Factchecking five Coalition claims about net zero, from power prices to the $9tn cost | Australian politics

Will a net-zero emissions target cost taxpayers $9 trillion?

NO.

The claim was made repeatedly by National Party leader David Littleproud and other Coalition MPs, including 15 times in an interview on Thursday.

The alleged source is Net Zero Australia, a partnership between academics at the universities of Melbourne and Queensland and Princeton University in the US. However, as Guardian Australia reported, Net Zero Australia has released a statement outlining its cost estimates. in the report was misrepresented.

Academics have found that the additional cost of building an energy system that will reach net-zero emissions by 2050 will actually be around $300 billion. This calculation did not take into account the cost of adapting to the climate crisis or repairing climate-related damage if emissions were not cut.

Many studies have found that the costs of inaction will far exceed the costs of taking action.

The $9 trillion figure represents potential capital investment between now and 2060 for energy and export development in Australia.

This investment will create industry and many jobs. Net Zero Australia said the “vast majority” of the investment should be covered by overseas customers, not Australian taxpayers.

Has the net zero target caused an increase in electricity prices since 2022?

NO.

Electricity bills have risen by nearly 40% since Labor was elected, Liberal leader Sussan Ley said on Thursday. A report by the Page Research CenterA think tank with links to the National Party. He suggested the increase was due to investments in renewable energy built to meet emissions reduction targets.

Many long-term energy industry analysts disagree. Tony Wood, a senior researcher at the Grattan Institute and former director of Origin Energy, says the price rise “has almost nothing to do with renewable energy”.

Electricity bills rose nearly 20% in 2022-23 after Russia invaded Ukraine, and global gas prices soared. Gas power was already the most expensive form of electricity on the national grid and routinely set the price for other types of generation.

The increase was also caused by the increase in coal prices following flooding in mines on the east coast. There was also less generation on the electric grid due to outages at aging coal plants, and thus less competition to keep prices low.

Part of the increase after 2022 can also be explained by the recovery in prices after prices were suppressed during the Covid-19 pandemic, when demand for electricity fell. Inflation has an impact every year.

asked On ABC’s RN Breakfast Dan Tehan, Shadow Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, said what evidence he had that renewable energy was making electricity more expensive for consumers: “Because people see it in their electricity bills every day.”

This is not an answer.

Paul Simshauser and Joel Gilmore of Griffith University’s Center for Applied Energy Economics and Policy Research found that the opposite was true, that the cost of generating electricity could be up to 50% higher if Australia relied solely on coal and gas and did not move towards renewable energy.

Dylan McConnell, a senior research fellow at the University of New South Wales, says the power grid will need to be rebuilt and will be more expensive than facilities built decades ago.

The key question is: What is the cheapest option that will minimize price increases in developing a reliable grid in the future? Analyzes by government agencies and academic institutions have consistently found this to be a renewable energy plus. firming supportEven if cost estimates change.

Can Australia stay in the Paris agreement if it abandons emissions targets?

Technically yes. It will not be removed by force.

However, this would be a clear violation of the agreement reached in the French capital in 2015.

Article 4.3 of the Paris agreement It says countries will make successive commitments that “represent a progression” and “reflect the highest possible ambition.” So they need to be more ambitious, there can be no turning back.

The main goal of the Paris agreement is to “sustain efforts” to keep average global warming to 2°C above pre-industrial levels and limit it to 1.5°C.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change examined what achieving the 1.5C target would involve. It has been revealed that global emissions need to be reduced by 45% between 2010 and 2030 and reach net zero “around 2050”.

The coalition’s position clearly contradicts this. Ley promises that the government he leads will “stick to” the Paris agreement while also working against the goal the agreement is meant to achieve.

Some people might interpret this as abandoning the agreement in all but name.

Did emissions fall while the coalition was in power?

Yes. But not because of their policies.

According to the government greenhouse accountsAnnual emissions fell about 21% between 2013 and 2022.

Much of this was due to changes in the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by forests and soil. It has increased significantly. Experts say this is primarily due to state government and market pressure, not federal policy, reducing the amount of land clearing and native forest logging, as well as the end of a major drought.

When you take nature’s role out of the equation, climate pollution has fallen by just 3% in nine years. This was mostly due to an increase in renewable energy investment to meet the 2020 renewable energy target, which was expanded when Labor was in power.

As it is known, then-Prime Minister Tony Abbott considered canceling this target in 2014, but he did not have the votes in the Senate to do so. Instead the target was reduced.

There has also been a sharp decline in transport emissions during Covid-19 as people drive less and fly less. I guess the Coalition doesn’t get any share from this.

Otherwise, emissions from transportation, heavy industry, manufacturing and mining have increased.

Can carbon capture and storage (CCS) help reduce emissions quickly?

There is no reason to think so.

Tehan said CCS, which captures emissions and injects them underground, “can provide immediate relief when it comes to emissions reductions.”

The evidence says otherwise. Governments have spent billions of dollars promoting CCS developments for decades but have yielded little results.

According to a Latest report from the Global CCS InstituteThere are 77 projects in operation, mostly to justify the continued use of fossil fuels by capturing some of the pollution at a site.

Combined they are claimed to capture up to 64 million tonnes of CO₂ one year.

If they do, that’s about 0.17% of global emissions. And they don’t always deliver.

Also: Almost half of these CCS projects are used for “enhanced oil recovery”; This means pumping greenhouse gases underground to help extract more oil (fossil fuel).