The three-point Morrison plan calls for halving emissions by 2030 – Let's See Todays News Updates

Scott Morrison speaks with Barnaby Joyce during a question-and-answer session at Parliament House in Canberra this week.

If the laws of physics were enforced in politics, you think they would be a big thing in the federal parliament in the last two weeks.
Newton’s third law of motion states that there is an equal and opposite reaction to every action. So Scott Morrison’s huge response to his changing stance on climate policy should mean he’s taking a big step, right?
Wrong. Anger from members of the National Party warns the coalition that it will be “bad” if Morrison changes its policy, while big business warns that it will be bad if it does not. The fact that the Labor Opposition, which has not announced its climate policy, has divided the government and made it happy and hypocritical has been trivial.
Morrison agreed at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow to approve Australia’s goal of zero carbon emissions by 2050. Tony Abbott has set a bigger goal to reduce emissions by 26-28 percent by 2030 than in 2005, as he signed in Paris in 2015.
This makes Morrison’s public announcement “completely insignificant,” according to Andrew Blakers, a professor of engineering at the Australian National University and one of the world’s leading experts in renewable energy technology.
To call it pure zero emissions for 29 years means nothing more than a detailed promise of the steps that must be taken to achieve it.
“I want to say that I can announce that I will be a billionaire in 2050. By 2049, I will decide how to do it. It will be pointless.”
There is simply no way to achieve the global goal set in Paris, and if we do not make major promises in this decade, we will limit global temperature rise to 1.5-2 degrees unless we reduce emissions significantly.
“We need a goal that by 2030 has been announced as a tough, tough goal of 50 to 60 percent of the U.S. target,” Blakers said.
“It’s nine years from now. We can’t wing it. We need a plan.”
Morrison said he has plans. He always reassures us about this. In his only answer to the question on Tuesday, he said the word “plan” nine times in just a few minutes. He did not elaborate on what would happen.
The Blakers, on the other hand, are very special. His proposed plan is large but very simple.
In order to halve emissions and bring Australia into line with the goals of comparable developed countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and the European Union by 2030, we will first need to tackle Australia’s first three sources of emissions.
These include electricity, which accounts for 34 percent of total emissions; heating from burning fuel in houses and factories accounts for 20 percent; and shipping is 18 percent.
“That means we’ll get about 90 percent renewable electricity by 2030, and that requires shutting down most of the remaining coal-fired power plants,” Blakers said.
“Then we have to start electrifying transportation by 2027 so that by 2030 a quarter of cars will be electric. And by 2027 we should stop replacing gas heaters in a similar way so that a quarter of them will be electric by 2030.
All of this can be done at minimal cost and without delay, he said. “It’s very clear.”
As the remaining fossil fuel-fired generators, cars, and appliances are replaced, the 50 percent decline by 2030 will increase to about 80 percent in 10 years.
There are other sources of emissions that are more difficult to deal with, such as aircraft, chemicals, cement, metals, and agriculture, but we have time to deal with the three major easy sources, Blakers said.
Some of what he is advocating will no doubt be politically difficult. For example, his hypothesis requires that “we must continue to work hard to clean up the land,” and that there should be no new sources of fumes, such as fossil fuels. You can’t ask households and factories to reduce emissions, he said. It just won’t work. “

However, Morrison believes there is no conflict between expanding fossil fuel production and reducing emissions. Asked about setting a net zero goal in parliament this week, he said: “We are implementing huge resource projects across the country and we are seeing our LNG [liquefied natural gas] production grow. Be a world leader. At the same time, our policy is to reduce emissions. The results are calculated. It is not a broad rhetorical statement of politicians. The results are calculated. ”
According to a document released by the BBC this week, Australia has called on UN scientists to remove statements about fossil fuel lobbyists, join Saudi Arabia and Japan and reduce the need to move away from fossil fuels.
However, the inevitable result of fossil fuel extraction is global warming. The International Energy Agency’s “road map to zero” released in May was clearly categorized. “Starting today, we will not invest in new fossil fuel projects,” he said, adding that the measures needed to give the world an “equal opportunity” to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The Morrison government continues to approve new construction, and in recent weeks Environment Minister Susan Lei has launched three major coal projects, encouraging them to provide financial assistance, such as the $ 50 million Beetaloo cooperative drilling program.
The federal government gives tens of billions of dollars to fossil fuels. According to a study by the Australian Institute, the 2020-21 budget alone includes $ 9.1 billion in tax breaks, exploration subsidies, infrastructure grants and “money for research and development for the long-term government.” favorite technology: carbon storage and storage (CCS) “
To be honest, the Morrison government is not alone in accumulating dirty energy with public money. With the exception of the ACT and Tasmania, the two state and provincial governments that persuade, despite recent exceptions, also spend billions.
The same is true of other nations. The United Nations’ Production Difference Report this week found that the 20 richest countries in the world have spent $ 300 billion on fossil fuels since the Kovid-19 plague began. This data shows that the world’s governments still plan to produce almost three times as much fossil fuels as twice as much as 2 degrees Celsius, compared to limiting climate change by 1.5 degrees.
Australia is no small player in the energy game. We are the third largest exporter of fossil fuels after Russia and Saudi Arabia. If we added our exports to our domestic consumption, we would be ranked sixth in the world in terms of carbon emissions.
Both Labor and the Coalition remain committed to expanding fossil fuels. Fortunately, the government’s announcement of meteorological targets is not against us, but against the toxic fumes from the combustion of Australian-produced fuels in other countries.
This may make sense in terms of carbon registration, says Will Steffen, a chemist and consultant at the Australian Climate Council, who said: It doesn’t matter where it burns. It will affect the climate of India like Australia. ”
Morrison’s call for a “technology, not a tax” solution to the climate crisis has been misleading many times. First, he stopped using any form of carbon tax because he used it as a stick to beat the Labor opposition. Second, carbon storage and storage technologies are often controversial and almost unproven. -It is said that the main use of carbon storage and storage around the world is to improve oil production. Oil companies need to capture carbon emissions, push them back deeper, and get more oil. The Morrison government sees it as useful for producing “natural” gas, a non-greenhouse gas-burning source of hydrogen.
However, the accumulation and storage of carbon is expensive and does not capture all the emissions during the process. There is also another, completely indistinguishable method of producing hydrogen — splitting water molecules using renewable energy.

Andrew Forrest, Australia’s richest man, is betting a lot of money on the latest technology, and far-sighted politicians are backing that vision. A few weeks ago, the government of New South Wales announced a program to provide up to $ 3 billion in incentives for the production of this green hydrogen. But Morrison’s government remains opposed.
However, this is not a problem. According to Andrew Blakers, using new technologies such as green hydrogen to reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent or more by 2030 is desirable, but not necessary. “.
This can be done with the help of existing technology, simply by converting the generator to renewable energy, and then using this clean energy to run cars and appliances that currently use fossil fuels.
With the cost of renewable energy declining rapidly, this “electrification of everything” approach will bring significant financial benefits to consumers. A few weeks ago, The Sunday Paper reported that Saul Griffith, another expert on sustainable energy policy and an adviser to the Biden administration, estimated that 10 million Australian households could save an average of $ 5,000 to $ 6,000 a year by having sunlight on their roofs. cars, electric cookers, water heaters, space heating and cooling.
The third and biggest method of Morrison’s “technology, not taxes” scam is to pretend that our taxes do not fund the government’s modest efforts to reduce emissions. In abolishing the carbon price of labor, the Abbott government replaced the regime that paid for less pollutants. Variants of this scheme are called by various names – Direct Measures, Emission Reduction Fund, Climate Solutions Fund, and so on.
The most concise and ambiguous explanation of Gillard’s move from the carbon price scheme to the current model was given a few years ago by an anonymous government minister, ABC business editor Ian Verrender.
“Labor policy differs from our policy in that Julia Gillard introduced a scheme to pay large pollutants to Australian taxpayers,” the minister said. “Because Tony changed that, Australian taxpayers pay a lot of pollutants.”
In summary, the federal government spends billions of dollars on taxpayers subsidizing fossil fuels to accelerate climate change and billions on other pollutants to mitigate climate change. So much for non-tax technology.
Slogans and rhetoric are eagerly awaited by those who understand the urgency of addressing climate change and the inadequacy of current policies.
“It’s very easy to say ‘pure zero’ by 2050,” Steffen said. “Why do you think more than 100 countries have made such promises to us?” Some of them may be real, but most of them, at least the leaders, will be gone in 2050.
“The real focus should be on 2030. Globally, we need to take good measures to reduce our emissions by about 50 percent and keep temperatures below [[warming]] below two degrees.”
Steffen says the accumulated toxic fumes are important. Each year, as we go through our current path, our future reduction goals become bigger.
“If we do everything by 2030, it doesn’t matter if you’re a net zero by 2050, if other countries don’t do much,” he said. The damage will already be over.
However, the Prime Minister has set no other goal for 2030 than Tony Abbott did in Paris, and is still playing a word game around 2050. Surprisingly, thanks to the Australian Federal Government is likely to equal 26-28 percent of the government. All states and territories have set zero and ambitious intermediate targets for 2050.
“If you look at the states doing exactly what they promised to do, I see an estimate that we could have a 40 percent reduction by 2030,” Steffen said. Not the federal government. “
Workers participated in the last election, which promised to reduce emissions by 45% by 2030. After the defeat, new leader Anthony Albanese called it a “mistake.”
In reality, it was at the bottom of what was possible and necessary, but the coalition waged a brutal struggle against it on the basis of cost. Jennifer Vestacott, chief executive of the Australian Business Council, was instrumental in Morrison’s campaign, calling labor policy “an economic disaster.”

According to some analysts, Morrison hopes to do the same in this election. In an article in Australia this week, Prime Minister Simon Benson said he wanted the goal of reducing 2030 to be a “battleground” for the upcoming election, adding that “Albanians desperately need to overcome it … the whole political strategy of the government depends on it.”
But times have changed very quickly. At present, some government officials acknowledge that the cost of inactivity is much higher than the cost of operating.
According to the United Nations, the International Energy Agency, and other experts, a 50 percent or more reduction by 2030 will have a positive impact not only on the climate but also on the economy. .
Even the BCA no longer sees a bigger goal of destroying the economy. A few weeks ago, it called for a target of 46-50 percent by 2030 to reach zero.
Zali Steggall, an independent who defeated Tony Abbott in the 2019 election, is currently drafting a debate modeling the regime approved by the Tory government in the UK, which aims to reduce it by 60 percent by 2030.
Such a change is no longer radical, but inevitable and desirable.
However, Scott Morrison is embroiled in a vicious battle with a minority over the pure zero threshold by 2050. This week, their leader, Barnaby Joyce, said the law should not be followed. They were “locked in” to take action.
In the end, Morrison has no doubt that he will give nations enough candy to support the rhetorical change. But in terms of real, tangible change, all the noise and anger over the past few weeks seems to mean basically nothing.
If the laws of physics apply to politics, the most applicable law to the Morrison government on climate change would be Newton’s first law of inertia.

The three-point Morrison plan calls for halving emissions by 2030 – Let’s See Todays News Updates

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The three-point Morrison plan calls for halving emissions by 2030 – Let’s See Todays News Updates

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