Last week the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen, delivered the Albanese Government’s second annual Climate Change Statement, claiming major progress in emissions reduction while the numbers continue to scream that the opposite is true.
At the time of its election, the government declared that the country’s emissions would be 43 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030, a number which sounded like it was pulled out of a hat, but still gave the impression (to most of the electorate) of being better than nothing. Now Mr Bowen says we’re ‘within striking distance’ of reaching that target, but the reality is that only the most optimistic and rubbery accounting methods make that look remotely possible.
Four new coal projects have been approved since Labor came to office, with a further 25 projects in the pipeline, amounting to 12.7 billion tonnes of potential emissions. The government’s key climate policy, the Safeguard Mechanism, appears entirely unable to prevent new fossil projects, and the madness of acting as though Australian coal and gas burned elsewhere has no effect on the situation continues to be perpetuated. We are now the third largest exporter of fossil fuels globally.
In a recent speech to the Lowy Institute, Minister Bowen suggested that fossil fuels would peak in the near future and be replaced by renewables due to market pressures, but as the Australia Institute has pointed out, federal and state governments continue to give far more aid to fossil fuel companies (over $11 billion a year at last count), than to our Pacific neighbours, who face losing their homes to rising seas.
Mr Bowen has acknowledged that Australia and other wealthy countries need to accept some responsibility for the situation.
Can technology save us?
Federally, Labor has rejected all attempts to ban native forest logging in this country, while expanding the onshore and off-shore gas industry (still using their beloved and false ‘bridge’ terminology), and failing to deliver promised fuel efficiency standards in vehicles. In the absence of a nuclear solution (still being touted by the Coalition), or the revolutionary idea of using less energy, much expectation is being placed on renewables and hydrogen to save the day, along with unproven technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS).
Aware of its associations with ScoMo and friends, Minister Bowen didn’t mention CCS when he publicly tabled the climate report, but it appears several times in the document itself, as a potential solution for both land and sea-based treatment of dangerous emissions, although the technology has yet to be proven at scale, despite many millions of dollars being thrown at it here and elsewhere.
Chris Bowen says the Albanese Government can still turn the emissions ship around, given enough time, but the central hypocrisy of its mission to press the brake and accelerator pedals simultaneously remains unaddressed. According to most climate experts, time is fast running out, if it hasn’t already, and we’re living in a time when tipping points may render all political discussions irrelevant.
Meanwhile community activists who dare to draw attention to Australia’s hypocrisy on the issue, such as at Rising Tide in Newcastle last week, continue to be treated like criminals by state and federal Labor governments.
With COP28 now underway (in the United Arab Emirates of all places), Australia says it will join other nations in promising to triple renewable energy capacity and double energy efficiency improvements by 2030. In terms of language, which is mostly what these summits are about, Minister Bowen has said ‘we will be in there for a very sensible strengthening’.
Unfortunately this is unlikely to help anyone while Australia continues to export dirty energy in record quantities to the world.
Originally from Canberra, David Lowe is an award-winning film-maker, writer and photographer with particular interests in the environment and politics. He’s known for his campaigning work with Cloudcatcher Media.
Long ago, he did work experience in Parliament House with Mungo MacCallum.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
