Australia puts plan into killing the planet

Prime Minister Scott Morrison holding a booklet outlining how Australia plans to reach ‘Net Zero’. Photo: AAP.

Dear world,

Here’s the Australian way. Do nothing.

Except, we’re not that simple, we actually declare that nothing is really something; like a really, really big something. So big, why it’s spectacularly big. Massive. Gigantic. Enormous. We have press conferences announcing it.

And we speak as if we mean it, we speak fast when we’re declaring it, we speak like we know what we’re talking about.

And we back it up with The Plan. Forgets the facts. The Plan is enough. At this moment, in this space in time, there is The Plan, and that is all we need. No one can argue against The Plan. It’s not an action. It’s a plan.

Criticise The Plan? It’s not the Australian way. Rest of the world can go to hell. We’ve got a plan. In fact, we’re not going to be lectured to by the rest of the world. We’ve got a plan. Things are being decided by the rest of the world that are changing everything. Rest of the world doesn’t understand us. How could they? They don’t have a plan like ours. You’ve got to be on the same page to understand The Plan. How hard can it be, ours is only 129 pages? We’ve even left room to dawdle, sorry, doodle.

And being The Plan, we don’t need to put it into legislation. Is that the Australian way, to force people to do stuff they don’t want to do? It’s not bloody Australian. We’re rugged individuals. We only went along with the COVID stuff because it was killing people. This is different. It’s not a race.

Our plan, most importantly, backs Australians to achieve what they want to achieve when it comes to achieving net zero emissions by 2050. Australians want to do that and our plan enables them to do that. Our plan works with Australians to achieve this goal. Our plan enables them, it doesn’t legislate them, it doesn’t mandate them, it doesn’t force them. It respects them.
Scott Morrison

So the planet’s heating up? Don’t talk to us about heating up. You go and stand in the middle of Oodnadatta or Marble Bar in summer. We know hot, and we’re still here. We’ve got a plan. We wear hats, broad-brimmed hats, not with the corks hanging off mind you, don’t want to appear like dorks.

At Glasgow I will confirm that Australia will continue to play our part. We will set a target to achieve net zero by 2050, and have a clear plan for achieving it. I always said I would not set a target to achieve net zero by 2050 unless we had a plan to achieve it. We now have that plan.

We will do this the Australian way. Through technology, not taxes.

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And our technology is going to be so stunningly clever, and futuristic, we won’t have to stop what we’re doing. Imagine that. We’re going to be able to have our cake and eat it, too. After all, what’s the use of having all that lovely black and brown stuff in the ground doing nothing? We dig it up and export it to the world, not our problem what the rest of the world does with it.

Of course, we need to keep a bit for ourselves, but here’s the clever bit, we shove the emissions from burning the stuff back into the ground. The circle of life, eh? How clever is that? It’s called carbon storage. I even have a bit of personal carbon storage, lump of coal I keep in the drawer in case I have to take it into Parliament again and remind everyone it won’t kill them.

We won’t be lectured by others who do not understand Australia. The Australian Way is all about how you do it, and not if you do it. It’s about getting it done.

We want our heavy industries, like mining, to stay open, remain competitive and adapt, so they remain viable for as long as global demand allows. We will not support any mandate – domestic or international – to force closure of our resources or agricultural industries.

And fair enough, too. If we don’t export coal, what’s left? We don’t make much of anything anymore to export. Oh, sure there’s wine. And arrogance, we’ve bucketloads of that.

New technology, that’s the future, literally. It’s an evolving discussion. Can’t rush technology, needs to be tried and tested. Well except for COVID vaccines, but that was an emergency. The United Nations says that to limit global temperatures to a 1.5 degree rise we need to capture and shove it in the ground – 17 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. Iceland is giving it a try, they’re up to 4000 tonnes a year.

Us, it’s in our plan. Never mind the naysayers, such as physicist and CEO of institute Climate Analytics, Bill Hare, who said the plan bordered on being a scam. He even had the hide to say it “didn’t stack up”.

Well, we never said that it did.

We said we had a plan. It’s called the Australian way, and you can either like it or lump it.

Yours,
Scott.