Extract from ABC News
Analysis
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has told Australians he has a plan to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
Explaining how the government would get there, Mr Morrison and Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction Angus Taylor used the word "plan" about 100 times.
But, given the roadmap's reliance on technology that is yet to exist, or can even be named, there are doubts over how that plan could deliver its intended outcomes.
The Australian Industry Group welcomed the government's commitment but noted "a lot more work will be needed to flesh out the plan to get there", while the progressive think tank, The Australia Institute, went so far as to call it "a fraud".
Strong reliance on unnamed technologies
Half of the reductions that are meant to get us to net zero are assumed to come from things that are hard to define. They are:
- Unnamed "further technological breakthroughs"
- "Global technology trends"
- Offsetting emissions we can't eliminate with credits, including those bought overseas.
The other half is assumed to come from the government's existing Technology Investment Roadmap, which has now been updated.
Mr Taylor pointed out that technological improvements are non-linear.
He pointed to the increase in computing power as transistor costs came down, and the similar path of solar.
"The march of technology is an extraordinary one," he said.
"And it has solved problem after problem for us over an extended period of time."
Mr Morrison made a virtue of the lack of anything binding in the plan.
"Our plan works with Australians to achieve this goal," he said at a press conference on Tuesday.
"Our plan enables them, it doesn't legislate them. It doesn't mandate them. It doesn't force them. It respects them."
Richie Merzian from the Australia Institute was less impressed.
"A 2050 target is meaningless when we can see from this government's actions that it has little intention of meeting such a target, let alone beating it," Mr Merzian said.
What tech is government relying on?
Half of the emissions reductions are assumed to come from the Technology Investment Roadmap, which was announced in September 2020.
That roadmap aims to use direct government investment to bring down the price of emissions-reducing technologies, making them competitive with polluting technologies.
It directs $18 billion of investment. That's not new money but rather a tally of funding already committed through bodies such as the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (AREA).
The roadmap comes with five priority technologies, each with price goals.
- It aims to get hydrogen down to $2 per kilogram
- For sequestering carbon in soil ("soil carbon"), the goal is to cut the cost of measurement to less than $3 per hectare per year, which would be a 90 per cent reduction
- The roadmap also has targets for energy storage, low carbon steel and aluminium
- Controversially, it relies on pumping greenhouse gases underground using carbon capture and storage (CCS)
- Now, the government has added a new priority area: "ultra-low-cost solar".
What is ultra-low-cost solar?
According to the government, "ultra-low-cost solar" is solar that produces electricity for less than $15 per megawatt hour. That's about half what it costs now.
It said that, at that cost, green hydrogen, clean steel and even direct capture of CO2 from the air could become competitive.
According to the documents released by the government, that could make a big difference, resulting in solar generating half of Australia's electricity by 2050.
But the plan doesn't outline any new money for the idea. Instead, it tallies up things already underway by bodies like ARENA and the CEFC.
CCS and hydrogen
"At the heart of the plan is getting to the goals in the Technology Investment Roadmap," Mr Taylor said when presenting the plan.
Key among those goals is carbon capture and storage. It's a controversial technology, which critics argue has sunk billions of dollars into failed projects.
If it worked, the idea would be that — in industries such as cement and steel production, where stopping the carbon emissions is too hard — the emissions could be injected underground.
Environmentalists worry the technology might be used to prolong the life of fossil fuel projects, something explicitly flagged as a possibility in the government's plan.
The roadmap aims to reduce the cost of CCS down to $20 per tonne of CO2.
Hydrogen is another key technology in the roadmap. It can be used to power vehicles, generate electricity, create heat for industry, or as a chemical feedstock to create fertiliser.
This gas can be created by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen molecules using electricity. If that electricity is generated using renewables, it's called "green hydrogen" and has zero emissions.
It can also be created from gas in a process that results in greenhouse gas emissions. If those emissions are collected and stored using CCS, it's called "blue hydrogen".
The government is agnostic on how the hydrogen is created, lumping both types together under the name "clean hydrogen".
Carbon credits play a big role
The government plans to use offsets to get us up to 10 per cent of the way from here to net zero.
Mr Morrison praised the quality of Australian credits, but also noted the government could rely on credits bought from overseas.
As the world approaches 2050, carbon credits are going to be in high demand, and controlling the quality of those credits — so they represent real carbon abatement — is difficult.
Even Australia's home-grown carbon credits have come under intense scrutiny recently, with some analyses suggesting many of them are not real.
"To attempt to grandstand on the 'quality' of Australia's carbon credits shows just how hollow this net zero plan is," Mr Merzian said.
Jonathan Symons, an expert in international relations from Macquarie University, said the plan offered a minimal shift in response to international pressure.
"The plan's most promising element is a shift in rhetoric: The Morrison government is signalling that it intends to support, rather than resist, de-carbonising trends to whatever extent is consistent with maintaining support for existing carbon-intensive industries," he said.
"Scott Morrison is a man who believes in miracles, and his 'long-term emissions reduction plan' leaves space for plenty."
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