Congratulations this week to, of all people, President Xi and his comrades for announcing that China will build over the next decade 150 new nuclear power stations. At least this will help alleviate China’s dependence on coal. Unfortunately, that dependence is not going to end anytime soon as China has over 1,400 coal-fired power stations (Global Energy Monitor 2019; some other sources put it as high as 2,990) and over the next 10 years will build another 245. Australia is building none and has only 24 coal-fired power stations left. As a famous Roman lawyer once said “Res ipsa loquitur” – the facts speak for themselves.
Why weren’t these facts trumpeted from the rooftops at the Glasgow summit? China hardly rated a mention. This is not only hiding your head in the sand but extreme intellectual dishonesty by the EU, Boris Johnson, and Joe Biden. As I have said in earlier articles, Australia has the second-best record in the world in actually reducing emissions (nearly 20 per cent since 2005). ScoMo had to go to Glasgow, and did quite well in difficult circumstances, but in my view, he would have been more effective if he called out the other attendees for the hypocrites they are.
There were more private jets owned by the new global elite of big business owners, who are jumping on the bandwagon of climate action and getting in on the ground floor for big new taxpayer funded government projects, and foreign dignitaries at Glasgow airport than you could poke a stick at. Even that troubled young woman from Sweden, Greta Thunberg, came by air. Think of the emissions all that caused!
Has anything been achieved? Well, at least we didn’t sign up to the methane lunacy that could cripple Australian agriculture, and many delegates actually liked Australia’s emphasis on new technology-based reduction of emissions. Hopefully we may get some real action on stopping deforestation in Indonesia and Brazil – the lungs of the world. Maybe if we all pay Indonesia and Brazil to not destroy their forests, we can soak up carbon and reduce emissions that way as well as saving a lot of orangutans and other animals in the process.
At least ScoMo didn’t take any nonsense from the French. In this regard he may have even come out of the conference well. I close by offering a solution to our current tiff with France: Why don’t we go nuclear, and get to net zero easily as a result, and get France, who relies on nuclear energy, to build the nuclear reactors for us in Australia; much more lucrative and better all-round than the previous submarine deal.
Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Canberra Daily.
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