Post by NFA on Mar 2, 2024 7:28:10 GMT 8
Vikki Campion: The complex business of making sure green pays
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Billionaires are demanding Australians refuse cheaper, reliable, emission-free nuclear power, which just so happens to threaten their latest respective vested interests.
For all the political adoration of rich-listers Mike Cannon-Brookes and Andrew Forrest, climate warriors in the mainstream media and across both houses of parliament were remarkably quiet about a report released on Wednesday which reveals how much companies associated with their favourite patron saint billionaires emit into the atmosphere.
If you genuinely believed that you could change the temperature of the globe based on the amount of carbon dioxide emitted in Australia alone, as some climate warrior politicians do, then surely it would be worth a speech or two.
Mr Cannon-Brookes, who appears not to be a fan of nuclear energy and lauds intermittently operable wind and solar factories, owns 11.3 per cent of AGL, which topped the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting list for 2022-23 with the most direct emissions of any polluter. It emitted 34.6 million tonnes of greenhouse gases and was Australia’s biggest energy consumer, taking 305 million GJ from the grid.
If AGL’s long-term aim is to reduce its emissions, the plan has a bit to go.
Mr Forrest derided nuclear at the Press Club on Monday and then spent Wednesday lobbying politicians and posing for some selfies.
He was inside parliament when the Corporate Emissions and Energy Data report came out, and nobody thought to ask him about how he could pooh-pooh nuclear while Fortescue Metals, of which he is executive chairman, is emitting more CO2 than Australian coal companies Whitehaven, Newcrest, Adani, Peabody, Idemitsu and coal freighter Aurizon.
If it is the crisis of our lifetime, why aren’t these guardian angels doing more to solve it?
No one has a problem with businesses being successful. The issue is the lecture they give us.
Like the chain-smoker lobbying on behalf of asthmatics everywhere, businessmen are advocating for what the heavily polluting companies they’re associated with don’t do.
Billionaires aren’t billionaires because they have lived a life making only good environmental decisions; they have lived a life making good financial decisions.
Otherwise, Nimbin would be the billionaire capital of Australia.
Forrest’s Fortescue Metals generated 1.9 million tonnes of CO2 directly and more than half a million indirectly; that’s nearly four times as much as a company associated with Labor’s favourite donor, Anthony Pratt, whose Pratt Consolidated Holdings emitted 691,052 tonnes of greenhouse gases.
Fortescue dwarfed the contribution of Albo’s personal favourite billionaire Lindsay Fox, who takes him on private helicopter flights and to parties at his seaside compound. Linfox put 194,742 tonnes into the atmosphere and consumed 2.9 million GJ.
It’s the hypocritical addendum to the logical issue that a successful business has to make money, but why can’t we be straight? If a business is going to make money, it is likely to emit carbon directly or indirectly.
If they genuinely want zero emissions, these companies will make zero money and pay zero tax, which is a bad outcome for all of us.
The company run by the Nationals’ favourite billionaire and Australia’s biggest taxpayer, Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting, emitted 716,474 tonnes, but she has thrown her weight behind nuclear energy as a significant consumer.
For all the talk about these wonderful electric vehicles taxpayers are subsidising to save the world, transport emissions over 2022-23 increased by 14.5 per cent due to “domestic aviation”.
While Qantas was busy moralising over the Yes campaign and publicly supporting the Paris Climate Agreement, their contribution to emissions was soaring above even Shell and Yancoal.
And for all the wildlife habitat we have destroyed to build wind factories and the prime agricultural land sold off for solar panels, energy emissions decreased by just 4.1 million tonnes to 307 million, worth about an eighth of AGL’s emissions.
It is widely known in business circles that nuclear energy will undermine the business case of renewables – and as all good businessmen know, they don’t want to find themselves heavily invested in the wrong horse in this race.
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Billionaires are demanding Australians refuse cheaper, reliable, emission-free nuclear power, which just so happens to threaten their latest respective vested interests.
For all the political adoration of rich-listers Mike Cannon-Brookes and Andrew Forrest, climate warriors in the mainstream media and across both houses of parliament were remarkably quiet about a report released on Wednesday which reveals how much companies associated with their favourite patron saint billionaires emit into the atmosphere.
If you genuinely believed that you could change the temperature of the globe based on the amount of carbon dioxide emitted in Australia alone, as some climate warrior politicians do, then surely it would be worth a speech or two.
Mr Cannon-Brookes, who appears not to be a fan of nuclear energy and lauds intermittently operable wind and solar factories, owns 11.3 per cent of AGL, which topped the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting list for 2022-23 with the most direct emissions of any polluter. It emitted 34.6 million tonnes of greenhouse gases and was Australia’s biggest energy consumer, taking 305 million GJ from the grid.
If AGL’s long-term aim is to reduce its emissions, the plan has a bit to go.
Mr Forrest derided nuclear at the Press Club on Monday and then spent Wednesday lobbying politicians and posing for some selfies.
He was inside parliament when the Corporate Emissions and Energy Data report came out, and nobody thought to ask him about how he could pooh-pooh nuclear while Fortescue Metals, of which he is executive chairman, is emitting more CO2 than Australian coal companies Whitehaven, Newcrest, Adani, Peabody, Idemitsu and coal freighter Aurizon.
If it is the crisis of our lifetime, why aren’t these guardian angels doing more to solve it?
No one has a problem with businesses being successful. The issue is the lecture they give us.
Like the chain-smoker lobbying on behalf of asthmatics everywhere, businessmen are advocating for what the heavily polluting companies they’re associated with don’t do.
Billionaires aren’t billionaires because they have lived a life making only good environmental decisions; they have lived a life making good financial decisions.
Otherwise, Nimbin would be the billionaire capital of Australia.
Forrest’s Fortescue Metals generated 1.9 million tonnes of CO2 directly and more than half a million indirectly; that’s nearly four times as much as a company associated with Labor’s favourite donor, Anthony Pratt, whose Pratt Consolidated Holdings emitted 691,052 tonnes of greenhouse gases.
Fortescue dwarfed the contribution of Albo’s personal favourite billionaire Lindsay Fox, who takes him on private helicopter flights and to parties at his seaside compound. Linfox put 194,742 tonnes into the atmosphere and consumed 2.9 million GJ.
It’s the hypocritical addendum to the logical issue that a successful business has to make money, but why can’t we be straight? If a business is going to make money, it is likely to emit carbon directly or indirectly.
If they genuinely want zero emissions, these companies will make zero money and pay zero tax, which is a bad outcome for all of us.
The company run by the Nationals’ favourite billionaire and Australia’s biggest taxpayer, Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting, emitted 716,474 tonnes, but she has thrown her weight behind nuclear energy as a significant consumer.
For all the talk about these wonderful electric vehicles taxpayers are subsidising to save the world, transport emissions over 2022-23 increased by 14.5 per cent due to “domestic aviation”.
While Qantas was busy moralising over the Yes campaign and publicly supporting the Paris Climate Agreement, their contribution to emissions was soaring above even Shell and Yancoal.
And for all the wildlife habitat we have destroyed to build wind factories and the prime agricultural land sold off for solar panels, energy emissions decreased by just 4.1 million tonnes to 307 million, worth about an eighth of AGL’s emissions.
It is widely known in business circles that nuclear energy will undermine the business case of renewables – and as all good businessmen know, they don’t want to find themselves heavily invested in the wrong horse in this race.