It is bullshit. Former Snowy Hydro boss Paul Broad is far from alone in his expert, if refreshingly colloquial, view that Australia’s farcical state, federal and corporate greenhouse gas emissions targets are simply unattainable – and never were. And now, the head of the world’s second-biggest miner, Rio Tinto, says his company’s scope 1 and 2 emissions targets were a mistake – and he won’t join rivals BHP, Vale, Glencore and Fortescue (with its ambitious net zero by 2040) in pretending he can set achievable targets for the scope 3 emissions of Rio’s overseas customers, over which Rio has no control. He likens such scope 3 targets to greenwashing.

Even some stock-market tipster sheets are confidently promoting a surge in demand for fossil fuels, ie. coal, oil and gas, as the growing recognition that politically correct emissions targets cannot be achieved, will provide soaring share prices as the current green virtue-signalling by banks and investment managers of superannuation funds, is replaced by the pragmatism of market forces – and the national need for reliable energy.

In regretting having set his company’s emissions reduction targets of 15 per cent by 2025 and 50 per cent by 2030, Rio’s CEO, Jacob Stausholm, warned that it would take ‘hard choices’ to meet them as it is now clear that ‘decarbonising at scale is a lengthy process’. This follows his Davos warning earlier this year that governments and corporate executives were ‘fooling ourselves’ on how long the process of de-carbonising would take. He followed up last week in Perth with the view that, ‘People still do not understand how much work was required to meet these goals…. You have to be realistic on what it takes.’ And added that for solar power, ‘I don’t think people have realised the amount of land that is necessary.’

Paul Broad, former-CEO of Snowy Hydro 2.0, the chaotic, massively delayed (planned for 2021 and may be ready by 2029) and hugely over-run costs (from an estimated $2 billion to the current $20 billion including transmission and still rising; economically it will never pay for itself),  says Labor’s ‘unrealistic’ renewable energy plans would ‘risk the lights going out…. The notion that you’re going to have 80 per cent renewables in our system by 2030 is, to use the vernacular, bullshit. This transition, if it ever occurs, it will take 80 years, not eight. There are massive changes that need to occur’.

On top of all this, the former Snowy Hydro boss warned that more than $10 billion in electricity transmission projects were unlikely to be built on time, threatening the transition from coal generation to renewables. ‘Not enough would be in place by 2030 to allow Australia to reach its target of tripling the current level of renewables by the end of the decade.’ So coal will be needed: ‘You can’t close Eraring and Vales Point; closing Liddell was bad enough…. And we need more gas.’

But will we be able to get enough coal and enough gas?

Labor governments, state and federal, face a dilemma at a time when their priority is gaining popular support for the Indigenous Voice to parliament. Do they approve contested gas and coal developments on economic grounds or oppose them in support of Aboriginal objectors who in many cases appear to have been manipulated by climate activists into drawn-out costly lawfare that is aimed more at meeting activists’ zero emissions agendas than bringing the benefits of income, jobs and prospects to remote areas?

After years of toing and froing, two multi-billion gas developments with governmental approval still face uncertainty. This month’s announcement by the Northern Territory government that it would approve fracking in the massive Beetaloo basin, has generated strong opposition that will inevitably lead to further delays on top of the five years between the Territory accepting fracking in principle and doing so in practice. The federal Department of Industry, Science and Resources says Beetaloo ‘has the potential to rival the world’s biggest and best gas resources’ and provide gas for the next 20 to 40 years.

But in an open letter to the Territory government, almost 100 scientists have urged it to abandon its fracking plans for Beetaloo, warning of ‘the damage it will inflict on our climate’, with one claiming the rise in emissions will intensify bushfire seasons and floods and accelerate the death of coral reefs.

Significantly, in the context of prospective lawfare, the scientists assert that fracking poses risks to Aboriginal people and their culture ‘at an unacceptable level’.

The other major gas project on hold is the Santos’ $US 3.6 billion Barossa offshore development 130 kilometres north of the Tiwi Islands, some of whose traditional owners demonstrated successfully in the Federal Court that they had not been satisfactorily consulted as required by law when Santos dealt directly with the Tiwi Land Council.

Now that Santos is taking action to meet this requirement (even with nationwide newspaper advertisements) there is still no certainty that drilling, which was suspended by last September’s legal action, will resume so that Santos can meet its commitment to deliver gas by the first half of 2025 to its Japanese and Korean partners, both of which are increasingly concerned about energy security. With the personal assurance from Prime Minister Albanese to the Japanese Prime Minister late last year that Australia would remain ‘a steady and reliable supplier’ of energy to Japan, the Albanese undertaking will be tested against his support for indigenous rights if further traditional owner legal action causes more delays.

One traditional owner has made clear his continuing opposition: ‘We have fought to protect our sea country from the beginning to the end and we will never stop fighting. Our sea is like our mother – we are part of the sea and the sea is part of us.’

And other traditional owners, who had lodged human rights claims against the group of banks, including ANZ, Westpac and NAB, involved in a $1.5 billion loan to the project, have followed it up by targeting superannuation funds for ‘failing to meet international human rights standards [by] investing in the companies’ as the project breaches ‘the economic, social and cultural rights of the Impacted Tiwi communities’, with a spokesman adding, ‘We do not want Santos to build a pipeline or to drill off the coast here… and we want the super funds to hear us and act.’

This combination of the pursuit of unachievable emissions targets and the unrestrained use of lawfare against major fossil fuel projects (even before the Voice provides an added weapon) means that Australia’s much-needed $20.5 billion coal and gas-led improvement over the past six months in the budget bottom line is unlikely to be repeated.