from the Spectator and IPA
Former cosmopolitan elite-in-chief, Adrian Blundell-Wignall (a former head of the OECD) let the mask slip earlier this month when he said:
‘Here is the simple truth. It doesn’t matter where the fossil is burned. The carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere has exactly the same effect on climate change, regardless of whether it is burned here or abroad.’
Putting aside the flawed climate science, Blundell-Wignall’s admission is significant. China’s annual emissions are around thirty times higher than Australia’s. It is futile (again, putting the climate science to one side) for Australia to cut its emissions and to end coal when China continues to build more coal stations and increase its emissions.
But rather than draw the obvious conclusion that Australia should shelve its emissions reduction policies such as Net Zero, Blundell-Wignall argues what we actually need is a carbon tax, because ‘with a carbon tax, other countries would buy less of our coal’.
It’s a touch ironic that just weeks after these comments, the federal government announced it would be sending 70,000 tonnes of coal to Ukraine to support their military and defence efforts against the Kremlin. It seems Tony Abbott was right after all when he said in 2014 at the opening of the Caval Ridge coal mine in central Queensland that ‘coal is good for humanity’, and that ‘coal is vital for the future energy needs of the world, so let’s have no demonisation of coal’.
Still, Blundell-Wignall is at least honest, which is more than can be said of the federal government.
Having won a landslide victory in 2013 on the promise to ‘axe the tax’, and on the back of the victory at the 2019 ‘climate election’, Scott Morrison has spent the better part of three years shifting his focus from the workers of Gladstone to the bureaucrats of Glasgow.
Just before the COP 26 Glasgow climate conference held in October last year, Morrison announced the Coalition would adopt Labor’s policy of Net Zero emissions by 2050. And just after the conference, the government released modelling asserting such a commitment would make us all $2,000 richer by the year 2050.
Promises of green hydrogen, ‘choices not mandates’, and exciting new technologies yet to be discovered – all without costing a single job – makes for a great marketing slogan. But here’s the rub. Australians are still unpersuaded.
The disconnect between the political class and mainstream Australians has even been publicly acknowledged by the member for Longman, Terry Young.
In February, Young was reported as telling a Liberal Party room meeting that he voted in favour of Net Zero even though the people of Longman didn’t back it.
It’s likely more than a few more MPs would have followed Young in ignoring their constituents’ preferences if a recent survey by the Institute of Public Affairs is anything to go by.
Over 1,000 Australians were asked a series of questions by marketing firm Dynata between March 4-6 about energy security, Net Zero emissions, and national defence. Some 72 per cent of respondents said they believed reliability or affordability should be the focus of energy policy, and only 28 per cent said meeting Net Zero emissions by 2050 should be the focus.
What is significant about this finding is how far attitudes toward cutting emissions have shifted over the past year. A similar survey undertaken by the Lowy Institute in April 2021, before Scott Morrison committed Australia to Net Zero, found 55 per cent of Australians believed reducing carbon emissions should be a priority of the federal government, while 44 per cent believed reducing household bills (affordability) and reducing the risk of blackouts (reliability) should be a priority (and 1 per cent weren’t sure).
The plummet to those supporting cutting emissions as a priority of energy policy has no doubt been driven by the growing geopolitical uncertainty.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has exposed the dependency of Western European nations, such as Germany, on foreign energy supply and the extent to which this can be used as diplomatic and military leverage. It has also highlighted our own vulnerabilities.
Australia’s entire strategic oil reserve is only enough for 1.5 days of domestic consumption, and we lack the capacity to bulk store fuel resources locally. At the turn of the century, Australia had eight operational oil refineries, enough to almost meet our domestic consumption of fuel, however only two remain today.
Worst still, on Scott Morrison’s watch, both BP and ExxonMobil announced they would be closing their respective refineries in Kwinana, Western Australia, and Altona, Victoria.
Further, policies such as Net Zero – by shifting our energy supply basis from coal to solar, wind, and batteries – are making us more reliant on foreign powers.
China, for example, controls approximately 80 per cent of the global supply of rare earths and metals which are used to produce solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries. They are also used critical defence manufactures such as weapons and fighter jets.
Our increasing dependency on foreign energy supplies is completely unnecessary and can only be described as an act of self-sabotage. Australia has over 2,000 years’ worth of coal deposits, around one-third of the world’s known uranium deposits, and an abundance of onshore and offshore oil and gas. Yet government intervention, primarily through emissions mandates, red tape, and outright bans, means these vital resources – which are mission-critical to our national security – stay in the ground underneath our feet.
The tension between pursuing Net Zero and securing our national defence is becoming more apparent to policymakers and to the average person.
The same survey undertaken by the IPA found that 61 per cent of Australians agree the federal government should be more focused on national defence rather than meeting Australia’s Net Zero emissions by 2050 target, while only 39 per cent disagree.
As our region becomes more uncertain by the day, it’s well time that Morrison ditched Net Zero so that Australia can avoid becoming the Germany of the Asia-Pacific.
https://pesa.com.au/china-account-44-asias-crude-oil-refining-capacity-2023/
Yes Hermes, the late unlamented Bob Hawke was a 2 by 4. His father was a Congregational minister from Western Australia, who married a Jewess. In Talmud law that makes any resulting children “Jews”
Knowing their immoral lifestyles would create confusion as to just who might be the father of these progeny, they made the linage to follow the mother’s line as that would be beyond doubt.
Similarly the old satanic Sanhedrin would move young Jewish girls into marriage with successful and powerful white Christian men, as witnessed by Rupert Murdoch’s father and another Jew prime minister Malcolm Fraser’s father. The Sanhedrin then sponsor the career of these half breeds.
Let’s make it plain, this ancient cult of Satan worshipping Christ hating people, not exclusively Jews either, derive their power and wealth from Lucifer. They teach and follow the principles of the Babylonian Talmud NOT the Torah or Old Testament.
The very moment that Our Father in Heaven ends Satan’s run, which is very soon, I believe, their power evaporates and nothing can save them from having to face Judgement.
Hermes025,
For god’s sake do your research, it’s on record that “the silver bodgie” cried over the state of Israel.
tonyryan43 said – “Thank the Chinese for burning coal at least we will have plenty of Co2 in the atmosphere for our crops and trees to grow”
… and the good news is that China’s not going away any time soon – so Earth’s biologic future is secure, despite the rolling collapse and destruction of Western civilisation.
@Tony B, they are way more than ‘brainless idiots’.
The CRIMINALS & TRAITORS likely well know, of who they are working for.
They think that they will be immune, from any retribution etc.
Thank the Chinese for burning coal at least we will have plenty of Co2 in the atmosphere for our crops and trees to grow, these politicians and their handlers have no idea brainless idiots that they are Co2 is the gas of life
fair dinkum if they had two brain cells in their skulls they could play space invaders and go suck their thumbs
All by design to create increasing shortages in all necessities of life in preparation for the “Great Reset”. You will eat ze bugz and be happy!
J Madison
Was Hawke jewish? I doubt it very much
Yes Tony Ryan, the one thing extra to add to the list of reforms would be to end all the Tax “reforms” of Jew crook Bob Hawke and his mate Paul.
Abolish capital gains tax and the gold tax. Make all gold to be sold to go to a new treasury, to be used as a gold backing for our own credit creating National Bank.
Pay for it with credit created by our own treasury, not borrowed from the Rothschild’s.
We either do this of we face slavery forever.
Lucky the big Minners bring there own fuel in,or we would have nothing. And you no the Cheap rate from cousin’s Rockefeller, and dogge all the Exsize, Dutys. But look at it this way with the old Chinaman and all the screaming of Attack, And he won’t even have to Rise a shot just block fuel supply, were F, but but were got 1.2 mil barrels in Oklahoma Strategic Reserves according to Angus he brought it with the doggy water buy back money and at 35 a barrel I believe, but Remmber when the big fuel shortage hit and 120 a barrel and Angus had to help the World out so I think they sold it around that price, There as Croupt as F these Grubbment Coperation PRICKS, the pockets a re bulging and there Canary island secrets bank account are untouchedable.
Considering that the three people who run Australia are Frank Lowy, Ross Garnaut, and Rupert Murdoch, why would we care what the Lowy Institute has to say? That troika is behind every bad thing happening to this nation.
We have plenty of oil and Shell has been stealing it for free since 1954, when Menzies signed the OPPA. We have plenty of coal, which is the greenest form of energy there is because CO2 makes trees grow. Carbon is life and life is carbon.
Forget uranium. as long as governments are corrupt there will be Fukushima’s and we do not need any more of those.
If we nationalised our oil fields and removed the two taxes, our bowser price would be around 20 cents per litre, although Lyndon LaRouche’s Business Intelligence Review calculated 25 CPL. I would be happy with that.
With these measures, plus restoring tariffs and introducing an electronic debit tax of 2%, we would be the most prosperous nation on earth inside four years.