Net Zero is under threat in New Zealand, according to headlines last week.
Although the population of New Zealand and its government remain in the grip of existential hysteria, crippling energy bills are starting to chip away at the climate consensus.
To that end, Climate Change and Energy Minister, Chris Bowen, is inhabiting a shrinking ecosystem. One where Net Zero is quietly dying off.
When Net Zero was first pitched the public, it was rejected as fringe nonsense from the United Nations. Their main achievement over the 30 years has been the power of relentless brainwashing. In Australia, the same people who were conned into thinking a virus would spare them if they were sitting down at the pub have bought into the idea that politicians can control global weather with taxes. A truly impressive feat.
Instead of tossing virgins into volcanoes, we’re shoving taxpayers into the Treasury.
The communist government of China has made no attempt to hide its piggy-backing of imperialist expansionism on rare earths mining and renewable energy construction. Beijing has enslaved entire nations with debt-trap politics, all conducted under the promise of green gold. They do so without apology. The CCP enjoys absolute power and so expends less effort justifying these actions to the Chinese people who have no ability to oppose policy.
Once Australians are under the control of the parallel carbon economy, we won’t be able to object either.
The negligence of the Australian government under both Labor and Liberal leadership has been present from the start.
After all, how long can a Pacific island claim it needs millions in aid due to rising sea levels when those seas fail to rise?
Those same governments that lecture Australia about carbon emissions do deals under the table with China for fossil fuel resources.
What, no questions from our Prime Minister and Foreign Minister?
At what point do the Teals, Greens, Labor, and wet Liberals look at the toxic wastelands of industrial China where the green things are built and say, This is a disaster… We are being lied to.
Why aren’t we seeing the race-obsessed left-wing university protest class complain about the modern child slavery over third-world rare earths mines? They scream about saving the kids, just not those kids.
Real environmentalists in Tibet are detained, attacked, and in some cases disappear.
The one thing that Australian activists cannot hide from is the ever-increasing price of so-called cheap energy.
It is the meme of Albanese’s bill reduction that never came.
All over the West, the poor are walking away from Net Zero. The only higher goal it appears to serve is the inflation of bank balances belonging to the unfathomably rich.
Politicians who support Net Zero look increasingly like their security guards.
In the UK, it is being said that anger towards Net Zero could trigger a bigger political backlash than Brexit, one which Reform is already using to conquer local councils around the country and put the fear of God into Labour and the Tories.
Panicked, those who champion renewable energy are already making demands to transfer the cost of Net Zero onto both the taxpayer and the landlord. They want the government to pay out of their commitment to so-called equity, mostly in the form of solar panels and nationalised energy. It’s almost as if they have accepted that renewable energy is no longer affordable to the average person.
Carpeting city rooftops in taxpayer-funded solar panels might make the capitalist suppliers rich (uh, so much for the communist Greens), but it won’t lower the cost of energy. Especially after the first hail storm.
The Greens have to take this path, or the entire political movement will crumble beneath them.
The political threat is very real. Chris Bowen might feel powerful now, but he should step out of his BlueSky bubble.
Europe is moving away from Net Zero at considerable speed, doubling down on nuclear reactors and North Sea drilling after Russia’s stranglehold on energy revealed the weakness of renewables.
America has signed an extraordinary pro-nuclear energy deal which Donald Trump described as a matter of national security and critical to support the AI race. At the same time, he has butchered green grants, an action that will impact Australian investments.
Even New Zealand is shifting, ditching some of the more extreme elements of the Jacinda Ardern-era agenda.
The conservative government has lifted bans on oil and gas exploration and pledged NZ$200 million in the expansion of critical fossil fuel projects.
Resources Minister Shane Jones said:
‘We are feeling the pain of constrained supply. The government is not prepared to sit on the sidelines and watch our industrial and manufacturing dwindle because of energy security concerns. We are focused on growing the New Zealand economy, creating jobs, and increasing prosperity and resilience. Natural gas will continue to be critical in delivering secure and affordable energy for New Zealanders for at least the next 20 years.’
Which is right around the time all the current renewable energy infrastructure is expected to die off.
That’s not to say New Zealand is a shining beacon of economic clarity. They have the hook of UN hysteria buried deep in their gut.
Instead, what has happened is an acknowledgment of reality without an admission of political negligence.
The biggest man-made problem facing the environment is pollution, and this has been allowed to run rampant while governments hyperventilate over an invisible gas.
So many of the world’s rivers are untouchable toxic wastelands while China, India, South America, and Africa are pouring so much plastic into the oceans that entire rafts of the stuff float around.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch covers 1.6 million square kilometres, containing roughly 120,000 metric tons of rubbish.
It is fed primarily by China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, China, and the Philippines.
Why aren’t our politicians taxing these nations for their environmental damage? Why isn’t the UN threatening them like they threaten us?
We seem to be a long way from the glory days of Clean Up Australia.
Our streets are filthier than they have ever been. Councils are reducing some bin collections to a fortnightly cycle in the name of environmentalism, while fuelling an environment rife for rats and disease. Neglected bush tracks, locked away from the public, have turned to over-grown, weed-infested hellscapes. Even the trainline through expensive residential areas in Sydney looks like something you’d find in a zombie-occupied Democrat sanctuary city. It’s disgusting and residents deserve better.
These climate councils and climate governments should clean up their own backyard with the money they have already been given.
If Chris Bowen cares about Climate Change, he should stop frightening Australian farmers and start making demands on our polluting regional neighbours. He is meant to be an expensive ambassador for our interests, not a middleman for overpriced renewable energy.
If the Coalition wants to be seen as environmental warriors, go for it. There is a huge scope for real environmental protection, which most Australians agree with, but it will come at the expense of the fake environmentalism that has destroyed so much of our natural beauty.
Flat White is written by Alexandra Marshall. If you would like to support her work, shout her a coffee over at donor-box.