Article by Tony Pasin, courtesy of Murray Pioneer.
08.10.2025
LIKE many Australians, I have grown tired of the endless, circular debate around climate policy.
The slogans, the moral posturing, the selective outrage, and above all, the refusal to speak honestly about the real costs and consequences.
We saw more of this recently with Labor committing to new emission reduction targets of 62 per cent to 70 per cent of 2005 levels, by 2035. This isn`t serious policy. It’s political theatre, without the courage to level with the Australian people.
What I have laid out below are my cleareyed views on what this decision really means for our country. Every figure I cite comes from the government’s own data and official modelling. These are the realities that Australians deserve to hear plainly and without spin.
The hard truths are that: Australia cannot achieve ‘Net Zero’.
According to the government’s own figures, to reach the 2035 target and ‘Net Zero’ by 2050, Australia must decarbonise at an average rate of 17 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent every year. Yet the latest official progress reports show we are decarbonising at just 3 million tonnes annually, despite every accounting trick and every piece of low-hanging fruit already picked. These targets are not just ambitious: they are impossible. No matter how much the government decides to spend, tax, ban, and regulate.
Even if we did, it would make no difference to the global climate.
Australia produces just 1.1 per cent of global emissions. Meanwhile, the world’s largest emitters the US, China, India, Russia, and the European Union are all rated as ‘insufficient” or worse on their Paris Agreement goals. In 2023 alone, China’s emissions rose by more than 160 per cent of Australia’s total output. To think that our national sacrifice will convince authoritarian regimes to follow our lead is profoundly naive.
The rest of the world is backing away from ‘Net Zero’.
The United States has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement. New Zealand, Poland, and Mexico have retreated from their 2050 commitments. Canada’s new Prime Minister has scrapped their carbon tax and delayed their clean electricity target. Major banks and institutions are leaving the UN-backed Net-Zero Banking Alliance. Even Tony Blair, once a champion of climate action, now calls Net Zero “doomed to fail”, and “riven with irrationality.” The retreat is real, and it is accelerating.
It is costing us billions and will cost us trillions.
Federal climate spending has increased 15 fold over the past decade and now exceeds $9bn per year. An extra $8bn was announced last month. Net Zero Australia estimates that fully achieving the 2050 target will require between $7 trillion and $9 trillion in total investment by 2060. This is an unprecedented financial burden on taxpayers, at a time of massive debt, with no measurable benefit to the global climate.
It is decimating household budgets, and it is only going to get worse.
Since 2008, wholesale electricity prices have nearly tripled as the share of wind and solar in the grid has increased. Yet fos sil fuels still supply over 90 per cent of Australia’s total energy. To meet the 2050 target, that figure must fall to nearly zero. Replacing it will require vast overbuilds of renewables, storage systems, subsidies, and new transmission lines, pushing electricity bills even higher for households already under financial stress. q We are deliberately dismantling Australia’s industrial strength. Climate policy 1S undermining our productivity and competitiveness. Australia now has the lowest share of manufacturing employment in the OECD, and industrial output has fallen to just 5 per cent of GDP. Heavy industry is being taxed into irrelevance to reduce emissions on paper, while real emissions shift offshore. We are permanently weakening our economic base and leaving future generations poorer and actually far more vulnerable to future climate challenges.
We are strangling regional communities and our agriculture sector.
Farmers are now being forced to report indirect emissions under new Scope 3 rules, with compliance costs estimated at $2 3bn in the first year alone. Productive farmland and pristine natural landscapes across the country are being converted for wind and solar projects, dividing rural communities and driving families off the land. Green tape is choking agriculture, pushing up food prices, and eroding our national capacity to feed ourselves.
I recognise that most Australians, particularly those in suburban areas, still support climate action in principle. I acknowledge we should reduce emissions where we can and use energy more efficiently. But we cannot do so by gutting our economy, hollowing out our regions, or surrendering our sovereignty.
The Net Zero agenda is collapsing under its own weight. It 1S economically reckless, socially divisive, and environmentally ineffective. It rewards foreign corporate interests, enriches rent-seekers, and punishes the people who build, grow, and power this country. We are trading away prosperity and resilience for empty symbolism.
We can and should pursue practical steps to reduce emissions, but through a transparent and realistic Australian framework. It’s time for a new direction on climate policy, one grounded in honesty, sovereignty and common sense
