The Great Net Zero Retreat

For years, Net Zero was the unquestioned mantra of the Western world.

Governments preached it.
Corporations pledged allegiance to it.
Academia and media enforced it.

Dissent wasn’t debated — it was dismissed.

But something has changed. Quietly at first… now unmistakably. The tide is turning.

Reality Bites

A recent report highlighted a growing trend: countries and industries are abandoning or scaling back Net Zero commitments. (Watts Up With That?)

Not rebranding. Not delaying. Backing away.

Why? Because reality has finally collided with ideology.

The Cost Explosion No One Could Ignore

For years we were told renewables would be cheaper, cleaner, and inevitable.

Instead, what we’ve seen is:

• Soaring electricity prices
• Grid instability
• Industrial flight from high-cost regions

Even traditionally enthusiastic regions are struggling to sustain ambitious targets, as rising costs make those plans harder to deliver. (therightinsight.org)

It turns out you can’t run a modern economy on slogans.

The Iran War – A Brutal Reminder

Then came geopolitics. The recent tensions involving Iran delivered a blunt message:

The world still runs on fossil fuels.

When supply chains are threatened, when shipping lanes are at risk, when energy security becomes existential — wind turbines and solar panels don’t keep the lights on.

Oil, gas, and coal do.

Suddenly, energy policy wasn’t about virtue signalling.
It was about survival.

AI – The Energy Elephant in the Room

Just as Net Zero policies were straining energy systems…

Along came AI.

Data centres, machine learning, and global compute demand are exploding.
And they don’t run on wishful thinking.

They require vast, reliable, always-on energy.

The uncomfortable truth?

The push for Net Zero is colliding head-on with the energy demands of the future.

From “Great Reset” to Great Retreat

For over a decade, Net Zero was framed as inevitable — the only path forward.

Now?

We are seeing:

• Projects cancelled
• Targets watered down
• Investments redirected
• Politicians suddenly… less vocal

Even climate coverage itself appears to be losing urgency in public discourse. Not because the messaging changed. Because the economics did.

Why This Matters

This isn’t a minor policy adjustment. It’s a fundamental shift.

For the first time in years, decisions are being driven by:

• Cost
• Reliability
• National security
• Economic survival

Instead of ideology.

Overdue — But Welcome

Let’s be clear. This shift isn’t happening because policymakers suddenly had a change of heart. It’s happening because: They ran out of road.

You can only ignore:

• skyrocketing energy bills
• struggling industries
• fragile grids
• geopolitical realities

…for so long.

The Bottom Line

Net Zero isn’t dead. But the blind, unquestioned march toward it? That’s over.

What we’re witnessing now is something far more grounded: A return to reality.

And frankly— It’s about time.

Net Zero Is National Self-Harm — and the LNP Must Not Blink

Australia has finally reached the moment where reality smashes into ideology. The Opposition has dumped its previous Net Zero commitment — and rightly so. That decision must not just be defended; it must be prosecuted with absolute conviction.

Because Net Zero, as currently pursued by Labor and the Greens, is not a climate policy.
It is a national economic suicide note.

The arguments against Net Zero are overwhelming, practical, and already visible across Europe — where the experiment is collapsing in real time.

And Australia is marching straight down the same path unless someone has the courage to pull the handbrake.

Below are the clear, undeniable reasons Net Zero must be abandoned — not politely questioned, not gently “rebalanced,” but rejected as the destructive, unworkable fantasy it is.

🔹 1. Net Zero Destroys Energy Security

Europe went all-in on wind and solar — and the result has been catastrophic:

• Coal and nuclear shut down prematurely
• Gas exploration halted
• Intermittent renewables left the grid exposed to weeks-long energy shortfalls (“Dunkelflaute”)

Australia is copying the same blueprint.

Labor is shutting down our coal stations without any proven replacement, gutting our energy security and placing us in permanent dependence on foreign gas imports and batteries that do not yet exist at industrial scale.

This isn’t strategy.
It’s delusion.

🔹 2. Renewable Intermittency Can’t Run a Modern Nation

Renewables are “unreliables” — entirely dependent on backup baseload power they do not provide themselves .

Batteries?
Today’s best large-scale batteries store 6–8 hours, while low-wind periods can last two weeks.

Australia is betting its national grid on a storage technology that:

• does not exist
• cannot exist at the required scale
• and is nowhere near cost-viable

This is not “transition.”
This is ideological gambling with the nation’s power supply.

🔹 3. Net Zero Causes Massive Electricity Price Increases

This is not theory. It’s now lived reality.

Europe’s electricity prices exploded — industrial prices up 5–7 times those of the US and China .

Germany and the UK — once industrial powerhouses — are now cautionary tales.

Here in Australia:

• Electricity prices have soared by 37% in 12 months
• Inflation jumped to 3.8%
• Every good and service is more expensive because energy sits at the base of every supply chain

Labor's claim that “renewables are the cheapest form of energy” has been obliterated by real-world evidence.

Cheap-on-paper renewables create sky-high bills once you add:

• backup gas
• transmission expansion
• short life-span asset replacement
• forced early closures of reliable plants
• storage that doesn’t yet exist

This is why prices rise every time renewables penetration increases.

🔹 4. Net Zero Wrecks Industry and Exports Jobs

Europe shows us the future if we continue down Labor’s path:

• Chemical industries gone
• Steelfactories closing
• Car manufacturing collapsing
• Businesses fleeing to the US where energy is cheap
• Entire supply chains hollowed out

Marshall warns that Europe is “wiping out its industrial base” in the name of Net Zero .

Australia is smaller, more vulnerable, and more exposed.
We won’t just lose manufacturing — we’ll lose:

• mining
• refining
• smelting
• heavy industry
• food processing
• agriculture

regional towns built around energy-intensive work

This is unilateral economic disarmament.

🔹 5. Net Zero Devastates Landscapes and Wildlife

Labor and the Greens constantly invoke environmentalism while pushing the greatest environmental destruction in Australian history:

T
• housands of kilometres of transmission lines bulldozed through farmland, forests and heritage land
• Wind turbines plastered across rural Australia
• Solar farms consuming entire regions of arable land
• Whale populations disrupted by offshore wind
• Birds and wildlife killed by turbines
• Europe is already recognising this disaster.

Australia is simply arriving late to the bonfire.

🔹 6. Net Zero Makes No Global Difference

This is the most important truth of all:

Australia could disappear tomorrow and global emissions would not change.

China builds two new coal plants per week.
India adds two per month.
Both have Net Zero deadlines so far in the future they can be safely ignored for decades.
Neither intends to cripple itself the way Europe has.

Yet Labor wants Australia — a 1.2% emitter — to commit economic suicide to impress nations who laugh at the idea.

🔹 7. Renewables Need Fossil Fuels to Exist

Every wind turbine, solar panel, and battery requires:

• massive mining
• diesel machinery
• fossil-fuel-based metals and chemicals
• shipping across the world
• gas or coal backup during downtime

“Clean energy” cannot exist without “dirty energy.”

The irony is inescapable.

🔹 8. Net Zero Punishes the Poor Most

Marshall is right: Net Zero is a policy that immiserates the poor .

• Higher electricity prices
• Higher food prices
• Higher rent and mortgages
• Lost jobs
• Lower wages
• Higher cost of living everywhere

Rich elites cope.
Ordinary Australians pay the price.

🔹 9. Australia Risks Becoming Europe 2.0

Europe tried to “lead the world.”
Nobody followed.
Now Europe is scrambling back to coal, reopening gas fields, and begging the US for LNG.

Australia is still pretending this model works.

Labor is pushing us into the same catastrophe — but with even fewer industrial strengths to lose.

🔹 10. A Sensible Energy Policy Is Possible

Australia can embrace

• Clean, affordable next-gen nuclear
• High-efficiency, low-emission coal
• Domestic gas
• Hydropower
• Renewables only where economically justified
• Technology-driven emissions reduction, not ideology-driven deadlines

This is not “anti-environment.”
It is pro-reality.

The LNP Must Hold the Line — No Backsliding

Net Zero is collapsing everywhere it has been tried.
It is not “the future.”
It is a failed experiment.

The LNP must argue forcefully, unapologetically, and with total clarity:

• Net Zero destroys jobs.

• Net Zero raises prices.

• Net Zero weakens the nation.

• Net Zero does nothing for the climate.

Australia cannot afford another decade of this fantasy.

The Opposition has finally stepped away from a policy that never made sense.
Now it must go further:

Expose it.
Discredit it.
And bury it for good.

Before Labor buries the country along with it.

Please watch Paul Marshall's presentation at this year's ARC conference in February. I have used his arguments in the above blog.

Net Zero Nonsense: All Pain, No Gain!

You’ve got to hand it to the Australian government — when they commit to something, they really commit. Even when it’s completely bonkers.

Take Net Zero by 2050. It’s the shiny new goal every government wants to plaster on its press releases to show how virtuous and forward-thinking they are. The problem? For Australia, it’s a painful, self-inflicted wound with zero benefit.

Let’s break this down.

The Costs We’re Copping

1. Skyrocketing Energy Prices
We used to have some of the cheapest power in the world. Now? Power bills are biting everyone, including households, manufacturers, and small businesses. Why? Because we’re ditching cheap, reliable coal and gas for intermittent renewables that need endless subsidies and backups.

2. Grid Instability
Wind and solar might look good on paper, but the sun doesn’t always shine, and the wind doesn’t always blow. Our once-stable grid now lives on the edge. And every blackout or “load-shedding” warning is just another sign we’re powering into chaos.

3. Industry Exodus
Energy-intensive industries — such as aluminium smelting, steel, and fertiliser — are shutting down or relocating overseas. Why run a business here when you can get cheaper, more reliable power elsewhere?

4. Lost Jobs, Lost Communities
As the industry dries up, so do the towns that depend on it. We’re watching generational jobs vanish in places like the Hunter Valley and Gladstone — sacrificed on the altar of climate symbolism.

5. Environmental Own-Goals
Here’s the irony: covering landscapes with wind farms and solar panels is not environmentally friendly. It chews up pristine land, kills wildlife (especially birds and bats), and requires massive new mining operations to extract rare earths and other materials. Where are the greenies when koalas are booted from their trees to make way for a solar farm?

6. Billions in Taxpayer Handouts
Subsidies for renewables, storage schemes, transmission lines to nowhere, hydrogen fantasies… All funded by us, the taxpayers. While China builds more coal plants and laughs at our economic masochism.

The Benefits? Practically Zilch.

Let’s not forget this one crucial fact: Australia accounts for just 1% of global CO₂ emissions.

You could shut the entire country down tomorrow — turn off every power plant, ground every plane, ban every ute — and it wouldn’t make a dent in the climate curve.

China emits more in a week than the United States does in a year. India, the US, and other countries are ramping up their use of fossil fuels. While we sabotage ourselves for feel-good headlines, the rest of the world keeps burning.

And don’t be fooled by the “we’ll lead by example” nonsense. No one’s following us — they’re too busy securing their energy security and lifting living standards.

Virtue Signalling on Steroids

This whole Net Zero push isn’t about outcomes — it’s about optics. It’s about politicians playing to the UN crowd, scoring media points, and pretending to be climate warriors while regular Aussies pay the price.

We’re wrecking our economy, destabilising our grid, kneecapping our industries, and trashing our own environment — all for a goal that won’t change the climate by a single degree.

Madness, pure and simple.

If you want to watch the breakdown that inspired this, check out the video:

Let’s stop the madness and start using a bit of common sense again.

https://youtu.be/qzDoS-cfsWE?si=r2GmFoP215y37YU3