‘Australians, you shall decarbonise. Electricity bills shall go up, energy security shall go down, and damage to the environment shall be ignored – a cabal of global elites has made this decision for you. As Net Zero Minister, I declare that state cooperation is assured; debt has no consequence; spending has no limit; markets have no meaning. Your opinions are irrelevant and participation is mandatory. The Minister has spoken; you shall comply.’

Imagine if Chris Bowen, Australia’s Energy Minister, delivered such a dystopian speech… In reality, we are not far off, because these words accurately describe the Australian government’s stance on emissions reduction. Would the speech win any votes? Unfortunately, it would. Thanks to a decades-long propaganda mission, there are many people convinced that our total dependence on fossil fuels will bring about the end of the world. Combined with the comfort and security of a largely peaceful and prosperous West, senses are dulled and comfort breeds weakness.

But is the world ending? Certainly not in a physical sense. The world is greening; whales and polar bears are flourishing; the Great Barrier Reef is expanding; and we grow so much food we can afford to waste a good proportion of it. What does appear to be ending is political stability. Elon Musk, new owner of the planet’s digital town square – Twitter – acknowledged that all the conspiracy theories about Twitter are true. He released damning evidence of US government agencies censoring debate on social media platforms, deliberately manipulating information on the key topics of election integrity and Covid vaccines. It raises the question – how often is the renewables and climate change debate similarly censored and manipulated by agenda-riddled technocrats?

In roughly equal measures, people are moving diametrically away from the political centre. As Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams said recently, there are two movies showing on the same screen. He’s observing that people are seeing the same information and coming to completely different conclusions. Ironically, that’s something on which most people would agree.

Destroying successful economies is no easy feat. However, historical records show that top-down ideology, centralised bureaucratic control, higher taxes, and curtailing production are quite effective. Markets will not voluntarily create the massive oversupply of wind and solar required to meet arbitrary targets, so Western economies are being swamped by bureaucracies intent on increasing market regulation and intervention. Energy security – once sought after, even if not assured – is slipping away without any policy or commentary from the media to arrest it.

Most big businesses are encouraging the end of reliable low-cost electricity, yet lobby groups – such as the Business Council of Australia, who ‘represents Australia’s largest employers’ – align perfectly with government narratives on emissions reduction. Corporations are lining up to buy power purchase agreements to avoid being punished by the government’s safeguard mechanism – a tool used to add costs to our largest industries, soon to be weaponised to reduce the output of many more businesses.

Politicians, dancing to the tune of their activist advisers, foster the rot. As the ‘deplorables’ of New South Wales ponder more electricity rate rises, their energy minister announced nation-leading emissions reduction targets just days after the state’s Premier promised a Venezuela-like intervention in the coal sector. However, arbitrary price caps on coal and gas have almost no ability to reduce the cost of electricity.

In the final weeks of 2022, a raft of interventionist energy policies were announced around the country. A state government electricity bureau and the world’s largest battery storage targets in Victoria; the world’s largest pumped hydro scheme, plus SuperGrid, in Queensland; an 82 per cent federal renewable energy target; and this is on top of electric vehicle incentives, hydrogen subsidies, and state renewable targets.

Beyond the Godzilla-like demolition of markets, state and federal governments are colluding to kill resource investments with taxes and reservations. Queensland’s rejigged coal tax now whips 40 per cent off the top tier of coal profits, causing Japanese and Korean diplomats to express concern, Glencore and BHP to halt new developments, and Senex to pause their billion-dollar domestic gas project in Queensland. Looming over the horizon are Tanya Plibersek’s promised changes to the EPBC Act, guaranteed to further reduce Australia’s attractiveness as an investment destination.

Politicians of all flavours, but particularly Greens and Teals, are openly cheering any anti-human de-growth outcome that slows resource investment; while simultaneously screeching for more taxes, higher targets, and ironically cheaper resources. We find ourselves watching idealist amateurs attempting to appease the United Nations, but only succeeding in eroding wealth and security, and reducing living standards for generations to come. What is required to tip the balance the other way? I don’t believe Musk’s ongoing social media exposé will move the dial far enough – people are too willing to buy into the emissions reduction narrative without testing or even seeking the evidence. Their minds are made up.

Despite the grim scene, I hold out hope that the enormous cost of the renewables paradigm – a cost borne financially and environmentally – will soon become so obvious that politicians will find some courage, constructing policies based on logic, and improving human prosperity. In other words, do their job. It can’t come quick enough.

Ben is an electrical engineer in the power and natural gas sectors.