Des Houghton: Closing coal mines is a crackpot idea that would cripple us

Closing down coal mines and coal-fired power stations are among the many crackpot ideas to reduce climate change that would leave the state unable to fund schools, hospitals and roads, writes Des Houghton.

It may soon be unlawful to drive a car more than 100kmh. As if our highways were not already clogged.

Speed restrictions are among several oddball proposals in a major international report on how to tackle global warming.

The report by the Paris-based, left-of-centre International Energy Agency also calls for half our cars to be replaced with bikes and internal combustion engine cars to be phased out in all large cities in the world by 2030.

Airconditioners would also be restricted with limits imposed on heating and cooling settings.

And you can forget that holiday to Tuscany or Provence.

The agency seeks to restrict long-haul tourist flights. And it proposes a ban on regional airline flights, encouraging travellers to catch trains instead.

QANTAS chief Alan Joyce will be apoplectic when he reads that in the report titled, Net Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector.

Bulga Mine

However, it is the agency’s recommendations on shutting down coal-fired power stations and banning mining that are ridiculous and deeply troubling, especially for Queenslanders.

The report stupidly calls for coal mining and gas extraction be halted immediately.

It conceded that millions of jobs would be lost globally in the 30-year countdown to achieving net global emissions.

Bad luck if you live in Australia. The agency’s demands would destroy Australia economically, wiping regional towns off the map while forcing tens of thousands onto dole queues.

The problems with ensuring energy security were brought into sharp focus this week when a mystery fire at Callide power station shut a turbine cutting electricity to 389,000 homes in Brisbane, the Gold Coast, and Moreton Bay.

Power cuts also hit businesses and homes Cairns, Townsville, Mackay, Rockhampton, Bundaberg and Gladstone.

About 80 per cent of Queensland’s energy comes from coal-fired stations like Callide. Renewables may be welcome, but they will not be able to provide even 50 per cent of our power demands for decades.

Callide Power Station today after an explosion that resulted in a mass power outage. Photo - Steve Vit

Shutting power stations and curtailing mining has all but destroyed the Labor Party as its latte-sipping metropolitan MPs rush to embrace the Greens.

I’ll be keen to hear how our anti-coal premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, who refuses to visit Adani’s Bravus mine, and dithering federal leader Anthony Albanese respond to the IEA report.

“Achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 will require nothing short of the complete transformation of the global energy system,” the report says.

“This requires steps such as halting sales of new internal combustion engine passenger cars by 2035 and phasing out all unabated coal and oil power plants by 2040.”

It adds: “Net zero means huge declines in the use of coal, oil and gas” and “a rapid shift away from fossil fuels”.

“The sheer magnitude of changes needed to get to net zero emissions by 2050 is still not fully understood by many governments and investors,” Fatih Birol, the agency’s executive director.

He sees an energy sector based largely on renewables, “with solar the single largest source of supply”.

Opinion: Des Houghton says the Queensland Premier is suffering from “coalphobia”

Australia’s oil and gas industry protected the economy from the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Right now the resources sector contributes $62 billion to the economy, $11 billion in Queensland.

If mines shut, resource-rich states like Queensland would lose royalties revenues they pay for hospitals, schools and roads.

A recent Ernst & Young study put it in to perspective:

“The economic dividends from unleashing a new wave of oil and gas developments are large. If we unleash the key projects which are currently in the industry pipeline, under a high growth trajectory, national economic output is estimated to increase by over $350 billion with over 220,000 jobs created over the next two decades.”

Des Houghton is a media consultant and a former editor of The Courier-Mail, The Sunday Mail and the Sunday Sun.