Given that sustainability festivals and renewable energy expos are powered by fossil fuels, there is no hope of ever getting to net zero. Fact: This argument is ridiculous. It’s like saying that we shouldn’t produce solar panels if they’re made using ‘dirty’ sources of electricity. The whole purpose of making them is to replace those dirty sources, and when there are no clean alternatives available, they can’t be made any other way.  Another favourite line of attack by climate sceptics is to accuse activists of being hypocrites by flying to conferences about global warming. Yes, those flights are causing emissions, but those emissions are minor compared with the benefits to be had by staging the conferences. Most climate activists also offset their emissions via organisations like Greenfleet, which plant trees to soak up carbon. Others use less polluting forms of transport, like rail and EVs. Greta Thunberg famously returned to Europe by sailboat after attending a UN climate conference in New York. She did this to avoid being branded a hypocrite. 

Donald Trump is undoing all the good work done by his predecessor on climate change. If America is not taking action, why should other nations bother? Australia, for example, is only responsible for 1 percent of global emissions. That’s nothing.  Fact:  Donald Trump is undoing a lot of the initiatives introduced by the Biden Administration, but not even he can change the economics underpinning the energy transition. The fact is, renewable energy is now considerably cheaper than fossil fuels, and that trend is set to continue. Indeed, during the first year of Trump’s second presidency, 92 percent of all new investment in the electricity sector was in renewables. All the rest was in fracked gas. None was in coal (or nuclear, for that matter). And with EVs now accounting for a quarter of global car sales, the future of petrol- and diesel-powered cars – and therefore of oil – looks grim.  Donald Trump, railing against renewable energy [Source: Rawpixel.com]

Actions to mitigate climate change are incompatible with a market economy. They would involve a move to socialism.  Fact:  There is no truth to this statement. Climate deniers tend to make it because they believe that all climate activists are closet Marxists. In fact, market mechanisms are by far the best way to drive the economy towards carbon neutrality. By introducing a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme (ETS), businesses would be given a market signal that would push them to reduce CO2 emissions without significant input by government. Such mechanisms are no different in the way they operate than tariffs and excise duties (such as taxes on tobacco and petrol). They skew market signals so as to produce the government’s desired outcome. The carbon tax that operated in Australia from 2012 to 2014 was extremely effective in reducing CO2 emissions, without in any way impeding economic growth. Interestingly, the so-called ‘direct action’ policy that replaced it saw only a marginal fall in emissions. [By one estimate, if the rate of reduction under the Coalition government were to have continued, Australia would not have reached net zero emissions until 2167!]  Hence, there is no need for excessive government intervention in order to move to a carbon neutral economy. What is needed is a clear set of price signals to encourage businesses and consumers to stop using fossil fuels and invest in renewables. [Interestingly, it is the fossil fuel industry in Australia that has been, and still is, the main beneficiary of government intervention – in the form of an $11 billion a year subsidy. Strangely, few climate sceptics claim this to be a form of socialism.] What is also needed is a significant boost in government spending, to make up for nine years of climate inaction under the federal Coalition. This does not mean government ownership of industry, or any other form of socialism. But it does mean greater government intervention in areas that are roadblocks to further progress on renewables. The nation’s energy infrastructure is at the top of this list.

Business is opposed to climate action, and because business is the backbone of the economy, any attempt to stop global warming would be bad for jobs and economy activity.  Fact: Business was opposed to climate change not so many years ago, but this has changed of late. An increasing number of the leading corporations are now divesting from fossil fuels and/or supporting a move to net zero emissions by 2050. As of 2026, over 200 global financial institutions had announced plans to exit from coal. These include Mizuho (the world’s largest private financier of coal), the ING Group, BNP Paribas, Barclays Bank, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, Citibank, Allianz, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and the Norwegian Government Pension Fund (the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund). Locally, the Business Council of Australia and the National Farmers Federation are calling for net zero by 2050, and support the Albanese government’s emissions reduction target.  

There is not enough land available to power the world entirely from renewables. Fact: This is nonsense. A number of studies have been done to determine how much land would be required to power the United States using only renewable energy. One done at MIT estimated that all of America’s energy needs in 2050 could be satisfied with solar technology using 33,000 square kilometres of land. This represents 0.5 percent of the land mass of the United States. If those solar panels were restricted to the sunniest parts of the country, only 12,000 square kilometres would be required. This might seem like a great deal of land, but it actually isn’t all that much when you consider that golf courses take currently take up about 10,000 square kilometres in the US and major roadways take up another 49,000 square kilometres. In addition, the nation has 20,000 square kilometres of rooftop space, so there is no shortage of places where solar panels could be located.  In New South Wales, the Clean Energy Council has estimated that just 0.06 per cent of rural land would be required in order to provide all the solar power the state will need by 2050. Much of that land, of course, is not suitable for agriculture, so the loss of production would be minimal. It’s also been estimated that Sydney could generate enough electricity to satisfy three quarters percent of its needs by putting solar panels on unused industrial roof space.  In reality, of course, much of our renewable energy will be produced by wind turbines, which can be placed on agricultural land without decreasing its productivity. Solar panels can also be used this way, but not in all circumstances and not without some reduction in productivity. Wind turbines can also be placed offshore, while solar panels can be placed over canals or floated on lakes. They can also be placed on land that is unsuitable for other purposes, like deserts, abandoned mines and former waste dumps.  Hence, there is plenty of land available for the renewable energy revolution. 

Offshore wind turbines are harmful to whales, disrupting their migration routes and causing them to strand. In addition, sonar mapping of the seabed in preparation for the construction of wind turbines can be distressing to whales. Fact: Every major study that has examined this issue has concluded that offshore wind turbines do not harm whales. They do not cause them to strand, nor is there evidence that they disrupt their migration routes. Even Greenpeace, which has been campaigning for fifty years to protect the creatures, agrees with this assessment.  As for sonar mapping, it is true that it may have some impact on whales that pass by, but that impact is minuscule compared with the impact of sonic blasting, which is used to search for offshore oil and gas.  The real threats to whales include entanglement in fishing nets and ropes, collisions with ships, whaling (still practised by Japan, Norway and Iceland), plastic pollution, overfishing and climate change (which threatens the food chains upon which whales depend). Claims about offshore wind turbines emanate almost entirely from think tanks funded by the fossil fuel industry, which has a vested interest in stopping the rollout of renewable energy. 

Offshore wind turbines are too expensive to dismantle, so will just be left to rot once they reach their use-by dates. Fact: Offshore wind turbines, like their counterparts on land, have a lifespan of 20 to 25 years. After that they can either be upgraded, repurposed, dismantled or left where they stand. A combination of all four options may be deemed appropriate for a wind farm.  Upgrading involves replacing the old blades and electronics, so the turbine has a new lease of life. Repurposing involves turning the base into a haven for wildlife (a breeding ground for seabirds, for example). Dismantling is not a technically difficult task and will soon be undertaken in Europe on a massive scale. The cheapest option, of course, is to dismantle the blades and the electronics, but leave the base where it stands. This is what was done with the offshore defences Britain built along its south coast during the Second World War. Many of these are still there today, slowly rotting away. So, whatever option is chosen, it’s not a problem that will have to be faced till the second half of the century.  And while on this subject, we should not forget the estimated $60 billion cost of dismantling the offshore oil platforms that dot Australia’s coasts. This amount dwarfs any costs we might face in dismantling offshore wind farms.

Wind turbines off Australia’s shores won’t stand up to the massive swells and winds generated by east coast lows and by tropical cyclones. Fact: The waters off Australia’s southern coast are indeed susceptible to strong winds, as are those in the far north, but those areas are not where wind farms are to be located. Instead, the farms will be set in the waters off the Hunter and the Illawarra in NSW, and off Gippsland in Victoria, where the winds are perfectly manageable.  Of course, offshore wind turbines do occasionally get damaged by extreme weather events, but the real damage from such weather is to onshore transmission lines, not platforms out at sea. 

Temperature data is inaccurate because we don’t have good enough technology to measure the Earth’s surface, the oceans, the stratosphere Fact: The safety zone around a wind turbine is about 50 meters, so shipping is barely disrupted at all by the presence of an offshore wind farm. Of course, there have been a few instances where ships have collided with wind turbines – the most famous being when the bulk carrier Julietta D did so off the Dutch coast in 2022 and when the cargo ship Petra L struck one in the North Sea in 2023 – but no one died in those collisions. The same cannot be said for the times when ships have hit offshore oil and gas rigs. Those platforms are highly flammable, and the resultant explosions have caused dozens of deaths. In 2005, for example, a ship hit an oil rig off the coast of India, and the resultant inferno killed 22 people. Wind turbines are positively safe by comparison.

Offshore wind turbines dot the horizon and ruin the coastal landscape.  Fact: While onshore wind farms do have a visual impact on the landscape, the same cannot be said for their offshore counterparts. Most offshore turbines are so far out to sea that they cannot be seen with the naked eye from the coastline, even when the viewing platform has some elevation. This is certainly the case with the wind farm proposed for the Illawarra region in New South Wales. It is 20 kilometres offshore, which is four times the distance to the horizon. From that far out, the turbines would be completely hidden from view. Even from the top of the Illawarra escarpment they would be difficult to spot. The wind turbines proposed for the Hunter region in NSW and Gippsland in Victoria will also be difficult or impossible to see, as they will be located between 10 and 35 kilometres out to sea.  So, if people really are concerned about the visual impact of wind turbines, they should be supporting the offshore variety, as these are largely hidden by the curve of the Earth.  Offshore wind turbines [Source: Public Domain Pictures]