Like so many individuals world wide, I’m experiencing a way of horror on the escalating violence in Iran and the Center East. Greenpeace has known as for all events to instantly halt additional army motion, for worldwide legislation to be totally upheld, and for a return to diplomacy to cease the struggling of civilians. The folks of Iran, and all folks, in every single place, have the inalienable proper to stay freed from violence, concern and coercion. As people we grieve for lives misplaced, and for all those that undergo.
However whereas numerous folks expertise the results of this newest mass violence, some pursuits will little doubt try to learn from the disaster. We are able to count on that fossil gas firms and lobbyists will cynically use the closure of the Strait of Hormuz-a main transport route for oil and gas-to propagandise for elevated fossil gas manufacturing.
The sensible actuality is {that a} nation as wealthy in renewable sources of power as Australia shouldn’t be hostage to the worldwide fossil gas commerce. The pursuit of fossil fuels–coal, oil and gasoline–have been the supply of huge scale battle, violence and geopolitical volatility for much too lengthy. This may solely speed up because the local weather disaster–itself pushed primarily by fossil gas extraction and burning–continues to place higher stress on pure and social methods.
The reality is that the one absolute approach to supply true power safety for the world is to part out fossil fuels quickly and intentionally, at emergency velocity and scale, and to speed up the shift to fashionable, renewable power.
It’s within the strategic curiosity of all international locations, together with Australia, to unhook from unstable sources of power. So long as our world runs on oil and gasoline, our peace, safety and our pockets will at all times be on the mercy of geopolitics. As Professor Hussein Dia argued in The Dialog yesterday, this newest warfare within the Center East reveals why quitting oil is extra necessary than ever.
These occasions are one other jarring reminder that Australia doesn’t want extra fossil gas funding–we’d like much less.
Domestically managed renewables are one of the best ways to handle the structural vulnerability on the coronary heart of this recurring disaster. In the end, our freedom and safety, prosperity and sustainability, are all finest served by shifting from fossil fuels to renewable power.
Dependence on fossil fuels makes all of us hostage to geopolitics and the whims of tyrants.
