Littleproud says the world is ‘re-pivoting’ on net zero commitments – but is that just spin? | Graham Readfearn

After months of threats, the Coalition’s junior partner has finally withdrawn its support for the national target of reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

“We are aligning ourselves with what the rest of the world is doing,” Nationals leader David Littleproud said on Monday.

The Nationals argue that Australians are already feeling deepening financial hardship from net zero and that the government is imposing this on the country as the rest of the world moves away from its commitment.

None of these things are true.

There is also a growing chorus of Liberal MPs who would like to see their party follow the Nationals and abandon the net zero emissions target.

If adopted as coalition policy, it means Australia’s alternative government will go into the next election with positions that would put Australia in breach of the commitments it made when signing up to the Paris climate accord in 2015.

Abandoning net zero

What exactly did the Nationals give up?

Until the weekend, the Nationals had supported the coalition policy introduced by the Morrison government in 2021 – which would see Australia’s emissions be “net zero” by 2050.

That is, when all sources of emissions, such as the burning of fossil fuels, are added up and the means by which emissions are removed from the atmosphere, such as through tree growth, are removed, the final number is zero.

Given that there are technical and physical limits to the amount of emissions that can be captured, reaching net zero by 2050 will require a fundamental shift away from the fossil fuels that are driving the climate crisis.

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The Nationals have approved only one broad emissions policy that could help: allowing the use of nuclear power.

But there are no further details on how the national ban on this production technology could be lifted, or where it would be deployed, or what type of nuclear technology would be used, or who would pay for it.

This means that in reality, the Nationals’ previous support for net zero emissions was purely rhetorical – they did not support any policies to achieve it. His decision to abandon the target simply means that the pretense has been abandoned.

Jobs, costs and net zero emissions

Littleproud said his party had made its decision based on “lived experience” – pointing to rising electricity prices. But there is strong evidence that most, if not all, of the cost increase has nothing to do with the rise of renewable energy.

In recent months, Littleproud and other Nationals, including Senator Matt Canavan, have highlighted the work of Net Zero Australia, a collaboration between academics from the University of Queensland, the University of Melbourne and Princeton University. They modeled the economy in different ways to get to net zero.

Citing this work, Littleproud told the ABC on Monday: “The cost of net zero by 2050 will be $9 trillion… It will put things like Medicare and NDIS at risk.” »

But that’s not what the Net Zero Australia modeling reveals. The study estimates the amount of investment that would be needed in a range of technologies to achieve this goal, and estimates that it could be between $7 trillion and $9 trillion by 2060.

While nationals describe this as a shocking cost, others see it as an opportunity to build new industries and boost the economy.

Littleproud also claimed that reaching net zero emissions would cost jobs. But Net Zero Australia modeling found an additional 550,000 jobs would be created in the energy sector if the country aimed for net zero emissions.

On emissions, Littleproud revisited the argument that given Australia only emits around 1.1% of global emissions, the country should not “leap ahead” of others. He said Australia “should do its fair share”, but did not specify what that “fair share” would be.

He also said there was a “better, cheaper and fairer” way to reduce emissions, but also not what that was.

It seems reasonable to assume that whatever happens, it involves far less renewable energy than is currently planned, and the introduction of one of the most expensive forms of energy – nuclear – which experts say would take decades to develop.

Is the world turning?

“The rest of the world understands that much of the action at hand has been taken and is now changing course,” Littleproud said.

Is this true? Not really.

It is true that there has been a big change in the United States, with Donald Trump abandoning renewable energy projects and withdrawing from international climate processes, but it is also true that 69% of national governments have committed to net zero emissions. The Net Zero Tracker indicates that more than two-thirds of these measures are enshrined in law or formal policy.

One of the few specific arguments Littleproud made was to claim that UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer was reconsidering the production of 8 gigawatts of renewable energy “due to the energy costs felt by UK residents and industry”.

In fact, UK experts estimate that 8 gigawatts of new renewable energy are needed to meet the country’s targets. The share of these 8 gigawatts ordered by Starmer has not yet been decided.

As with much of what the Nationals have argued around net zero, the facts have become skewed.