Net Zero Isn’t Achievable — and That’s Why We Must Keep It

Net zero is not achievable. That’s exactly why we need to keep it.

I don’t mean that it isn’t technically achievable – it is, at a price. But geopolitics makes global net zero a hopeless cause.

We are now in an era of great power rivalry not seen in decades. In the midst of what historians are now calling Cold War 2, it is unthinkable that any major player would throttle their economy to the extent required to achieve net zero. The cost of doing so is not just financial, it is potentially existential if it means handing over economic primacy to an adversary. Drill, baby, drill is not just a climate denier catchphrase – it is an expression of geopolitical fact: economic and military dominance will always be the top priority, not just in Washington but in Moscow, Delhi and Beijing.

Opponents of net zero are right to point out that our contributions to emissions are small, indeed insignificant when compared with the world’s big economies. They are right to point out that the cost of achieving net zero will be significant. Higher power prices are one thing, but the loss of strategically important industries to high-emitting competitors and the implications for our ability to sustain and defend ourselves in a crisis is of equal if not greater concern.

It is understandable, in light of this, that many see abandoning net zero as a sensible, pragmatic position: an opportunity to engage in honest dialogue about the cost of reducing emissions and what we will get for our sacrifice.

I think this is a mistake, for two main reasons.

It’s not about our emissions

The first is this: it is very much in our interest to get worldwide emissions down. There is a growing body of evidence to suggest that the consequences of global warming will be felt especially severely in Australia. Given the geopolitical reality, there is only one thing that will make drastic emissions reduction worldwide achievable: making it the cheapest possible option.

We should not be pursuing net zero because our emissions will move the needle. We should be pursuing net zero because we are one of the richest, most technologically advanced nations in the world. Indians in rural villages now carry smart phones because smart phones were first invented in rich countries. Those smartphones have Wi-Fi because Wi-Fi was first invented in Australia. If there are to be low cost, low emissions solutions for electricity generation, cement manufacturing and other hard to abate industries, they are going to be invented in countries like Australia, but only if those countries have a strong imperative to reach net zero. By making technology our focus, we can have a vastly outsized impact on global emissions.

It's not good enough to simply buy up as much solar and wind as we can, no matter the cost. We’d be better off investing in 100 new speculative technologies than throwing that money at solutions that stand to gain little by way of economies of scale or technological improvement.

A time for discipline

The second main reason is political. A goal we set for 25 years from now is hardly a policy – it is a statement of intent, a direction of travel, and most importantly a message to the people of Australia about where our priorities lie.

Net zero is for us what border protection was for Labor. It took incredible discipline by Labor, going against every bone in its political body, to maintain a hard stance on border security and offshore detention. They did it because they recognised it was their political weakness, and that giving even an inch on this would keep them out of power and unable to achieve anything at all. We need to show the same discipline.

Make no mistake, no amount of nuance, no caveats or soft language will change the message we send to the electorate by even the slightest walk back on our formal commitment to net zero. Nothing could be more damaging to our prospects of winning over the exact demographics we need to form government – millennials, university educated and women. Every other policy idea we put forward will fall on deaf ears if we get this wrong.

If keeping net zero means splitting with the Nationals – so be it. We should run candidates against them because there is a strong case to be made that the Nationals have abandoned the interests of regional communities.

The net zero pathway shows all the hallmarks of the Pareto principle – 80% of the results come from 20% of the effort. The final 20% will be hard, indeed with current technology it is so costly as to be practically unachievable. But that may not even matter: an 80% reduction would reduce human emissions close to the rate naturally sequestered by our forests. There are still major benefits to going all the way to net zero – but in the 2040s we will be in a much better position to judge the costs and benefits as we approach that point.

If our commitment to net zero by 2050 were a binding policy that meant achieving it at any cost, we would be right to oppose it. But it isn’t that. It’s a declaration to Australians that we take climate change seriously. The technology needed to achieve net zero globally probably doesn’t exist yet - but we can be sure it never will if wealthy nations give up on the goal. And if we ditch it, Albo may well give Menzies a run for his money.