EDITORIAL: Net zero opposition deals Libs out of conversation

Twenty-five years ago, the project to power Sydney’s Olympic village via solar energy was seen as wildly ambitious. At the time, the accommodation for the athletes of the 2000 Games, now the suburb of Newington, was the world’s largest solar-powered suburb.

Since then, the cost of solar panels has fallen dramatically. The capacity and production of solar installations has doubled approximately every three years.

Now, solar panels are standard on new builds. We’re generating so much solar energy that the Government plans to give millions of Australians three hours a day of the stuff for free.

There’s no reason to doubt that this exponential growth won’t continue for the next 25 years.

New technologies will be developed, existing ones will become more productive and cost-efficient.

That makes what is debated in Parliament today largely irrelevant to our energy destiny of 2050. Yet the Coalition is allowing itself to be torn to pieces over something that’s a quarter of a century away.

The Nationals have put a gun to the Liberals’ head in an attempt to coerce them into joining them in dropping their commitment to reaching net zero emissions by 2050.

Will the Liberals cave? Doing so could save Sussan Ley’s leadership in the short term, though it’s unlikely it will keep the conservative forces who want her gone at bay for long.

Ms Ley is expected to convene a partyroom meeting next week to decide whether to dump the Liberals’ net zero commitment.

Doing so will open the Liberals up to criticism that they are climate-denying extremists. In fact, it already has.

“The people who don’t back net zero are the extremists of the National Party and they’re dragging half the Liberal Party with them,” Ms Plibersek told Sky News on Thursday.

“For the first time in history, the National Party are saying that farmers shouldn’t be allowed to choose what to do on their own land. They’re saying that it’s okay for their neighbours to bully them, that it’s understandable when kids get teased at school if they turn up and their parents have a wind turbine on their land.”

By flat-out opposing net zero, the Coalition is dealing itself out of the conversation and ceding any influence over the speed and direction of our energy transition.

The inevitability of technological progression doesn’t mean we should stick blindly to the doctrine of a renewables-only future at any cost.

There will be details to be hashed out. That includes what our energy mix will look like to 2050 and beyond. What role will gas play? What other electricity generation methods are available, such as nuclear energy.

These are the questions on which the Liberals should be engaging.

Instead, they’re on the cusp of closing the door completely.

With Labor likely to be in power for at least another term, the Liberals’ refusal to play ball won’t have much of an impact on Australia’s energy future.

But it could have a very big impact on their relevance as a political entity in this country.

Responsibility for the editorial comment is taken by Editor-in-Chief Christopher Dore.