Speaking of businesses being surprised that the crocodile ate them, in Australia energy producers are shocked, shocked to find that natural gas is going to be phased out in an effort to get rid of carbon-based fuels. What did they expect? Even if it was just that they’d be the last to get killed, objects in calendar are closer than they appear and if we’re all going to reach “Net Zero” by 2050, well, it’s barely 25 years away now so pass the shroud. Or the cooking pot.

What’s at stake here is a “green-ratings system” that would affect capital investment, as all the governments around the world that learned central planning doesn’t work rush to implement it anyway. But as the Australian noted, it’s a bit strange that:

“Labor’s proposed green-ratings system would reject gas as a sustainable investment under its draft framework, despite the [PM Anthony] Albanese government declaring the energy source was “key” to its ambitious renewables rollout and pursuit of net zero by 2050. Under the proposed ratings rules, institutional investors looking to improve the sustainability rating of their portfolios would likely be turned away from pouring capital into the gas sector.”

As to why they’d give a hoot about the “sustainability rating of their portfolios” as opposed to their “profitability”, well, we’re all socially responsible arms of the state now or something. And so some weird thing called the Australian Sustainable Finance Institute has been asked by Treasurer Jim Chalmers to create:

“a green ratings system to ‘help drive capital into activities that will decarbonise the economy at the speed and scale required to reach our global climate goals’”.

Good luck with that, mate. It’s quite likely to drive capital out of activities that will power the economy, but unlikely to identify a sufficiently green alternative that earns any money for investors. So capital will exit Australia although Australians may not see it go because the lights will have gone out.

The report, indeed, says “Gas firming has an uncertain role in the 2050 economy.” And the use of incomprehensible jargon is always a warning sign, with “firming” here meaning turning on when you need it as a backup to wind and solar that produce too little power, produce it at the wrong time of day, or both. But what really is uncertain is the 2050 economy.

The more you read the less you believe:

“The federal government’s Future Gas Strategy backed gas as an energy source beyond 2050 to assist the rollout of renewables, while [the] energy market operator’s latest report forecast electricity generation from gas would be higher in 2050 than it is now. The taxonomy draft did not include nuclear as the energy source is not legal in Australia. Carbon-capture and storage was left out ‘due to the low technological readiness level’, but green hydrogen was included in a contradiction that ‘gobsmacked’ senior figures in the energy sector.”

If so they have only themselves to blame because energy policy is in the hands of people who do not understand energy. Including that bit about the Australian prohibition on nuclear power, the one reliable on-demand low-carbon power source (though support for it is growing there and is now over 50%). Indeed it really is a chickens-for-KFC story because, for instance, the story says:

“The Australian understands the Business Council of Australia – which had a representative on the taxonomy advisory panel – was pushing for gas to be included as a ‘transition’ asset in the draft framework.”

So someone from the Business Council thought being in there helping plan the menu would keep them off it, except for the part where they agree to be served as the main course:

“Business Council of Australia chief executive Bran Black said gas was a ‘transition fuel that helps us get to net zero by 2050’.”

Which any fool can see, or should be able to see, means no natural gas by 2050 as it is CH4 and the C is for carbon. So what barnyard fowl endorses all nuggets all the time and is surprised to be promptly battered and fried?

Quite a few, oddly. You’d think people smart enough to run large complex companies could figure out how to explain that “the science” everyone claims to follow has never supported the Net Zero agenda, but somehow that approach is regarded as too controversial whereas saying please destroy us by 2050 is the path of wisdom or at least low cunning. And if companies are a bit clueless about energy policy, one could say the same of many voters. There really is a gathering backlash against policies that increase the cost and decrease the reliability of energy, but still a lot of voting for politicians who do it. Including in Australia where in 2022 voters turfed the incumbent Liberal/National coalition for a Labor party that ran on a Net-Zero promise and on getting elected turned out to really mean it.

Maybe people didn’t think they meant what they said. Or maybe it’s that nearly all politicians claim to believe in a climate crisis, so it seems reasonable to vote on other issues. But whatever the cause, in the UK Labour just won a landslide although, Gordon Hughes warns in The Telegraph, “The true cost of Labour’s net zero plans is slowly being revealed – and the sums are staggering/ Electricity bills would have to double by 2030 to achieve Labour’s goal of decarbonising our grid”. Oh dear, right? And it gets worse:

“Sir Keir Starmer has promised that a new Labour government would decarbonise the UK’s electricity system by 2030 and would, at the same time, reduce average energy bills by up to £300 or roughly 20 per cent of their current level. We know that senior politicians and lawyers see visions that are not granted to mere mortals. But is there any connection between this vision and reality?”

Well, no. As in Australia, where Labour in the latest election, in 2022, won 77 seats out of 151 in the House and the Greens three. And now:

“The number of people struggling to pay electricity bills jumped 18 per cent between 2022 and 2023, the competition regulator found, underscoring the cost-of living crisis that has sapped support for the government. The Australian Consumer & Competition Commission said that as of September 30, 2023, 273,337 households were struggling to pay their electricity and either receiving concessions, on payment plans or both. This was a rise of 43,000 from the same period one year earlier, the ACCC said.”

Admittedly there are some 9 million households in Australia so it’s not even three percent… yet. But it’s rising fast.

Now there are people, we presume, who draw appropriate conclusions when they read headlines like “Productivity dives amid grim news on future taxes”, on the email teaser to a story that:

“Workers will be forced to shoulder the burden of fiscal repair via $300bn in higher income taxes in a decade, amid warnings that future governments will not be able to deliver tax relief without condemning the country to deeper deficits. The finding from the independent parliamentary budget watchdog comes as a new report shows productivity growth stagnated in the first three months of the year, increasing the likelihood rising wages will put upward pressure on inflation.”

And what seems to be the problem? Well, as in Canada, ever-more regulations and taxes are mysteriously causing productivity to falter. Oh, and the government is making energy expensive and unreliable while dumping subsidies into the stuff that doesn’t work and also trying to alleviate high energy bills with other subsidies that um come from tax revenue from the people whose energy bills are so high. Or to put it another way:

“the Parliamentary Budget Office in a new report found the country remained on a fiscally sustainable long-term path, but this relied ­almost entirely on workers ­handing over a bigger share of their pay through rising average tax rates – or bracket creep – every year to 2035.”

And in this unpleasant real new world, Australia is already running short of gas without running long of wind and solar. Stand by for hand-wringing stories about the mysterious rise of “far right” populism down under in the next few years.