and we already have low-cost technological solutions. To sit around and do nothing until something even cheaper comes along would be murderous madness.

In Australia, we will do this by investing and partnering in the technology breakthroughs needed to reduce and offset emissions in a way that enables our heavy industry in particular, industry more broadly…

Okay, I get it. You’re going to throw money around to get these advances you seem to believe we need to cut emissions. But are you actually willing to lift a finger to do something to reduce emissions now?

In Australia, my Government will not tax our way to net zero emissions. I will not put that cost on Australians and I will particularly not ask regional Australians to carry that burden. Getting to net zero, whether here or anywhere else, should be about technology not taxes and high prices.

What I hear here, Scott, is — apart from contributing to technology advances — you don’t think Australians should put any effort into achieving an important goal. To me, it sounds like you’re against Australians investing in their country’s future.

Maybe that sort of attitude flies in Canberra, but I can tell you it’s not a very popular one in places like Wollongong, Toowoomba, and Adelaide. People there are willing to sacrifice to build a better future for their country, their kids, and the world.

Fortunately, thanks to the hard work of many people around the world who have already put vast amounts of effort into developing the technology we need, the cost of eliminating most fossil fuel use is trivial. The savings from low-cost renewable generation are likely to exceed the cost of getting net emissions down to zero.

In Australia, we’re not waiting on this, we’re getting on with it.

You just said we need new advances and you’ve ruled out higher prices and taxes, so it sounds like you’re not getting on with it. You haven’t proposed one thing that will reduce emissions this year.

Emissions fell by 3 percent in the year to June 2020, to their lowest levels since 1998, meaning we are now nearly 17 percent below 2005 levels. These are the facts. Now, this compares to reductions of approximately 9 percent on average across the OECD, 1 percent in New Zealand and less than 1 percent in Canada. So we’re not waiting.

Scott, don’t be an idiot! You can’t open your speech by describing how severe the pandemic related economic slowdown has been and then claim the resulting emissions drop as some kind of policy success! People are going to notice. Not everybody’s eyes glaze over five seconds after you start speaking.

No one is going to believe the Coalition has been working to reducing emissions, rather than opposing them at every turn. You’re freaking Scott Morrison, the coal cavorting jester from Down Under, leader of the party that claimed improved fuel efficiency standards would destroy the weekend. It’s not as if your reputation when it comes to cutting emissions is good.

And are you trying to get some Jacinda boot applied to your behind? Is that your goal? Because you just suggested Australia is doing better on emissions than New Zealand when we annually emit close to 16 tonnes of CO2 per person, while in NZ they’re around half that at 8 tonnes. That’s not how you make friends across the Tasman, and it doesn’t encourage me to take what you say at face value at any time ever.

We are rolling out our $200 million program to build new diesel storage facilities.

Okay, now you’re just trolling us.

The Beetaloo strategic basin plan has been released, with four more coming. The pipeline market will be further improved as will the liquidity of the Wolumbilla gas hub. All important changes.

Do you even know where CO2 emissions come from? You have to understand that people will question your sincerity if you commit to zero net emissions and then immediately boast about increasing fossil fuel extraction.

It’s Not Hard To Cut Emissions

Scott Morrison seems to think it’s very difficult to cut greenhouse gas emissions because apparently, we need lots of technological advances before it’s possible. While new tech will make change even easier, there’s no need to wait for any advance to cut emissions dramatically.

I can offer a very simple plan that will get us to zero net emissions well before 2050. It’s so simple I can describe it using just two bullet points:

• Introduce a carbon tax of $30 per tonne that increases by $5 a year.
• Allow a carbon credit equal to the carbon tax for each tonne of CO2 removed from the atmosphere and sequestered long term.

By my estimate, this likely to get us to, or close to, zero-emissions in under 10 years.

If we decided to take it more slowly and only raised the carbon tax by $2.50 per year, then it should take less than 20 years to reach zero emissions. That’s 10 or more years earlier than the 2050 target.

I’m not saying this is the best way to reduce emissions. I can think of plenty of ways it can be improved, but it has the following advantages over Scott Morrison’s plan:

• It would work immediately to reduce emissions.
• It actually is a plan and not just a commitment without a plan.
• It can be described with one less bullet point than listing its main advantages requires.

My plan does have the drawback of being totally unacceptable to Scott Morrison because it contains the word “tax”. To overcome this objection, I had a large team of experts work on the problem through the night, and this is what we came up with:

• All large companies must make a compulsory contribution to the “Reduce taxes for Aussie Battlers” fund for each tonne of CO2 they emit equal to $30 with an increase of $5 each year.
• Allow a credit equal to the compulsory contribution for each tonne of CO2 removed from the atmosphere and sequestered long term.

And there you have it. A plan Scott Morrison couldn’t possibly object to that will get us to zero emissions well before 2050. Feel to free steal it and claim it was all your own idea, Scott. I won’t mind at all.

Original Source: https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/emissions-australia-morrison/