Chris Bowen concedes on renewables figures, as top scientist calls for moratorium
Chris Bowen appears to have finally come clean on his questionable renewables rollout claim, as a top scientist calls for a temporary halt to new projects.
Chris Bowen appears to have finally conceded making false statements about the scale of Australia’s renewables rollout, as Biodiversity Council co-chief Hugh Possingham called for a moratorium on projects pending planning reforms.
The Climate Change and Energy Minister on Thursday faced questions in parliament, after refusing to justify claims the area needed for the renewables rollout was just 12 per cent of figures featured in The Australian.
He appeared to confirm he had confused figures relating solely to NSW with The Australian’s national figures, based on landmark research by conservationist Steven Nowakowski and Rainforest Reserves Australia.
“The NSW Agriculture Commissioner has estimated that it would need 55,000 hectares in New South Wales, or 0.1pc of rural land,” he said.
The 55,000ha is 12.6 per cent of the RRA mapped area for solar panels nationally, appearing to confirm Mr Nowakowski’s suspicion Mr Bowen had mixed-up NSW-specific data with the national figures.
Mr Bowen was also on Thursday challenged on his claim that renewables projects in the “wrong places” would be blocked under assessments underpinned by the federal Environment and Biodiversity Conservation Act.
“We have a very strict environmental approval regime in place,” Mr Bowen said. “If an application is in the wrong place, it wouldn’t be approved, whether it’s renewable energy or anything else,” he said. “That’s how it should be.”
However, Professor Possingham backed claims by conservationists that destructively located projects damaging to biodiversity were being approved, saying the EBPC Act was not working as intended or needed.
In particular, it was insufficiently protecting species from the cumulative impact of multiple projects, and failing to protect remnant vegetation needed as refuges for species from rising temperatures.
“There is no reason anywhere in Australia to put wind or solar on native vegetation – it makes no sense,” Professor Possingham said. “You can site all these renewable energy facilities by not destroying forest.”
Approving native vegetation clearance for renewables was undermining carbon emissions reductions from the projects.
“As soon as you destroy forest you release carbon dioxide,” he said. “So people who worry about climate change should very worried about the siting (of renewables) because one of the biggest contributions to climate change in Australia is habitat destruction.”
The Upper Burdekin/Gawara Baya Wind Farm, southwest of Ingham in Queensland, secured EPBC approval in June 2024, despite the government acknowledging “significant” impacts on threatened species.
These related to clearing 605ha of Sharman’s rock wallaby dispersal habitat, 581ha of greater glider habitat, 614ha of koala habitat and 616ha of red goshawk habitat.
The government approved the 69-turbine plant, concluding these impacts were not “unacceptable” on the species as a whole and could be offset and mitigated.
Professor Possingham said the compounding impact of multiple projects with similar impacts on a species were not sufficiently considered, allowing a species’ “death by a thousand cuts”.
Nor did the process consider the growing importance of ridge lines – sought after by wind developers – as refuges for species impacted by the warming climate.
“If we have two degrees of warming, most species to survive are going to have to move … 200-300km south or go up 200-300 metres to enter cooler environments,” he said.
“So destroying ridge tops and the areas around them is not smart.”
Professor Possingham, a former Queensland chief scientist and globally lauded ecologist, called for a freeze on renewables projects until biodiversity mapping could guide a less damaging rollout.
The Biodiversity Council – Australia’s peak ecologist and conservation scientists – had been urging such an approach for years, but had been ignored by government. “We warned the government this was going to happen,” he said.
Spatial mapping, using existing federal data on threatened species, would take just 6-12 months and could then be used to create red, amber and green zones for renewables projects.
“It’s not rocket science – it’s all publicly available data and simple spatial planning,” he said.
A similar “traffic light” approach factoring in biodiversity was recently recommended in a report by the University of Queensland and Princeton University.
It estimated that over 110,000 sq km — about 1.7 times the size of Tasmania — of renewable energy infrastructure was needed by 2060 to reach net-zero in Australia.
A conflict-ridden rollout would, the report warned, fail to meet these goals, leading to “higher energy prices” and a “clean energy shortfall of almost 500 gigawatts”, undermining decarbonisation.
A government spokesman said: “It’s important proponents do the right thing and consult their communities. There’s state environmental decision processes these projects have to clear. And national environmental laws consider the impacts to the local environment in nationally significant areas and add conditions if needed.”
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