Comment
This year's Federal election was dubbed the "climate election".
Dozens of inner-city seats swung away from both major parties to the Greens and the Teals, driven by a demand for "greater action on climate change".
I always have a bit of a chuckle when I hear people from the cities state "we need to do more about climate change".
Out here in the wilderness - that is, rural and regional Australia - we have already sacrificed more than our fair share to help Australia meet its climate change emission targets.
Many will remember back to the late 1990s when 92 million hectares in Queensland and 55 million hectares in New South Wales was converted to "protected vegetation" without even a carbon credit issued to those who still had to pay the rates, shoot the pigs, spray the weeds and fight the bushfires.
This alone allowed Australia to meet its Kyoto Protocol targets for "free".
In today's value, this equates to about $500 billion worth of carbon credits that was effectively stolen from rural and regional Australia.
We could build a few roads, hospitals and dams for that sort of money without having to ask for a "handout" from our more well-off climate freeloading urban cousins.
Of course, when you take something from someone and give it to another for nothing they don't see much value in the process.
This is why our urban cousins today are keen to "do more" about climate change - because to date they haven't had to put their own hand in their own pockets to pay for it. They still have theirs stuck in ours.
A few months ago, Anthony Albanese legislated a 43 per cent emission reduction target by 2030 and has even pledged to review the "net zero" timeframe currently set by 2050.
Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen has come clean that just to reach the 43pc emission reduction target, Australia will need to install 22,000 500-watt solar panels every day for the next eight years - or more than 64 million solar panels by 2030, a further 40 wind turbines every month - or 3800 in total - and 28,000 kilometers of new transmission lines.
Plus, you'll need a few batteries to store all of this so called "free" power.
The question of how much this will all cost and who will pay for it seems to be a distant secondary issue behind saving the planet at all costs.
Globally it is estimated it will cost $2 trillion a year for the world to meet the 2050 net zero targets.
It's a staggering amount of money when one considers we could actually end world hunger for $40 billion per year.
Currently, there are literally billions of dollars flooding into Australia from overseas to fund renewable energy projects.
They aren't here out of climate benevolence. They are here for profit.
Once we have switched off all of our "dirty" state-owned coal fired power stations, whoever owns this "renewable" infrastructure will be at liberty to charge Australian consumers whatever they demand to keep the lights on.
Of course, this is all for a good cause and we are all on this planet together.
I just hope we all share the pain equally this time around.
But just to add a bit of insult to injury, Australia emits about 350 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year.
The 2020 Australian bushfires released more than 830 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in six weeks.
That's the same emissions from 200,000,000 cars, which is 10 times the total number of cars in Australia.
However, we don't count bushfires in our "net zero" targets because they are considered "beyond human control".
Imagine if we could save the planet by just managing our landscape properly.
It might be a bit cheaper.
