The Climate of Climate Change Has Changed

Something’s shifted. You can feel it in the air — and no, I’m not talking about carbon dioxide, the superfood of plants. I’m talking about the political climate, the social mood, the economic headwinds, and, most importantly, the dawning realisation across much of the Western world that Net Zero isn’t the pathway to the promised land — it’s a mirage.

Not that you’d know it from the days of the federal election, where the government was more interested in handing out cheques to paper over its failure to deliver cheaper energy than in discussing what comes next for the climate crusade.

But make no mistake — Chris Bowen and Anthony Albanese have hitched their entire government to the climate change bandwagon, sprinting toward their 2030 emission reduction targets with their eyes squeezed tightly shut. It’s almost impressive — the sheer denial involved. Not climate denial, as the media would have it, but denial of political and economic reality. Because the numbers are in, and they’re not pretty.

Australia is going to miss its 2030 target of a 43% reduction in emissions and the 82% renewables generation goal. Spectacularly. We’re not building enough transmission lines, not enough solar panels, and certainly not enough batteries to replace the baseload coal and gas we’re determined to blow up. And yet, the Albanese government’s response isn’t to reassess — it’s to double down. They’re already drafting the next round of targets for 2035 — which the mad green left want to start with a seven — presumably hoping the public won’t notice that they’ve failed the first test before sitting the second.

The tragedy isn’t just political hubris. It’s that every Australian — especially those of us out in the bush — is being set up to pay the price for a failure we didn’t vote for and most of us don’t believe in. ‘Farmers for Climate Action’ aside, who I consider the new-age version of the old agricultural socialists — wealthy or busted farmers running around wanting others to pay for their ideals, or looking for someone to blame for their failure.

Case in point: their election demand for government subsidies to cover the cost of batteries on-farm — apparently this will help drive down the cost of food. Reminds me of the logic of statutory marketing which were supposed to produce cheap food and under right farmers’ incomes.  It did neither. Still the government fell over itself to fund the idea during the election— taxpayer money that adds to the national debt, increases interest rate pressure on all farmers, and justifies slapping a carbon cost on fertiliser and fuel. It’s a perfect storm that will inevitably drive up the price of food for battlers. This is what you get when an unholy alliance is formed between agrarian socialists and green idealists — neither of whom give a fig for the global poor.

But back to the main point. The government knows power prices are only just beginning their long upward climb — and worse, supply is becoming less reliable. And just to rub salt in the wound, Labor and its green fellow travellers are building massive wind and solar installations as monuments to their faith. Like the grand castles and cathedrals of old Europe, they will stand not as triumphs but as testaments to the self-interest of the elite at the expense of the people.

As long as the government subsidises the construction of thousands of giant white wind towers from one end of the country to the other, they will remain icons of a climate cult that’s fast losing its congregation.

The National Party has worked it out. So too have the economic drys in the Liberal Party. But the wets, the Teals, and of course the Greens — they’re still careening ahead, oblivious. Their heads are so full of modelling and virtue-signalling that they can’t read the writing on the wall. There’s a reckoning coming, and they’re sleepwalking straight into it.

Just look to the UK. Ten years ahead of us in the Net Zero game, and now facing a brutal backlash. Rural communities have had enough. Farmers are in open revolt. Voters are turning away from both the Conservatives and Labour and toward anyone willing to say the simple truth — that this whole thing is madness. That building thousands of kilometres of pylons in pursuit of a renewable nirvana is only delivering expensive, intermittent power. And the cost? Eye-watering. Money that should be spent on defence, tax relief, or reducing the ballooning federal debt.

Albanese and Bowen seem to think they’re immune. That Australians will somehow swallow higher bills, industrialised landscapes, and blackouts — all for the greater good — while the rest of the world powers on with coal and gas. It’s madness. But the tide is turning. The mob is restless. And when the political backlash begins, it won’t be the Greens wearing it. It’ll be Labor.

What’s even more astonishing is that the government has no exit strategy. They’ve painted themselves into a corner. There’s no ‘get out of jail free’ card — unless the Liberals are daft enough to follow suit and set a 20302 and a 2035 target of their own. All the Coalition has to do is hold the line. Talk vaguely about 2050. Put any new targets on the “never-never.” Let Labor fail. Let them pick fights across the bush with their pylons and turbines and belt the battlers with ever-rising power bills, all while talking the talk of becoming a renewable superpower — when in reality we’re becoming a third-world energy economy.

Eventually, the mob will realise no one else is following us. They’ll be left with the bill, and they’ll move on.

Whether you believe in man-made climate change or not is almost beside the point. The reality is this: global collective action to “solve” climate change is a fantasy. About as likely as ending war, landmines, or world hunger. We can’t even coordinate a coherent response to humanitarian disasters — and we’re meant to give up meat, utes, cheap flights, and air-conditioning to stop producing plant food?

All the while, the climate catastrophists are out there demanding we do more — always more — while expecting someone else to pay. All the government has to do is keep dishing out subsidies: for farm batteries, rooftop solar, wind towers — clinging to the delusion that if only we set higher targets, the rains will return the planet will be saved. Meanwhile, what are they giving up? Not their Teslas. Not their consumer-driven lifestyles.

So here’s my advice to climate conservatives: wait. Do nothing. Let Labor continue to set unachievable targets and fail. Let the inner cities stew in their climate guilt while the rest of us keep the lights on. Eventually, the mob will move on — they always do. When forced to choose between ideological purity and keeping the fridge running, they’ll choose the fridge every time.

The climate of climate change has changed. The sooner our leaders realise it, the better.