Australia’s ongoing addiction to fossil fuel exports is undermining the “enormous” success of the renewable energy transition and threatening national security, one of the nation’s top military experts has warned.
In a keynote address to the Clean Energy Summit in Sydney on Tuesday, the former chief of Australian Defence Force, retired Admiral Chris Barrie AC said the renewables industry had achieved “something extraordinary” getting the national electricity grid to an average share of 50 per cent renewables.
But Admiral Barrie, who since retiring from the military has turned his attention to the global fight against climate change, says Australia’s success with wind, solar and battery storage is only half of the battle.
“The renewable energy industry has achieved something extraordinary with a historic transformation of the electricity system, but it is also a fact that every new fossil fuel project and every expansion in exports cancels out part of the progress being delivered by the clean energy industry.”
Federal Labor, which has set an interim emissions reduction target of between 62% and 70% below 2005 levels by 2035 and a renewable energy target of 82 per cent by 2030, has also approved 36 new, expanded or extended coal, oil and gas developments since coming to power in 2022.
