The tide of climate alarmism is receding
By Alan Moran
The key issue for economic policy remains the ‘transition’ away from dependable energy sources (coal, gas, nuclear, and hydro) towards low-density, unreliable wind and solar backed up by batteries and a cobweb of new transmission lines.
As 2025 comes to an end, we are seeing a diverse picture regarding the politics of energy.
Globally, the 30th Conference of the Parties in Brazil was attended by a diminishing handful of world leaders.
The World Resources Institute (funded by governments and the usual array of philanthropy projects and Woke endowments) rolled out the canards – perilous temperature rise and climate disasters – and concluded:
‘A key question was how countries would address lagging ambition in their new climate commitments. Hopes … to end fossil fuel use … were ultimately dashed after opposition from petrostates.’
Australia lost out to Turkey as the venue for the 2026 COP31.
This was a bonus, saving the taxpayer at least $1 billion while forestalling some of the gushing verbal hyperbole from the Greens, subsidy seekers, and politicians looking to leverage climate panic.
In matters of substance, the ebbing tide of global climate alarmism, with its corollary of economic ruin, has barely reached Australia.
Although the different mechanisms to subsidise renewable energy change, the aggregate costs have remained fairly constant at $16 billion a year.
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While the COP30 outcome is indicative of a global move away from climate alarmism and therefore low-productivity energy policies, in Australia, ALP politicians in office are showing an even greater enthusiasm for these policies.
With regard to the Coalition, the leadership’s lemming charge over the cliff of Net Zero emissions is continuing, though being moderated by the remarkable surge in support for One Nation.
Although most city-based Coalition politicians remain supportive of Net Zero others, and especially those representing rural and semi-rural are having second thoughts. This reflects worries about higher prices and lower reliability caused by the ‘transition’ to renewables and concerns among rural constituencies regarding wind and solar farms’ visual intrusions and impairment of farmland.
But Coalition policy remains unchanged under the new Victorian and NSW leaders, Jess Wilson and Kellie Sloane.
The bureaucracy also remains firmly supportive. That said, the agency most at risk of being blamed for a future supply crisis, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), has finally started to advise of the danger from planned closures of the coal generators that it had previously declared unfit for purpose. AEMO is now seeking coal generators provide a five-year notice that they are to close.
Australia is a laggard in recognising the detrimental outcomes of political interference to support wind/solar (and hydrogen) in energy policy. Hopefully, a reversal will take place before such measures are forced by the recognition of the catastrophic economic outcomes of high prices and unreliability without countervailing gains.
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