Climate, economy must be balanced: ex-Landcare chair

Former BHP and Landcare chairman Jerry Ellis has called for more balance in discussing the costs of tackling climate change.

Jerry Ellis, former BHP Chairman, at home in Mosman in Sydney's north. Picture: Britta Campion

Former BHP and Landcare chairman Jerry Ellis has called for Australia to leave the Paris Agreement, ditch Snowy Hydro 2.0 and be more balanced in discussing the costs and benefits of tackling climate change.

Mr Ellis said it was clear the push to meet the Paris targets was leading to higher power costs.

“We have lost balance between working for the environmental outcomes and working for economic outcomes,” he said. “These things need to be balanced. This has been missed with the Paris accord. The world is better off to have strong economies to have money to spend on poverty, health and the environment.”

Mr Ellis is one of Australia’s most accomplished businessmen. He was chairman of BHP from 1997-99, is a former chancellor of Monash University and was a director of ANZ bank. He was also a president of the Minerals Council and chairman of the national environmental organisation Landcare.

His views are at odds with the publicly stated policies of the companies he once led.

His comments come as new figures show Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions rose 1.3 per cent in the year to March. Emissions from electricity generation fell 4.3 per cent but total emissions were higher due to strong LNG production in the March period.

Scott Morrison said, in per capita terms, emissions were the lowest they had been for 28 years and Australia remained on track to meet the Paris Agreement target of 26 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.

“Technology and demand management are pointing to that outcome,” the Prime Minister said.

However, the government is struggling to define new energy and climate policies following the collapse of negotiations for a national energy guarantee.

Energy Minister Angus Taylor has been given the single focus of reducing energy prices but the states are pushing ahead with ambitious renewable energy targets of their own.

“I hope the new leadership of the Australian government has the courage to guide our country in a rational manner on this subject, as Angus Taylor seems keen to do, and abandons the Paris treaty,” Mr Ellis said.

Internationally, new doubts have been raised about the cost of Germany’s renewable energy transition, once considered a template for global action.

In a scathing assessment on Friday, Germany’s Audit Office said efforts had been an “unprecedented” waste of resources and the project was on the brink of failure.

Germany has confirmed it will miss its 2020 emissions target and the EU has decided not to push ahead with more ambitious targets for 2030.

The German government has defended the energy scheme, saying the cost of not acting would be higher.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is working to make the case for tougher action ahead of a crucial meeting in Poland in December where the rules governing the Paris Agreement are due to be confirmed.

Furious negotiations are under way to condense the findings of thousands of scientific papers into advice for policymakers.

Green groups have complained the report is being watered down to make it more palatable.

But Mr Ellis said experience had shown the opposite was often the case.

“The IPCC scientific reports are stated in possibilities, yet the guidance for policymakers is written as certainty. A farce,” he said. “There is a misfire between the IPCC scientific community and policy outcomes.

“Genuine debate with scientists who do not agree is almost disallowed and I think there is a lack of balance in debate about policies that are going to hurt economies like ours.”

He said former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s plan for Snowy Hydro 2.0 was “quite extraordinary”. “That investment would have been better spent on fossil fuel power generation using coal or gas,’’ he said.