2023-11-01
Four foundations that bring ‘gas as a transition fuel’ down to earth
By Peter Newman AO, Professor of Sustainability, Curtin University
The extraordinary intervention by Mark McGowan that destroyed the independence of WA’s EPA has a basis in an on-going campaign by oil and gas industry lobbyists to enable their fossil fuels to expand for the next 50 years, not decline as required by global climate agreements.
‘Gas is the transition fuel’ and ‘we need a gas-led recovery’ are both part of the gas industry narrative being heavily delivered by their marketing systems and by many parts of our society including politicians and government institutions.
The approach is the same as the Trump narratives that are in a kind of parallel universe. They rarely seem to touch reality, yet they never seem to change. Now the legal system is showing Trump that you can’t make up narratives and just say them loud enough to convince enough people. There is a real truth about destroying democratic institutions and the Trump narratives are being brought down to earth with the first Proud Boys going to jail.
The un-reality of the gas industry narratives is fundamentally that they are not based on science. This is the first foundation response in bringing them down to earth, literally.
Foundation 1: Science does not support the gas transition. The science of climate change is now described by the UN as about ‘global boiling’. The IPCC and WMO reports are quite clear. Global temperatures are going up due mostly to burning fossil fuels as the extra energy created in the atmosphere is equivalent to around 5 Hiroshima bombs going off every second. The land and oceans absorb this energy and create weather that now is critically more extreme every year. The latest State of the Climate Report sets out the amazing data trends (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Unusual climate anomalies in 2023. Credit: Ripple, W.J. et al. (2023). The 2023 state of the climate report: Entering uncharted territory. BioScience, biad080, https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biad080
The fires in Hawaii, Greece and Canada, following Australia’s fires 4 years ago, and the loss of 10,000 penguins in Antarctica due to loss of sea ice, are all due to this global boiling.
Scientific and statistical analysis show that the chances of this not being due to our use of fossil fuels is 1 in 100,000.
Scientists have been telling this narrative, complete with powerful images, for decades and wonder why the world has not immediately changed. Just saying ‘this is the science, now please change’ is never enough. We need to deal with the alternative narratives like the gas industry who say to the climate scientists: ‘yes we agree, and gas is a solution’.
How do we bring this gas narrative down to earth and expose it as there are too many other people from outside the gas industry who have adopted it without seeing that the gas industry is part of the problem not part of the solution.
The IPCC and IEA are saying that the science shows all fossil fuels, including gas, must now decline, not grow. No new gas-fields can be developed if we are to stop the global boiling. The alternatives of solar, wind, battery storage and EV’s all integrated using smart systems, are dramatically cheaper and better and all sectors including industry must get on with this transition.
Once we reach net zero there will be an immediate global cooling process. This is the science but how do we respond other than just stating the facts, as facts haven’t stopped Trump telling his story. Over and over. He just restates it as though we have a choice of narratives not a choice of truth or falsehoods.
So, we need to consider institutional, political and community foundational change as well as science.
Foundation 2. Legal and regulatory change can show the gas narrative is wrong.
Legal and regulatory change through courts and legislation or simple regulatory change through agencies, have now accepted the science of climate change. The recent Ecuador election showed a majority agreed that their laws must now make this very clear. Climate falsehoods perpetuated by the oil and gas industry have begun to be tested and rejected in Australia. Just as Trump is now facing the truth over January 6th it is time the courts addressed specifically the climate falsehoods in the present gas narrative.
Likewise, regulators are using powers to better regulate emitters in line with what the Paris Agreement requires. We already have enough commitment for ASIC to prevent industry greenwashing though they are yet to move on the ‘clean natural gas’ narrative.
EPA’s in Australia need to step up and prevent any new fossil fuel plants in line with global environmental science, but they have barely begun to change their focus from traditional emissions to include global climate emissions. EPA’s that do not accept this role will be failing their role which history required them to fulfill from the 1970’s.
Foundation 3. Political change can accept that the transition will not need continuously growing gas.
Political change has been happening towards all the necessary targets to reach the Paris Agreement. But all the institutional reforms are hitting the brick wall of the gas narrative. Both of the two main parties in Australia are supporting the global-boiling climate narrative and the gas industry transition narrative at the same time. They cannot have both as the American Trump-supporting politicians are now beginning to see.
Political change depends on recognising that they will soon need to shift their allegiances away from the gas narrative and simply focus on the solar-wind-battery-EV revolution that is unfolding so rapidly with substantial cost savings. The Trumpian gas narrative is already beginning to collapse as the world of business and finance bring them down to earth with divestment and better options to make money.
A recent announcement by the Prime Minister and the Premier of WA is typical of how the next economy is emerging in partnership between government and industry without needing gas. The greening of the Pilbara grid is designed to create opportunities to process minerals and metals into premium green products that cannot have gas in their fuel mix. Most industry will grow in the next decade by phasing out fossil fuels and all the evidence is showing they will be phasing out gas. The transition will not require expansion of gas production and processing for local industry.
The global economy will also not need our LNG for long. The IEA Update predicts that by 2030 the oil price is likely to be under $30 a barrel. Michael Barnard, an energy commentator in a recent presentation to the Smart Energy Council outlines how oil and gas global markets will enter a death spiral unless they shift to renewables’ markets as their solutions for carbon emissions like CCS are not thermodynamically possible to provide commercial options.
The public will not want governments to be subsidizing gas as it enters an inevitable death spiral, as is happening now with coal.
Foundation 4. The community can change and de-gas dramatically.
The community can also play a major role in bringing the gas narrative down to earth by simply adopting the de-gas solutions being provided across the world and in Australia.
The 2023 IEA Update show the data on the major household and business appliances that are undermining any need for further growth in gas (Figure 2).
Figure 2. The growth of clean energy technologies. Credit: 2023 IEA Update
We have done amazing things in Australia with rooftop solar, heat pumps, batteries and EV’s. Now we must see the applications needed to de-gas our households and businesses. The need for demonstrations in every new urban development and infrastructure proposal must be driven by our demand for gas-free homes, suburbs, churches, schools, sporting facilities and businesses.
Perhaps by responding with all four foundations for change we will bring the Trumpian gas narrative down to earth and create hope for the future.
Header photo: Global mean temperature Credit: 2023 state of the climate report ; over Trump MAGA rally in Greenfield 2019 Credit: Donald Trump
[Opinions expressed are those of the author and not official policy of Greens WA]