Failed former prime minsters Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull blame the Murdoch media for spreading “climate denial”, yet many major news organisations not owned by News Corp also publish criticism of badly planned climate strategies.
Only last week the Daily Mirror, Daily Express and The Daily Telegraph in London — none of which are owned by News — published criticism of Tory plans to ban gas boilers for home heating as part of Boris Johnson’s commitment to net zero carbon emissions by 2050. The Tories face a vicious backlash over plans for gas heaters to be replaced by non-polluting heat pumps in 29 million homes at a cost of about $25,000 each.
London’s Financial Times, also not owned by News, reported on May 25 that the European Union was increasingly divided over plans to expand the EU’s emissions trading system. Poorer countries led by Poland say their citizens will be hardest hit. The FT also warned on May 23 that Japan, Australia and Norway all rejected a report by the International Energy Agency calling for an end to approvals of new coal and gas projects.
They worry the IEA’s landmark report on global action needed to meet 2050 net zero emissions targets does not take account of the need for firming of power grids to avoid blackouts when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine. That would be like the firming proposed for the new Kurri Kurri gas project in the NSW Hunter Valley announced by the Morrison government just before the Upper Hunter state by-election in NSW on May 22. Voters gave a clear tick to jobs in coal and gas with a rare by-election swing away from the Labor opposition candidate.
The Nine papers, as well as Guardian Australia and the ABC, criticised the $600 million Kurri Kurri gas announcement on May 18, which they claimed ran counter to that IEA report on net zero emissions. The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age on May 19 gave the IEA front page treatment and used it to argue the Morrison government was ignoring the science by approving a new gas plant.
Yet Turnbull’s own former chief scientist Alan Finkel supports Kurri Kurri. “It’s not there to replace coal. It’s really there to support solar and wind and that’s an important distinction,” Dr Finkel said.
Turnbull, who with wife Lucy gave money to a failed independent environmental candidate in the recent state by-election, retweeted over several days news pieces that criticised the Kurri Kurri announcement. He did not mention his former chief scientist’s support for it.
Left wing media were all slow to reach the obvious conclusion about the by-election result given it had been clear for weeks that coal and gas would be a central issue. The Sun-Herald in NSW, in its May 23 report, did not mention coal or the months of warnings by former federal Labor frontbencher Joel Fitzgibbon that the party was losing its base in mining seats.
Radio National Breakfast host Fran Kelly got the point in her interview with Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese on Tuesday morning but Albanese did not want to discuss being wedged on coal jobs.
By Wednesday morning the Nine papers’ James Massola and Rob Harris were reporting another federal Labor member, Meryl Swanson, from the Hunter Valley seat of Paterson, was warning Albanese is “sleepwalking off a cliff” on coal.
The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald on May 19 also interviewed IEA executive director Fatih Birol. Europe correspondent Bevan Shields quoted Birol saying faster action on renewables could create five million new energy jobs. But lower in the story Birol made a point this column has been making for years – he was critical of countries for announcing ambitious targets without plans to meet them. Wrote Shields: “The gap between ‘rhetoric and what’s happening in the real world’ was rapidly growing, he (Birol) warned.”
This is where Rudd and Turnbull fail to engage with the facts on climate action. Australia has among the highest penetrations of rooftop solar, is among the global leaders on introduction of renewables, and will meet its 2030 Paris emissions reduction targets. But many environment writers dismiss that because the Morrison government has refused to say it will definitely achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
Net zero, but no plan
Birol is right. Many nations that have committed to net zero have not outlined any plan to get there. Australia has said it wants to reach net zero but will not commit to do so until it has mapped out a clear path. That is, we are being honest. Rudd, Turnbull and left wing journalists effectively prefer meaningless statements of intention without real action plans.
Birol repeated his concern about lack of real pathways to net zero in an ABC 7.30 interview with Leigh Sales last Wednesday. And he made another point — which Sales ignored — that has been previously made in this column. One of the key fields of research in meeting commitments to net zero will have to be carbon capture and storage. Rudd does not talk about this any more but as PM he committed $300 million to CCS research.
This is an area the left now likes to ridicule even though the UN has made clear such technology will be needed to deal with fugitive emissions in manufacturing processes that will always emit high levels of C02.
Reaching net zero will cost tens of millions of jobs and create three decades of economic upheaval. Many countries could eventually refuse to make the journey. Think China, India and Russia, for starters.
China has committed to net zero by 2060 and India by 2050. Russia has made no commitment. All three are increasing their use of coal and continuing to build new coal-fired power plants. That’s not Murdoch media scepticism; it’s fact.
The most amusing triumph of media advocacy over fact here is electric cars. Without a hint of humour Rob Harris in the Nine papers reported on May 22 that Australia was set to become another Cuba because of its slow take-up of EVs (electric vehicles). Like Warringah independent federal MP Zali Steggall, there was no sign Harris understood EVs need to be plugged in to a power grid that is still 70 per cent dependent on coal.
The Australian’s Judith Sloan got the issue right last Tuesday. Calls for EV subsidies are the worst kind of pork barrel to the rich and produce little environmental benefit. But they allow people like Rudd, Turnbull and Steggall to parade their moral superiority at taxpayer expense.
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