If there was ever a moment for Australia’s shift to renewables and EVs, this is it |
It’s been three years since the Albanese government received a report by the Office of National Intelligence looking at how the climate crisis is likely to fuel national security threats, but we still don’t know what the report says. It was deemed classified – too sensitive, apparently, for even a redacted version to be made available for public discussion.
Some independent MPs were briefed on it in late 2024 after they raised concerns. Senator David Pocock told the Saturday Paper the report was “frankly terrifying” and that “we’re woefully unprepared for what’s coming”. Beyond that, little is known about its contents other than what can be gleaned from a separate national climate risk assessment that last year warned of potential cascading economic shocks from supply chain disruptions, goods shortages and failing energy systems.
That’s hard for many people to get their heads around, but there is a taste of it in the real-time fallout from the illegal air war in the Middle East, launched on a shifting and often incoherent rationale.
The first focus in any discussion about war should be on the human cost, as people across a list of countries are killed and maimed. That impact is devastating and ongoing.
But a significant secondary issue is that this is not a great time in history to be dependent on the global fossil fuel trade. And that, more than ever, going big on renewable energy makes sense, financially and from a national security perspective.
Oil prices are jumping around in correlation with Donald Trump’s latest remarks, and what happens next is uncertain. But the cost of petroleum fuels is significantly higher than before bombs started falling and the strait of Hormuz – a gateway for about a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil and liquified natural gas supply – was........