Power-driven talk on net zero goal

The economic future of this nation is in the hands of our Prime Minister (“PM pushes tech target for climate”, 18/2), who must resist progressive demands from Coalition MPs, in concert with Labor and the Greens, for net zero CO2 emissions by 2050. This Paris Agreement target is not supported by scientific and economic long-term projections. Even the most extreme of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s four modelled Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP2.6) projecting our climate future based on greenhouse gas concentrations proposes net zero emissions by 2070.

Bjorn Lomborg’s research has shown that meeting the Paris emission targets (of which many countries are already in breach) will reduce global temperatures by a minuscule 0.2C and ruin the global economy. Air transport alone contributes 4 per cent of our greenhouse gases. How many politicians will be travelling by sail in 2050? Even alarmist climate scientists are arguing that the UN’s most radical RCP8.5, projecting a 6C increase in global temperatures by 2100, is “highly unlikely”. In other words, we can live with something in between.

Kevin Begaud, Dee Why, NSW

So finally we have a starting point — $22b per year on new technology to help meet a net zero emissions outcome by 2050. Now let’s bring all parties to the table — scientists, big business (including fossil fuels and renewables representatives) and all sides of politics to refine this back-of-the-envelope guesstimate by the Business Council of Australia and see if a credible, affordable and non-draconian transition path can be developed. We can worry about Plan B later if the answer is negative.

Peter Thomson, Brunswick, Vic

The technology Scott Morrison is seeking could come in the form of photo-voltaic cells, wind turbines, batteries and nuclear power. Or does he have something else in mind? And while he is demanding the cost of these efforts he might also consider the cost of not doing anything.

John Chapman, Nedlands, WA

On energy and climate Scott Morrison is a hybrid. He is wary of the economic cost of any more climate schemes, which, as Tony Abbott so aptly described, was “socialism masquerading as environmentalism”. Yet the Prime Minister cannot credibly explain his “technology agnosticism” when his government backs Malcolm Turnbull’s $10.5 billion-plus Snowy 2.0 project, saying that it qualified as nation building, yet the call for a government-backed HELE (high efficiency, low emission) coal plant does not. To really differentiate himself from his predecessors, Morrison needs to come up with the “vision thing”. Going nuclear would help.

Mandy Macmillan, Singleton, NSW

Matt Canavan highlights the hypocrisy of Anthony Albanese and Labor with its flip-flop stance on coal-fired power (“Unicorns pop up everywhere, but Albanese says it’s just horse manure,” 18/2).

“Each way Albo” (with a nod to Sky’s Paul Murray) is going down the same path as Bill Shorten, hence the emergence of the Otis Group. This flank of the Labor Party knows if the party repeats the same mistake as Shorten they are toast.

The left is squealing about one coal-fired power station in far-north Queensland, while the world continues to build hundreds more. Why are we sabotaging ourselves?

Gabrielle Baker, Carina, Qld

On this day, back in 2010 President Barack Obama announced more than $8 billion in new federal loan guarantees to build two nuclear reactors in Georgia, in the US. The tragic reality is that Australian governments, Coalition and Labor alike, are prepared to sacrifice the national interest on the altar of politically correct anti-nuclear idiocy.

Mario Moldoveanu, Frankston, Vic