Technology-first approach best to cut carbon dioxide

Scott Morrison was putting on a brave face when he declared the climate wars were over as regards a carbon-neutral future. On cue, the Australian Energy Market Operator said it was on alert for power shortages because of an overstretched electricity system, and the Nationals doubled down on plans for a new coal-fired power station in the NSW Hunter Valley. The Nationals want to kickstart manufacturing by sticking with fossil fuels for power, and funding development of new oil reserves to replace diminishing supplies from Bass Strait. Meanwhile, Australia’s agreement to join the international Coalition for Climate Resilient Investment, signed by Environment Minister Sussan Ley, was rejected as gross hypocrisy by green groups that want nothing short of net-zero emissions by 2040 and the phasing out of mining and burning coal and gas.

The Prime Minister and Energy Minister Angus Taylor have the job of remaining focused while being pulled in different directions by domestic and international forces. Their guiding light should be a recognition that Australian voters are pragmatic. The government owes much of its remarkable electoral victory in 2019 to the fact it got the politics on climate right. While the ALP was unable to explain properly how its policies for greater emissions cuts by 2030 would work and, more important, how much they would cost, the Coalition stuck with its track record. Since then the government has worked hard to break the perception that Australia is not doing enough. In fact, Australia has deployed renewables 25 per cent faster than Europe’s four largest economies combined and 10 times faster than the global average. On a per capita basis, between 2005 and 2018 Australia cut emissions by 29 per cent compared with 16 per cent in Germany, 7 per cent in Japan, 16 per cent in New Zealand, 19 per cent in the US and 13 per cent in Canada. The government is sticking with its existing Paris Agreement pledge to cut emissions by 26 to 28 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese is under pressure in his own party because he has been unable to address the conflicting demands of inner-city electorates that want tough action on climate, and regional voters who depend on coal and manufacturing jobs to make a living. The ALP now has a long-term goal to be climate neutral by 2050 but no short-term goal because that would demand details on how it would be achieved and what it would cost. Mr Morrison says his government will not increase its targets for 2030 and beyond until 2025, when it is required to do so under the terms of the Paris Agreement that has been signed. Within that agreement, Australia has accepted a global target of becoming carbon neutral sometime in the second half of the century.

The election of US President Joe Biden and his appointment of former secretary of state John Kerry to negotiate climate issues will change global politics on the subject. Much of it will be shaped by what happens with the broader US relationship with China and how Europe progresses with plans for a carbon border adjustment mechanism, to be tabled in the European parliament in June as part of a package of laws aimed at cutting the EU’s emissions by 55 per cent below 1990 levels by the end of the decade. The US has pledged to cut emissions by the same amount as Australia, but by 2025 rather than 2030, and it has been performing well as coal-fired generation is closed in favour of cheap fracked gas. China has won applause for saying it will become carbon neutral by 2060 but it is allowed to increase emissions through to 2030. For credibility, Mr Biden will be forced to increase the US’s ambition but he has said he will demand more from China, the world’s biggest emitter.

Australia will be best served playing to its strengths. Mr Taylor spoke with Mr Kerry this week. They “noted the role that breakthroughs in technology will play in reducing global emissions and making net zero achievable”. The Biden administration is likely to focus on reducing the cost of grid-scale storage, developing carbon capture and working to get affordable small modular nuclear reactors to market. Australia is investing in reducing the cost of energy storage, producing hydrogen to replace natural gas and developing carbon capture as well as land-based solutions such as soil carbon and regenerative farming. Co-operation with the US on technology was at the centre of the climate change response agreed by John Howard and George W. Bush. As Bjorn Lomborg wrote on Saturday, it was a key part of the Paris Agreement discussions. Helping develop technologies that can be deployed at scale remains the greatest contribution Australia, as a small country responsible for a tiny fraction of global carbon dioxide emissions, can make.