Essay by Eric Worrall

“… Even though we might be seeing record high prices at the moment, and therefore record high revenue for governments, the overall trend is going to be downwards. …”

The fingerprints of climate change are all over a budget navigating an economy in transition 

By climate reporter Jess Davis and climate lead Tim Leslie
Posted Sat 18 May 2024 at 5:35am

…

Modelling of natural disasters in different climate scenarios could see government spending increase exponentially.

…

Preparing for the end of the fossil fuel era 

While it’s full of figures and tables, the budget also is an opportunity for the government to draw attention to things it thinks are important. And this year it highlighted an unexpected boon from record fossil fuel profits. 

“Strong corporate profits, including from iron ore and coal prices in late 2023 and the very early part of 2024 exceeding those assumed in MYEFO and robust demand, contribute to an upgraded company tax outlook,” the papers say.

But it is also warning that we can’t keep relying on these profits in the future.

“Australia’s exports will be increasingly comprised of low carbon products. Over 97 per cent of Australia’s trading partners have set net zero targets,” the papers say.

Grattan Institute Energy and Climate Deputy Director Alison Reeve says Australia needs to be ready for this drop.

“As the world commits to net zero and coal, oil and gas start to decline, there should be less tax revenue coming into the government as well and that also has an effect on the budget,” she said.

…

Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-18/federal-budget-2024-climate-hange-impacts/103847322

This in my opinion is a prime example of the fantasy world climate believers live in.

The end of fossil fuel is a fiction. The only downward pressure on fossil fuel use in Western nations is regulatory lunacy and the ongoing export of our manufacturing industry to other nations.

That fossil fuel powered manufacturing is still happening, and we are very much still using the products of a coal based economy, but because the coal and gas burning is happening in other countries, greens frantically pretend we are somehow disconnecting our economies from burning carbon based fuels.

The only question is, what will our descendants do when the coal runs out? Because it is inevitable we will burn or otherwise use every scrap of recoverable fossil fuel on the planet.

There is no chance politicians will leave fossil fuel in the ground. Even the greenest politicians ditch their alleged principles when they strike a rich source of fossil fuel. As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau once said, “No Country Would Find 173 Billion Barrels Of Oil In The Ground And Just Leave Them”

Let us hope when fossil fuel finally runs out, many centuries from now, our descendants have figured out nuclear fusion, because the next best source of carbon after we run out of coal is either limestone or mining the ocean for its CO2 content, and doing either would take a lot of energy.