For the past decade Australia has been meeting its commitments under the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015? It doesn’t need to do anything more. Fact:  Australia only met its commitments between 2015 and 2022 because those commitments amounted to very little. In fact, at that time the country was doing a lot less than other, comparable nations. What the Coalition government agreed to in Paris was to reduce our 2005 level of emissions by 26-28 percent by 2030. However, Australia also claimed the right to achieve this by using ‘carryover credits’ from the time of the Kyoto Protocol, when it was allowed to include changes in land use (i.e. a drop in deforestation) in the calculation of its emissions. The fact that it did manage to reduce its emissions during that period (largely due to Labor’s carbon tax, which was in operation from 2012-14) meant that the government could slacken off in its own efforts and still achieve its 2030 target.  To the nation’s shame, Australia was the only country in the world that was using this subterfuge, even though others had also earned the right to do so. As the IPCC pointed out in 2019, doing this would “reduce what Australia needs to do to meet its 2030 target by more than half.” And even using these carryover credits, Australia was still not on target to meet its Paris commitments! [As an aside, it is worth noting that the nation’s two biggest mining companies, BHP and Rio Tinto, opposed the use of carryover credits. Both believed that Australia should make real emissions reductions, and not just paper ones.] According to government figures, Australia’s emissions fell by 19 percent between 2005 and 2020. About two thirds of that occurred prior to the abolition of the carbon tax in 2014, 3 percent occurred as a result of the COVID economic downturn and 4 percent from initiatives by the government itself. If we use 1990 as our base year (like all other nations do), then Australia’s emissions were only set to fall by 8-11 percent by 2030!  When the Labor Party returned to power in 2022, it committed Australia to a 43 percent reduction in emissions by 2030, then upped this in 2025 to a 62-70 percent reduction by 2035. These are significant improvements on the previous government’s target but are still inadequate to meet the ambitions of the Paris Climate Agreement. That said, it will take a great deal of effort to achieve them, given how little was done under the Coalition. 

More than 60 percent of a power bill is made up of transmission costs. These will increase significantly if we opt for 100 percent renewable energy, as we will need to build thousands of kilometres of new power lines to bring electricity from solar and wind farms to the cities. Fact: Transmission involves moving electricity from its source (power stations, wind farms, solar farms and the like) to substations in urban and rural areas. This represents only about 8 percent of a power bill, not 60 percent as the myth claims. Even if we add distribution costs, which are not affected by the cost of high voltage power lines, we only get to 42 percent of a power bill. In addition, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) estimates the cost of building new transmission lines to be $16.4 billion, if the country is to completely decarbonise its grid. It also estimates that this amount will not only be fully recouped but will also deliver an additional $17 billion in net benefits to the economy. In other words, consumers and businesses will be better off with a shift to renewables.  

Won’t the disposal of solar panels and batteries make them an uneconomic and dangerous proposition? Fact: Solar panels are easy to recycle, as they are 76 percent glass, 10 percent plastic, 8 percent aluminium, 5 percent silicon and 1 percent copper. Other metals make up just 0.1 percent of the total.  A lithium Iron Phosphate (LNP) battery is 15-20 percent iron, 12-15 percent phosphorus, 10-15 percent carbon, 5-10 percent aluminium, 5-10 percent copper and 3-4 percent lithium. The rest of the battery is made up of plastics and electrolytes. All of these minerals and polymers can be recycled.  That said, it’s always easier to dispose of panels and batteries by putting them in landfill, so tough government legislation will be required to prevent this from happening.  As for the economics of disposal, the cost of having a solar panel recycled in Australia is about $20 (US$14) in 2026. The cost of recycling a home battery is between $300 and $500 – or about the same as recycling 20 solar panels. In addition, it is estimated that the global value of recyclable materials from solar PV panels will be $US2.7 billion a year by 2030 and a $US80 billion a year by 2050. Battery materials will be worth $6 a year by 2030 and a vast amount more by 2050.  Hence, disposal will not be a significant issue.

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.