Renewable energy adoption around the world is playing an important part in the struggle to reduce the carbon emissions which are driving increasingly frequent disasters like weather extremes and bushfires.
Progress on renewable energy in Australia has been significant. More than one in three Australian households (around four million) have rooftop solar and thousands of households have bought home batteries. Renewables now power over 44% of the electricity grid. As the independent Climate Council has pointed out, clean energy is outperforming coal, electric vehicles are on the rise and the economics of renewables stack up and are what most Australians want.
While more can be done to extend our use of renewables and household and industrial-scale batteries, there are other steps that must be taken. The most difficult thing – and something that is essential – is the phasing out of fossil fuels. As the Climate Council points out, if the phasing out of coal, oil and gas was simple, it would have already been done.
Fossil fuels, it says, are held in place by a web of influence which includes existing contracts locking in decades of fossil fuel production, laws that were not designed to consider climate change, the economic benefit gained from exporting fossil fuels and Australia’s trading partners (many of whom have long-term contracts) relying on those exports. While these web strands are certainly very powerful, there are individuals and groups working for change.
This has been an uphill battle where those benefitting from fossil fuel extraction and its enormous profits are experts at pushing back and influencing governments. In a recent example of this, gas proponents called for more exploration following the Iran War fuel shock. And that convinced the gullible NSW Premier to open up exploration for gas in the far west of the state.
Important in combatting these fossil fuel proponents is providing information to the community about what needs to be done and urging for the tightening of development laws. Increasing pressure on governments to make the necessary changes will ensure they cannot ignore the climate issues.
- Leonie Blain
Published in the Voices for the Earth column in The Clarence Valley Independent 10th July, 2026 under the title: "Progress on Climate".
