How will Australia get to net zero?

Net zero refers to the balance between the amount of greenhouse gases produced and the amount removed from the atmosphere. The first problem I can see is to identify which greenhouse gases are natural and which are man-made. This will mean that emissions from homes, transport, agriculture and industry will need to be cut and huge declines in the use of coal, oil and gas will be essential. Our energy systems will need to be totally transformed and that means closing down power stations and relying totally on renewable energy. All of the states and territories have agreed to have net zero by 2050 and the federal government is yet to make an announcement as to whether they will also join in to a net zero target by 2050.

What does all of this mean? None of the states and territories nor any of the political parties have outlined a plan of how net zero will be achieved although, to be fair, most, if not all, claim to be working on a plan to produce a plan to achieve net zero by 2050. In a practical sense, even if man-made greenhouse gases can be quantified, there will be a loss of jobs as mining will shut down, transport will be drastically reduced and industry will be almost non-existent. We won’t have baseload power as solar only works in daylight hours and wind turbines only work if the wind is not too strong and batteries have not yet been invented that can carry the amount needed to replace baseload power.

We have not been given any costings as to the affect that all of this will cost although we have been told that to do nothing would cost more, whatever that means. We have been told that there will be “thousands” of green jobs with no specific numbers being produced nor what the wages for these green jobs will be. It has been said that those in mining who are earning in excess of $200K per annum may be offered jobs paying around $75K per annum, hardly a satisfactory result.

The Paris Accord has raised $billions from donations by richer nations and this is supposed to go to poorer countries to help them with lowering emissions. What we have never been told is how much has been raised in the name of climate change and where all of the funds have been spent. At the same time as Australia is expected to drastically change the workforce, reduce tax income and increase welfare payments, the two largest emitters of greenhouse gases, China and India, are exempt until 2060 because they are “developing countries”.

Despite all of this I still have an open mind and I’d love to hear the arguments, with tangible proof, of why Australia should reach net zero by 2050, what the cost will be in monetary terms and the effect it will have on the men and women whose lives will change.

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