The Australian Federal Government has so far refused to acknowledge Australia’s exposure to the effects of climate change, arguing the country’s insignificance in terms of global emissions as justification for not developing a climate-action plan that transitions its reliance on fossil fuels towards its abundant renewable resources.
“Australia is politically dominated by climate change trivialisers … they’ve always assumed that sea level rise would be the symptom, and Pacific island nations, who don’t matter, the victims. Now with the bushfires, the populace is realising that Australia may be the first victim.” –Economist Steve Keen
The good news is that Stanford’s Solutions Project has already worked out the specs and investment steps needed to transition Australia to 80% renewable energy by 2030 and 100% by 2050 with an estimated investment needed of US$820 billion, while the crushing costs of business, as usual, compound daily. See A Green New Deal for Australia.
Mark Jacobson, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford, and the co-founder of the Solutions Project — a US not-for-profit organization that works to educate policymakers and the public about transition to 100% clean, renewable energy — explains the massive expected reduction in energy demand when all sectors of the economy are electrified in this 6-minute video.