Greg Sheridan: ‘net zero emissions is a toxic fantasy’
Thankfully, not every journalist in this country is a woke, green muppet.
Foreign Editor at The Australian, Greg Sheridan, is the perfect example.
He began by establishing that “net zero, to use the first great climate change metaphor, hasn’t got a snowflake’s chance in hell. It’s a fraudulent concept. It’s not real. It requires an heroic leap of faith, magical thinking. It cannot exist in the physical universe.”
He noted that net zero is “the centre of Australian national policy. All our state governments are signed up to it. Net zero pledges of one kind or another – albeit often over timeframes which recall a Star Trek voyage more than a policy commitment – cover, notionally, two thirds of the global economy.”
…and yet it’s not going to do anything to change the climate!
Sheridan reminds us that “China alone emits 30 per cent of global greenhouse gases, a third more than the US and the EU combined. China, India and Russia emit more than twice the US and EU combined.
“China, India, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Brazil emit half of the world’s greenhouse gases. Not one of them is a Western nation.”
The issue?
“Not one is gripped by climate politics remotely like the dynamics that dominate Europe, Australia and North America.”
For example, Sheridan notes that “the International Energy Agency says that over the next 40 years, India will need to add additional electricity equal to the entire electricity system of the European Union.
“You really think that’s going to be a net-zero enterprise?”
Then there’s the Chinese Communist Party.
Greg wrote: China “operates 1100 coal-fired power stations and has nearly 200 more on the books, with 90-odd under some stage of construction.
“Coal is declining as a percentage of Chinese energy but coal-based Chinese emissions continue to rise overall and will do so for many, many years.”
Even the private sector is now waking up to the fraud.
For instance, according to Sheridan, BP has just admitted that by 2050, fossil fuels will still account for as much as 55 per cent of primary energy.
This is after claiming that fossil fuels will account for 20 per cent of primary energy in 2050 in a green dream they seem to have now ditched.
But that’s not zero, is it?
Volvo has come to a similar conclusion on electric vehicles after a recent in-house study found that “when you count all the greenhouse gases involved in the construction of an electric vehicle, it emits, over the course of its life, fewer greenhouse gases than a normal car only after it has travelled about 150,000 km.”
Given Australians on average travel a bit over 13,000km per year in their car, it’s not until 10 years after they get their EV that they are in positive territory on net emissions.
Sheridan asks, “and will an EV last for 10 years, especially given how quickly the batteries deteriorate?”
The short answer?
They won’t!
Meanwhile Australians will be slapped with an extra $4500 in costs each year thanks to Albanese’s commitment to a 43 per cent emissions reduction by 2030.
What a rort…
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