Australia is facing the extreme risk of dangerous concentrations of high pressure and hot air this summer. There is also a strong likelihood of heatwaves.
The return of the performatively anti-climate Donald Trump will see the world’s biggest per capita carbon polluter pull out of global targets, emboldening energy incumbents and their mouthpieces to amp up their attacks on renewables.
Whether this marks a reopening of the sclerotic carbon wars or simply a late-stage raging against the dimming of the fossil-fuelled light will depend largely on how those of us who are committed to the energy transition choose to respond.
This week’s Guardian Essential Report, backed by qualitative work we have undertaken for some of our climate-committed partners, provides a roadmap for how we might navigate this new, though totally foreseeable challenge.
The first step is to be clear about where we are. Australia is on track to hit its first target of 43% renewable energy by 2030, building on that by 2035 with a yet-to-be-announced increase and full net zero slated for 2050. The critical point is that the journey has (finally) begun.
Shifting from talk to action is not something the Albanese government has received much credit for; but more large-scale renewable projects are being approved; more homes are now solar-powered, the decentralised grid is rolling out and more electric vehicles are on the road.
Yes, there are points of friction; around the impact of coalmines closing, the extent to which gas is required to level out demand as battery technology is refined and the impact of renewable developments on nature.
But in terms of tangible progress in its first term in office, the renewable rollout is real and something the majority of Australians want to see continue regardless of what a Trump administration chooses to do. Indeed, this emerges as a general response to the second coming.
That’s where we sit on the eve of another summer where lived experience will provide us with real-time feedback loops into the challenges this energy transition seeks to address.
Meteorologists (or weather pollsters as I like to think of them) are predicting this year will not be as dramatic as recent summers; not the fires of 2020 or floods of 2022, more an incessant, muggy heat that builds on trends that have seen eight of the nine hottest summers on record occurring since 2012.
While I have no more access to a crystal ball than the team at the Bureau of Meteorology, it’s easy to see the following scenario unfolding and dominating the summer media.
A string of extremely hot days drives people indoors, particularly those living in poorly designed homes. As more people switch on the AC, pressure is placed on the network.
As it gets hotter, a privatised energy network that has been under-maintained feels the stress, and blackouts and brownouts begin, placing further pressure on homes without independent energy supply. Vulnerable people suffer, food goes off in the fridge, some people die.
A flurry of headlines about “the failure of the grid” is attributed to the overreliance on renewables. Cue the nuclear industry to position itself as the natural solution and the opposition weighs in, gleefully amplified by a guileless summer media second XI.
Left to their own devices the forces of the incumbent energy sector and political right will fashion themselves an Overton window very aligned with Trump’s global story that this is all woke nonsense designed by a deep global state.
A second table shows there is a ready audience for these types of scares, with those attributing heat to the climate crisis pretty evenly split with those ready to wish global heating away.
But there’s an alternate storyline that fits the same scenario: the summer heat will shine a light on an unfair energy system that, despite massive profits, is failing to meet its obligations to serve the nation in a time of crisis.
As the summer heat sets in, discomfort will not be shared evenly. Those reliant on air conditioners fed from the incumbent grid will face higher energy bills, as demand increases and expensive gas is brought on, deploying the sort of surge pricing that would put Taylor Swift’s ticketing to shame.
Here the Overton window seems very different, a moment for the government to recognise the value in making rooftop solar a universal right not a gilded refuge reserved for those who can afford to pay upfront.
In this discussion we don’t even need to dwell on whether heat is related to climate change, because this is (no pun) baked into the lived experience of those experiencing it. Every night’s weather report reinforces this reality without having to pick fights with an uncle over Christmas.
In this world, the Coalition’s demand to stall the development of renewables and follow the nuclear dream is not a viable solution to the pain we will be feeling but a cynical play to embed this power inequity.
A final table shows people are ready to embrace this argument, with high levels of concern around both price-gouging and the safety of those most vulnerable.
Worth noting here the age splits, where the anti-corporate lines resonate most strongly among older respondents, who for once aren’t cleaved from younger generations through the unproductive climate binaries.
When the heat is on, the onus should be on the Coalition to justify its support for an energy industry that is using every play in the book to maximise profits in a time of climate crisis.
It should also be on the Coalition to explain why they don’t support measures to ensure their newly discovered battlers have access to rooftop solar so they don’t lock themselves into this cycle of distributed inequality.
As for the government, rather than allowing itself to be dragged into the moralising identity politics of action versus denial, summer heatwaves would open the door for serious discussion about making the energy transition work for everyone.
One thing is certain: if we spend the summer debating climate science we will get all hot and bothered and end up back where we started. If we instead shift focus to the lack of fairness in the current system we might find something we agree on that could really spark a power transition.
