Australia will find it ‘difficult’ to meet Paris Agreement commitments under Coalition’s energy plan, expert says

The Coalition’s energy plan lacks details on how the proposed changes would reduce energy prices and emissions while supporting coal and removing green energy subsidies, an expert says.

Earlier this month, the Coalition announced it would ditch green mandates and scrap its 2050 net-zero emissions target, opting for a “technology-neutral” approach that supports gas, coal and nuclear power to reduce electricity costs.

The opposition claims reducing emissions would be a “welcome outcome” but not at the expense of affordability.

Monash University Associate Professor Roger Dargaville told NewsWire: “This is the Coalition’s strategy to plan to write a policy – not a policy. You don’t expect that at this stage… but in saying that, there is no evidence that we can see of what the policies would be to achieve those objectives.”

“They say they will put downward pressure on electricity prices and emissions, but how they will do this is completely unclear at this stage.”

Professor Dargaville said the lack of clarity on achieving these two goals was not entirely surprising, given that the Coalition was not in government and a federal election was not coming “anytime soon”.

The coalition has made clear that the most important element of the policy is affordability. But Professor Dargaville said it was important to analyze Australian energy prices in the context of OECD equivalents.

According to the Energy Council of Australia, Australia’s residential electricity price is 39 cents per kWh, 1 cent above the OECD average.

But when adjusted for the cost of living index, which measures the impact of wider economic conditions on daily spending, Australian electricity prices remain below the OECD average of 45c.

“It is not correct to suggest that our electricity is overly expensive compared to similar countries, but prices have undoubtedly increased,” Professor Dargaville said.

“There are a number of factors that certainly come into play at times, including rising fossil fuel prices, rising network fees and even retail margins.”

Scrapping net zero, which has become a flashpoint for internal divisions within the Coalition in recent months, is another important detail in the opposition’s plan.

The 2050 target is a long-term goal of the Paris Agreement, an international climate change agreement that aims to keep global temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

To achieve this, global emissions need to reach net zero by 2050.

The coalition says it will repeal green energy incentives, but claims it has no plans to leave the Paris Agreement and emissions will still fall within the scope of its plans.

“The problem is that there’s a huge disconnect emerging between meeting the Paris commitments and having any policy that actually drives that,” Professor Dargaville said.

“So the complex suite of policies that we have in place at both the federal and state level is very complex.

“The reason it works so well, even though it’s not the way it should be, is that you have penalties for not meeting goals or incentives for meeting goals.

“If you remove incentives or punishments, there is no reason to achieve goals and goals become idealized.”

Professor Dargaville said repealing these orders would mean “producers who produce around 70 per cent of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions will have no incentive to cut back”.

Thirty-two percent of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions are attributed to energy (the burning of fossil fuels to produce electricity), while the remainder is made up of stationary energy, which includes residential and commercial use, as well as transport, agriculture and waste.

“Other sectors make up the significant majority, and while the trend towards renewable energy means the electricity sector will decarbonise relatively easily and quickly, other sectors are far behind, which is really worrying.”

The coalition has also focused on extending the life of “reliable” generation (i.e., coal-fired power plants) to supplement baseload power on the electric grid due to fears of unreliable energy from renewable energy sources.

But Professor Dargaville said there was no need to build new coal-fired power stations or nuclear power plants to provide a boost to the variability of renewable energy.

Examples of this variability, he said, are “rare occasions when the sun doesn’t shine across the country, the wind doesn’t blow, or demand is extremely high.”

“We actually have a back-up system that is open-loop, gas turbines, diesel generators,” Professor Dargaville said.

“There’s about 10 or 20 gigawatts of capacity that almost always sits idle and is only very rarely called upon and may still be in place.”

“To say that when you don’t have wind, solar and hydropower, everything needs to be backed up is scaring.”