Opinion
Australian politics

It’s not that Taylor is a climate change denier, it’s just that he’d rather work against effective climate policy

Just as we begin to imagine life without Tony Abbott undermining every sensible interaction between climate and energy policy, his “energy brain” in the form of the new energy minister, Angus Taylor, is now calling the shots.
Taylor has been fighting against the wind industry since the late 1990s, when developers came knocking, wanting to build a windfarm on his parents’ Monaro Plains property. The Taylor family turned down the opportunity, and the Boco Rock windfarm was instead built on the next ridgeline. Last year the windfarm generated enough zero-emissions electricity to power more than 70,000 average New South Wales households, and pumped $6.7m through the local economy.
Ever since that first approach, Taylor has been tilting at windmills.
Three months before he entered parliament in 2013, Taylor wrote a paper for the Coalition party room advocating for the immediate end to the renewable energy target (RET). In the middle of Abbott’s attempt to implement the vision, Taylor boasted to constituents (captured on film) that he had party backing.
Just two weeks ago, when Malcolm Turnbull was risking his prime ministership over a policy that would have done practically nothing for emissions, Taylor was busy working conservative talkback radio. Taylor boasted to Ray Hadley that he’s been speaking out against renewables policies “for many many years, well before anyone else … I argued in the party room many times to reduce it … I was able … to reduce the [RET] working with Tony as prime minister”.
While Taylor didn’t get everything he wanted, he did manage to cut 40% out of the renewable development pipeline.
Last Friday, Taylor tweeted that: “It’s time to start cleaning up the mess!” Whose mess? His party has been in government for more than five years!

simon holmes à court @simonahac
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🤓 *total* unserved energy ("blackouts") by south australian generators:
• 2000-2010: 0.00032% — 16.8 'load minutes'
• 2010-2017: 0.00004% — 1.9 'load minutes'

…and @AngusTaylorMP would have you believe that their grid is unreliable, a "failed experiment".
Since his faction despatched the national energy guarantee – and a democratically elected prime minister – the truth is that the “minister for getting electricity prices down” has very few levers to pull.
Taylor has latched on to the ACCC’s recent report on electricity prices, which recommends that the government underwrite new generation to help bring new competition into the market. But the ACCC boss Rod Sims saw the need to explicitly state that he wasn’t recommending new coal power stations. In fact if Taylor implements the recommendation faithfully, a big “if”, the program will see mostly wind and solar farms built, as power from “firmed-up” variable renewables is now comfortably cheaper than from any new fossil fuel power generation.
While it’s unlikely we’ll see any new coal-fired power stations constructed – I’ve been offering 10-to-1 odds against – Taylor has hinted of life extensions for existing coal generators.
Life extensions have had a chequered history in Australia. South Australia’s Playford plant was refit in 2005 and limped along for seven years before it was shut down. The market had moved on and the $150m investment was never recovered. The Western Australian government wasted $308m to eke out four more trouble-laden years of Muja AB, just one-eighth the size of AGL’s Liddell power station. AGL itself looked into upgrading Lidell and decided that $920m for five years was a lousy investment.
While there’s plenty of meat in the ACCC’s latest report to chew on – 56 recommendations in all – many fall within state jurisdiction. After the dismal national energy guarantee palava, the states will be wary of any more commonwealth’s overreach.
Taylor’s support for a retail electricity price cap is also no panacea. A cap set too low will drive smaller retailers out of business. If the cap is set too high, it’s much more likely that retailers will simply increase their prices up to the cap.
Taylor’s best hope for success is to stay in the saddle and ride the expected fall in wholesale prices, a happy consequence of the RET he failed to kill.
But for Australia, the chance of real progress is bleak under Team Morrison. It’s now clear that Taylor will continue Josh Frydenberg’s campaign of half truths and politicisation. When Taylor faced the media (sort of) for the first time in his new role last Thursday, he spoke forcefully of South Australia’s “failed experiment” with renewables.
The truth is that South Australia is an international model of success for energy transition. That such a statement goes so far against the orthodoxy shows the depravity of our national energy conservation – bear with me:
Exhibit A: Wind and solar have pushed coal completely out of South Australia and even displaced some gas. While the state imports 8% of its power from Victoria, it sends more in the other direction.
Exhibit C: Over the past decade, South Australia has reduced its electricity sector emissions by 56% from 10.1 MtCO2-e to 4.5 MtCO2-e.
Exhibit E: And while we’ve been regaled with endless stories about blackouts, the truth is that SA has only been caught short of generating power for 1.9 “load minutes” this decade (0.00004%), down from 16.8 load minutes last decade (0.00032%).
If Taylor genuinely wants to clean up his mess, the prescription is simple:
  1. Tell the truth – our grid is reliable and renewables aren’t the cause of high prices.
  2. Depoliticise energy – industry is crying out for bipartisan policy certainty.
  3. Respond to the science – any policy that’s incompatible with climate science is not credible, and therefore unstable.
Unfortunately Taylor chose to reject all of the above in week one, condemning us to another round of deep stupidity on climate and energy.
Taylor has always been quick to claim he’s on board with the climate science. Yet, as Abbott’s protege, he’s chosen to spend his time in politics actively undermining sensible and effective climate and energy policy.
Angus Taylor is not a climate science denier – he’s much more dangerous.
  • Simon Holmes a Court is senior adviser to the Climate and Energy College at Melbourne University