By Stephen Saunders
Here’s Mr Albanese, pretending to re-fly the Coalition’s east-coast gas reservation, outing his 40-year emissions-rich “surprise” for Woodside NW Shelf gas, while smirking “it’s net zero, not zero”.
At Election 2025, Peter Dutton kicked the own-goal of nuclear-net-zero. Reappointed Albanese Labor climate-Svengali Chris Bowen still spruiks 43% emissions reduction towards net zero. It’s far-fetched.
This isolated South Seas continent with massive natural resources ought to have world-cheap energy prices, affordable housing, world-low population pressures. It amuses the political classes to inflict the opposite.
Net zero Labor (not Liberals) is the culture warrior
Recent woke critiques by UK Eric Kaufmann and US sociologist Musa al-Gharbi are notable. Pity the latter’s Australian book-tour sidesteps elite-Canberra. He illustrates the “diversity, equity, inclusion” (DEI) attitudes that (mis)guide priorities of “symbolic capitalists” or top 20%. Whose groupthink dismisses disfavoured facts as “misinformation”.
These same DEI pieties distort (racialise) population commonsense, degrade (defer) environmental protections, culminating in the ego-trip of “net-zero” emissions. This I call climate-woke.
As Kaufmann and al-Gharbi concur, wealthy nations are kinder nowadays for (say) women, black, trans. Great news, but Donald Trump beat DEI candidate Kamala Harris, an unwise replacement for enfeebled Biden.
Over recent years, tariff wars aren’t normal Republican. “Normal” is US pronatalism – Trump defunding family planning in developing nations. UN long since walked back active family planning, pro “climate-action” for “net zero”. Depicting eight billion (adding 80-90 million annually) earthlings as a diversity celebration not an environmental bomb. Lecturing timid Australia on climate refugees.
Topping the developed world, our 46% since 2000 population-growth feeds high greenhouse-emissions and perennial housing crisis. The generous incomes of our top 20% stakeholders tutor them otherwise.
Imagining net zero Future Made in Australia (FMIA), Labor’s surged energy bills and derailed real incomes. Emulating Rudd Labor’s 24-month immigration tally by an incredible 70% (topping 980,000) has triggered high rental distress and homelessness.
Virtually unchallenged, Treasurer/Treasury rebadges this onslaught as budget repair, inflation fighting, million jobs, wages growing. State-ABC and left-media agree, hailing a careful reformer buttressing social cohesion.
Though the non-elite wants low migration, Albanese spins open-borders net-zero as progressive patriotism. He – more than floundering Liberal/National Coalition – is the tireless culture warrior. His Treasury ideologues have mapped annual 410,000 population growth (at least 300,000 immigration) through 2035. Aligning with Greens and the top 20%, to institutionalise world-level housing unaffordability.
At the 2019/2022/2025 elections, the losing PM candidate failed to “appease” Chinese electorates. With Coalition support even, and commentariat not interested, Labor’s reverse-racist Modi deals privilege Indian qualifications/migrants to boost the Labor vote in Sydney, Melbourne migrant suburbs. “Patriot” Albanese suits Modi and Xi.
This UN net zero fallacy has swept the world
Education and wokeness, al-Gharbi observes, correlate with high-minded environmentalism:
“Symbolic capitalists are among the primary beneficiaries of the environmental devastation they conspicuously condemn.”
This irony lurked at the 2007 Australian National University S.T. Lee Lecture. A federal security agency had me there, researching environmental fraud/crime.
Disciples flocked to hear Labor climate-guru Ross Garnaut, of today’s Superpower Institute. Will Climate Change Bring an End to the Platinum Age, he mused.
Commending endless (Chinese) growth, riffing on EU emissions-trading, Ross could “remove” the growth-to-emissions nexus, his elixir being carbon-pricing within an emissions budget.
Developed nations should be first-movers – blessed being Australia’s mega “endowment” of carbon “capture” sites. Trading carbon units, we’d calibrate carbon prices to “optimally” deplete our multi-decades budget, an “independent” regulator sorting emissions-intensive industry. This needn’t impose substantial “costs” on the economy/households. Only poor “climate” responses could undo the Platinum Age.
More fool me – this malarkey was the good-old-days. Promulgated over 2016-18, climate-action for net zero took the carbon narrative to the next level. Parlayed by self-described green lionesses into global UN gospel.
Proselytised by corporates, world religions, politicians, economists/scientists/planners, media and think tanks, youth, universities/academics, the net zero unity-ticket swept the world. Then the Coalition PM, woke Malcolm Turnbull, “committed” us to the new religion. Even among top scientists heresy’s still rare.
Though the UN Millennium (Sustainable) Development Goals or SDGs tick climate-boxes, do good works, they shirk the obvious link between booming population and environmental degradation. UN’s feelgood alternative is “guilty” global-north compensating developing nations for climate loss and damage.
Ordinary Australians like renewables—but would like affordable-energy ahead of “net zero”. The latter implies, tech-advances can shrink human greenhouse gas emissions, ratcheting up elusive carbon captures. In utopia, this geoengineering can sequester as many emissions (B) as get pumped out (A).
A – B = 0? Though Earth’s “natural” carbon-cycle is ten times human emissions, lands/seas only absorb half of said emissions, writes the Climate.Gov. Forget about Albanese “netting” Woodside to zero, depleted Earth’s trying to dent our thick-skulls to haul back on the overpopulation and ecological overshoot.
Even by Homo sapiens standards, net zero’s some ego trip. Scientist-turned-influencer Tim Flannery preaches that woke climate leadership can “science” it. Andrew Forrest bragged globally about green hydrogen and real zero. Fellow mogul Mike Cannon-Brookes is net-zero’s Double Bay Jesus.
Notwithstanding recent US/EU emissions reductions, global emissions charts won’t bend-it-like-Beckham. As blockbuster UN-IPCC reports concede, emissions tend to rise, proportional to population, consumption, and GDP.
How could (and why would?) we earthlings ever “net” to zero? With eight billion people battering biodiversity via land-clearing, logging, habitat destruction, water-splurging and species invasions/extinctions.
Sure, those US NOAA gauges on Hawaii Mauna Loa testify the global CO2 spike. Not much do mega-populous US and India/China care—they are coal burning amigos generating 50% of all CO2 emissions. No surprise—they’re also top five economies/manufacturers. Bowen’s bare-minimum net zero is science-fiction.
Sure, Australia can choose to go long on localised renewables or Chinese-led electrification of everything. It’s not that cheap, nor readily network scalable weatherwise, nor making us into an economic superpower. Scarcely for “saving the environment”, net zero’s mostly another market-proxy for business-as-usual growth. Notably, for Chinese expansionism, as abetted by “greens” in mighty California itself.
Australia needs gas for decades at least, for peaking power. As if for net-zero-deity, we flog off our coal/gas bonanzas to enrich Asian powers ahead of citizens.
Check our Treasury and national rugby-squad of climate-energy acronyms: AEC, AEIC, AEMC, AEMO, AER, ARENA, CCA, CEF, CEFC, CER, CSIRO, DCCEEW, ICEDS, ISP, NZEA, etc. They Push UN-OECD-EU-IMF seductions, but massive immigration is fine. Renewable energy could still be the driest continent’s “least cost” solution for “net zero” world.
Starting from his gravity-defying “productivity” model then working backwards, Albanese is a provincial cousin for the ideological overreach (and subsequent rethink) of Germany’s Energiewende (energy turnaround).
Australian politicians love this net zero distraction
Inveigling voters, Trudeau (Carney) Liberal and Albanese Labor climate-buddies implied manageable migration and housing fairness. Each pushed population growth to 2.5-3%. On anti-Trump sentiment, each won the 2025 re-election.
Ironically, despite the fallout for Biden-Harris, America’s “highest in decades” 2023-34 population growth didn’t even breach 1%. Anything nearly that “low” would be kryptonite for the Australian Treasury. Even 1% is way high – that’s approximately what Earth is doing – 80 million a year on 8 billion.
Still, Garnaut promotes Australia as a carbon-sink El Dorado in a zero-carbon world. We’ll ace net-zero for our “expanding” population, mopping a hefty 7% of global emissions as an encore.
Instead of moderating consumption growth, environmental decline, and population growth, wishful net zero prolongs Australia’s magical thinking and vigorous post-1788 environmental conversion.
The fuddled Coalition remains at sixes and sevens. Deposed leader Dutton’s predecessor, Scott Morrison, resisted the net zero wafer-and-wine. He was rebuked by NSW Liberal climate-champion Matt Kean, now chair of Labor’s CCA (Climate Change Authority). The Coalition leader before that, Turnbull, is boilerplate net zero. In stark contrast, 2009-2015 leader Tony Abbott aligns the woke mind-virus and net zero mind-virus.
Curiously, Dutton agreed to target nuclear net-zero not Liar-Albanese. Apparently, campaign HQ rated the latter ploy “unpersuasive”. Now, triumphal ABC and left-media lecture Sussan Ley:
You toxic Abbott/News Corp puppets, climate wars are “over”, only 8/88 metro seats are Coalition, read voters’ memo, embrace net-zero “science”.
Why the swelling pride, Ms Tingle? With Australia’s population heading for 40 million, emissions not actually falling, and cities and countryside riven, now Woodside Albanese’s corporate largesse plus emissions banquet.
To sticky-tape her Coalition together, Ley retains nuclear trappings, hampering her chances. Nuclear power is in 30 nations, including US/China/India and hydrocarbon-poor France. It’s a tough sell down here.
Even under a “renewables” not nuclear “net zero”, polls (as above) say ordinary Australians would rather have affordable energy/housing and low migration. You can’t – chorus Coalition-Labor-Green-Teals.
Parties, here’s the thing. Earth’s (Australia’s) degraded ecosphere could scarcely be worse off, had rising CO2 and climate change never been ballyhooed.
Consider the trillions of dollars, infinite ingenuity, and labour expended on this Potemkin UN façade of carbon research, planning, budgeting, mitigation, measurement, and markets. For how much (environmental) return on investment exactly?
Overpopulated, war-wracked Earth keeps registering record CO2 emissions and CO2 levels, also (US NASA agrees) more elevated temperatures. Add in the Sisyphean challenge of downsizing methane levels and other greenhouse gases – see this US EIA guide.
Thinking 2050, try to imagine an upbeat third reel for this global docudrama. Negative/zero population growth is normal, not “racist”, trashing of habitat/species is despised. In “sovereign” nations like Australia, the top 20% strives to rediscover that brief 20th century idyll when democracies equalised.
A downbeat movie is far more likely. The UN-OECD-EU-IMF governance updates the net zero or “sustainable” goalposts while still claiming that a degraded Earth can “mitigate” and adapt.
Equitable and inclusive consideration is offered for the diverse needs of ten billion identities. That’s climate-woke, eh?
