Minimum Something (Part 4 – Exports and Conclusion)

by Ketan Joshi In Longform 4 Comments

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The Dual Superpower

Australia exports a lot of fossil fuels. The emissions from those exported fuels, when they’re burned, are more than twice Australia’s domestic emissions. Selling the cause of climate change disasters is also a very lucrative thing to do.

After a year of disgustingly overblown profits thanks to a crippling fossil fuel price crisis, there are a lot of very rich people who want this to continue as long as possible. This is why the architects of the Safeguard Mechanism puts so much effort into greenwashing the emissions associated with the act of digging up these fuels – by focusing on domestic emissions from production, attention is shifted away from the bulk of the impact, which is the consequence of their burning overseas.

And this is why Labor feels no desire to change the planning process to add friction to proposals for growth in coal and gas mining. Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has approved several already, while rejecting a few that were destined for doom anyway. There is a non-interventionist approach. Exports will rise or fall only as demanded by those purchasing Australia’s dangerous climate products.

This is where there is good reason for hope; due to the number of experienced, dedicated and passionate activists fighting against new fossil fuel projects. The ‘Living Wonders’ project is a group of cases brought against the Australian government, with the intent of challenging these approvals. Environment Council of Central Queensland and Environmental Justice Australia lead the collective.

I think there’s a good chance these folks will be successful, even if that’s just breaking down the walls and opening up the space for more litigation. Labor don’t really want this to be a central issue, so anything that spurs conversation will be a positive.

Labor have instead leaned heavily into a narrative kicked off by former Labor government advisor Ross Garnaut. This presents decarbonisation as a project to preserve Australia’s wealth, power and material excess by exporting massive volumes of clean energy (in the form of hydrogen, or through power cables), alongside a big increase in transition minerals such as copper and lithium.

It works as a way to talk about the future of energy exports without talking about the compulsory dissipation of coal and gas mining companies. It deletes any concern that may be had about Australia simply losing out, in a world that’s ditched fossil fuels. It means not having to consider the fact that GDP growth is a terrible way to measure the wellbeing and happiness of Australians, or its worth as a country. Why is sending vast volumes of energy overseas a compulsory factor in Australia’s existence? Why isn’t anyone asking about the basic assumptions being made?

Most importantly, hydrogen can be produced using clean electricity, or using fossil fuels like coal and methane. The fossil fuel industry has its own fantasies about switching to using carbon capture and storage paired with hydrogen production and preserving its own wealth in that way.

It’s a comforting narrative, but the involvement of the fossil fuel industry suggests that the real plan is to become a ‘dual superpower’, where the fossil fuel industry declines extremely slowly, able to funnel at least some of their energy into greenwashed hydrogen and CCS projects to make that decline even slower.

Labor have done something good here. The “Net Zero Authority” may, if things go right, end up serving as a powerful just transition body, there to ensure communities hit hard by a drop in demand for fossil fuels are protected by the shocks that business and government should’ve begun preparing for more than a decade ago. But what purpose will it serve, if Australia’s fossil fuel industries grow over the next decade, instead of shrinking?

Under the current policy settings, and in a world that fails to tackle climate change, the most likely outcome is a very slow decline in fossil fuel exports, if not a slight rise. This is the future the Labor party is planning for. The ‘net zero’ scenario is fundamentally unmentionable. To mention it would be to admit that it’s possible coal and gas mining companies could face a sudden extinction.

If global climate action accelerates, the demand for Australia’s coal and gas will plummet. Planned mines will vanish, and existing mine operators will panic. Coal and gas companies will demand and win massive government protections, buyouts and bailouts. The remediation of abandoned mines will be paid by the taxpayers. The fossil fuel industry will soak up ludicrous amounts of cash and resources from society, away from those who need them. Chances are that any clean export industry will not have grown large enough to fully replace the fossil export industry, in energy, dollars, or jobs. The ‘Net Zero Authority’ will be at the centre of a national storm.

All of these things will happen if Labor continues on their current trajectory: total denial of the possibility of global climate action.

If Australia’s fossil export industries limp on, that means global emissions are on a catastrophic trajectory, and that means a raft of major new disasters and threats. If they suffer a rapid collapse, that means fewer climate disasters, but an industrial shitstorm domestically.

Chaos is coming; we’re just yet to find out what flavour. A government that is incapable of acknowledging the reality of climate change is guaranteed to screw up the responsibility of this moment. A careful, managed phase-out of the sale of fossil fuels is the only way forward, but Labor seems to be creating a situation where they’re simply adding new clean industries to unchecked dirty ones.

Like their targets, like Safeguard, like transport and power, their bad habit of defaulting to doing as close to nothing as they can get away with on climate has terrible, real physical consequences. There is a human cost, and in the realm of energy exports, it will be high.

Conclusion

I don’t doubt that my criticisms will be dismissed as naive idealism. Albanese has always presented his climate policies as sober, pragmatic and realistic.

But as we have seen, the definition of what is ‘feasible’ does not get set by activists, or experts. It gets set by those with deep vested interests. The fossil fuel industry, and the industries that float around them. They shrunk the realm of possibility to the width of a micron, and the party bought it wholesale. That means Labor can smugly attest to being sensible, when they propose doing nearly nothing about the worst threat we’ll ever face.

In a (long) essay for Vox all the way back in 2015, climate writer David Roberts described the political landscape in the US, and I think at a high level, it applies to Australia, too. 

"The right-wing base has a coherent position on climate change: It's a hoax, so we shouldn't do anything about it. The left-wing base has a coherent position: It's happening, so we should do something about it. The "centrist" position, shared by conservative Democrats and the few remaining moderate Republicans, is that it's happening but we shouldn't do anything about it. That's not centrist in any meaningful ideological sense; instead, like most areas of overlap between the parties, it is corporatist"

Labor have often taunted the Coalition for ‘climate denial’, but what does it mean that Labor both accepts the science of climate change, while fighting off real climate policy with a sword and shield?

Energy Minister Chris Bowen cites the short stretch of time between now and 2030, as a reason we need to ‘get moving’ and pass Labor’s policies. But surely the fact that 2030 is coming up quick should mean Labor proposes ambitious, strong, fast-acting policies right now. Surely they should be proposing strong policy from the outset, rather than the ‘pass first, fix later’ attitude. Bowen frequently cites the 1.5C target in interviews, despite the party’s own targets and policies aligned with 2 to 3 degrees of planetary warming.

They can’t mumble their way through it forever. Climate impacts have their own terrible cycles. The chances of a dry, hot summer this year and next are very high. The consequences of unchecked burning of fossil fuels have a habit of sneaking up on governments smirking because they used their political cleverness to defuse scrutiny.

Just ask this guy, sipping a cool, fizzy cocktail on a beach in Hawaii, while catastrophic bushfires tear through the country he is Prime Minister of, in December 2019.

The next two years of the Albanese government are in bad shape. If nothing changes, Australia will see emissions in electricity, transport and industry stagnate, or fall far too slowly to achieve Labor’s target, let alone any real ambition.

As the 2023 IPCC AR6 Synthesis report reminded us, it remains fundamentally the case that the the harms we suffer in the future depend on the choices we make today. Labor deciding to go weak on their climate policies is a choice.

Yes, I have detailed many instances of others trying to force Labor to do better and failing. But there are still signs of possibility, as the Greens showed through the establishment of a major electrification program for households.

Having jumped around different corners of climate activism, one through-line stands out. There is something you need in your heart, to be healthily engaged in tackling this problem. I think about all the people who I value and love the most in this movement, and they each have a blend of red-hot passion mixed with an intense love and camaraderie for those working the same problem. For the most part, that collaborative mindset exists across an absurd and unprecedented blend of professions and lifestyles and actions, from protesters spray-painting jet planes to workers climbing wind turbines, to wonks working on spreadsheets. It’s tense, but somehow it works.

What we all know is that prying fossil fuels from the central position they hold for our species is completely possible. It’s already underway, really. We just need to accelerate it, but that acceleration is being challenged.

What is in the hearts of politicians in the Labor government?

Genuine joy moves across their faces when they’ve won a political spat, or defended their indefensible climate policies. At all other times, it’s boredom, maybe sometimes a strained reflection of internal conflict, or just a muted blankness as they retreat into their mind palace. What is in their hearts, that they could fight for election and squander their chance?

Every choice matters, and Labor choosing to take the ‘minimum something’ road will have real, physical consequences. They have been handed an opportunity to establish themselves as the government of the critical decade, and they intend not to take it. It isn’t in their hearts.

Appendix – miscellania

There’s obviously a lot more…..here’s a list, and I’ll add to it, occasionally.

  • The Victorian state Labor party just announced a very good framework for handling transmission line community issues, and they deserve credit for that.
  • In May 2023, the gas lobby held a conference in South Australia. The state government rushed through obscenely excessive anti-protest laws blatantly to punish those protesting the fossil fuel conference. Fines were increased from $750 to $50,000, 721 times bigger. SA’s Premier, Peter Malinauskas, is the brother of Robert Malinauskas, head of external affairs at Santos.
  • A (probably) tipsy SA Labor staffer shared right-wing News Corp articles trying to shame the protesters, one of whom did acting work in an Ampol ad. For the past two years, Ampol has donated $91,000AUD to the federal Labor party. “Did we hit a nerve?”, asked the Labor party. The whole thing was a shockingly bad chapter for the SA government, and a rapid combustion of good will they’ve accumulated over the years.
  • SA’s Minister for Energy, Tom Koutsantonis, told the gas lobby that “We are thankful you are here. We are happy to a be recipient of APPEA’s largesse in the form of coming here more often. The South Australian government is at your disposal, we are here to help and we are here to offer you a pathway to the future.”
  • The West-Australian Labor government is just as authoritarian in its desire to protect the fossil fuel industry. Police raided the home of an Indigenous woman protesting the destruction of sacred rock art and seized photos from a journalist, which are among many, many instances of state power being used to protect gas companies.
  • Labor’s 2023 budget saw a massive continuation of fossil fuel subsidies, and a very slight increase in climate solutions funding. That’s $57.1 billion in fossil subsidies, up from the $55.3 forecast in 2022. There was just over $4 billion for climate solutions, with just under half going to a massive hydrogen export project. $1.6 billion of that was electrification funding forced by the Greens.
  • The ‘middle arm’ project is a massive gas export and petrochemicals hub in the Northern Territory, currently undergoing a massive greenwashing makeover, which includes removing references to petrochemicals. It will get $1.9 billion in federal support. One of the fracking companies just did a big, proud media release about the massive amounts of methane that’ll flow through the hub, presumably to the annoyance of the various Labor governments involved.
  • The Labor government in the Northern Territory will play a key role in the opening up of massive new ‘carbon bomb’ projects. Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen has a solution: carbon offsets from all over Australia. Problem solved.
  • The latest projections from the Australian Energy Market Operator show that things are going backwards for electrification of homes away from gas, a bit like transport. Saul Griffith’s Rewiring Australia project, along with the allocation in the budget, will go some way to fixing this.
  • Labor’s Resources Minister deserves a special mention, purely for mimicking the Coalition’s Angus Taylor so precisely.
  • Labor is proposing a change to increase Australia’s ‘Petroleum Resource Rent Tax’. You guessed it: by such a small amount that it might not even end up being an increase in government revenue at all. Minimum something, everywhere.
  • Labor led the addition of an emissions component into the ‘National Energy Objective’, a guiding law that sits underneath the energy sector. This was genuinely good.
  • The Federal gov’t also committed $5.5m to developing a ‘First Nations Clean Energy Strategy’, which is also really good, and certainly something that wouldn’t have existed under the previous government.