Government's aim misses the target
CRISPIN HULL COLUMN
The Coalition is right. Last week’s carbon-emissions target will be costly for the economy. That is because it is far too low, not because it is too high.
The Government is not spending anywhere near enough to transition to renewables. There is money in this for Australia. And the quicker the transition the less vulnerable our economy will be.
The trouble with the target – and all the targets before and after it – is that without money and action they are next to worthless.
The Government is spending more money – about $12 billion a year – subsidising fossil fuels than it is spending on reducing emissions – about $9 billion.
This is silly. It is made worse by the approval, since coming to office, of 10 coal projects, 200 gas wells, and the extension of the North-West Shelf gas project to 2070.
All of Labor’s talk about climate action is more than countered by its gifts to fossil industries. And then, of course, we have the gifts from the fossil industry to Labor and other political parties.
They are quite trivial amounts given the huge returns they bring: $172,000 from the gas lobby, $149,000 from Santos, $128,000 from Chevron and $80,000 from Woodside, among others. Added to this are the secret donations – anything under $16,000 to each of the state, territory, federal divisions of each party.
That has now been cut to $5000 before disclosure kicks in. Nonetheless, even after this year’s change, Australia’s donation laws are still pitifully opaque.
The major political parties are being bought very cheaply by the fossil industry to pursue policies which are bad for our economy, bad for our health, and deeply unpopular.
What is the point of aiming for a 62 to 70 per cent reduction by 2035? The independent Climate Council says the world needs to be at net zero by then if we are to avoid more of the sorts of fire, flood, and heatwave events that the Productivity Commission says are causing a big drag on the economy.
The cost of reducing emissions will be much less than not reducing emissions. Rather than arguing that Australia will make little difference if the world does not act, we should be urging the world to act and set an example as to how it can be done, and done profitably.
Labor would have had little to lose by setting a more ambitious target and setting aside more money to meet it.
To line up with voter opinion, Labor should wean itself off the fossil industry by pledging not to take donations from it and by refusing approval of any more coal mines or gas projects.
There would not be much electoral downside. Last election, the Coalition scored much higher fossil donations than Labor, including at least $500,000 from Gina Reinhart’s Hancock Prospecting, and still lost massively.
A YouGov poll last month (https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/new-poll-shows-aussies-back-strong-climate-action-as-unnatural-disasters-dent-productivity/) shows that a large majority of voters will be disappointed with the weak target, to say the least.
YouGov is an independent international pollster. Its poll, commissioned by the Climate Council, showed that 60 per cent of people want the Government to do more on climate change. Nearly 80 percent expressed concern about emissions causing catastrophic weather events.
The Government should also note that younger voters are more in favour of climate action. That’s where the electoral future lies.
Australia’s performance on electric vehicles is pitiful. Last Budget committed a paltry $40 million for charging stations. Small wonder Australians suffer from range anxiety and only 12 percent of sales are EVs. Norway’s figure is 90 percent. Uzbekistan’s is more than 50 percent.
Australians are paying for this failure at the bowser and paying for it in increased pollution and health impacts.
We have to get more panels, batteries, and car chargers into the one-third of dwellings that are rented. Maybe landlords should be required to provide tenants with a certain amount of electricity as a compulsory part of the lease.
The transition to net zero (or preferably real zero without any Mickey Mouse carbon trade-offs) need not be costly.
Australia imports nearly $40 billion worth of fuel a year. We should be reducing that to zero as soon as possible. Money aside, there is a national security weakness with importing all our fuel.
Meanwhile, the value of our total coal exports has fallen from $114 billion in 2021-22 to $91 billion in 2023-24. It will keep falling as steel-making technology changes and electricity generation with coal shrinks.
Climate aside, Australia has to future-proof itself. The cost of fossil-generated power is only going up and the cost of solar, wind, and batteries is going down.
Australia has a huge advantage over other nations with solar – abundant cheap land.
For example, the SunCable project is now negotiating with Indonesia to lay an electric cable from a vast solar array in the Northern Territory to Singapore 4500km away.
Solar arrays in parts of Australia can improve agricultural productivity in sheep country. Overnight condensation on the panels causes water run-off and greater grass growth.
Australia must not let the grass grow under our feet by remaining at the mercy of increasingly insecure fuel supplies from overseas and of shrinking markets for our coal exports.
Australian mining billionaire Andrew Forrest and his Fortescue Metals Group have the right idea – supporting net zero and a carbon price for international shipping. Fortescue has a green-ammonia powered ship, the Green Pioneer. It happens to be in New York at the time of the UN summit being attended by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Forrest – who has a clear understanding of business opportunities and economics – has called US President Donald Trump’s energy policy “gobsmackingly illogical” and kowtowing to oil and gas donors. Australia’s is nowhere near as bad, but if last week’s target is any guide, it could be a lot better.
This article first appeared in The Canberra Times and other Australian media on 23 September 2025.
Crispin Hull is a distinguished journalist and former Editor of the Canberra Times. In semi-retirement, he and his wife live in Port Douglas, and he contributes his weekly column to Newsport pro bono.
The opinions and views in this column are those of the author and author only and do not reflect the Newsport editor or staff.
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