The Right is wrong

In a radio program, Tony Abbott, a former PM of Australia, a prominent member of the right wing of the "Liberal" Party that is in power at present in Australia said:

"Green religion" trumped common sense for the last 15 years.

(Source: The Guardian)

Over the last 15 years, industrial scale solar has fallen 95% in cost. 15 years ago, wind and solar were many times more expensive than fossil fuels. Since 2009, when Abbott started his self-serving anti-renewables crusade, wind has fallen 66% in cost and solar 85% (Lazard).

Source: NOAA

At the same time, the world was 0.34 degrees cooler in 2002 than it is now, using NOAA data. So it was reasonable for people to be cautious about a switch to renewables 15 years ago, or even 7 years ago. But this hardened into dogma on the Right. And dogma is rarely susceptible to facts.

Over the next 15 years, global temperatures kept on rising. And rising. And the costs of renewables kept on falling. And falling. Renewables are now cheaper than new coal here in Australia, and in most places around the world. In another decade or so, the total cost of new wind and solar will be less than the fuel cost of fossil fuel generators everywhere. At that point even fully depreciated (=cheap) coal power stations will be shuttered. Incidentally, that tipping point is closer in Australia with its aging coal generation fleet than it is in many other countries.

It used to be--30 or 40 or 50 years ago--that conservatives were the practical side of politics, pragmatic, facts-based, opposed to subsidies, realistic. It was the Left who were the dreamers, who believed in and reached for a better world. But the Right (here in Oz and in the USA) now has a bizarre religion: coal. Even though coal is more expensive than renewables, even though everyone can see that coal is doomed, they love coal so much they actually favour subsidies for coal mines and coal power stations!

Technology and economics are on the side of the Left. Wind and solar (and increasingly batteries) are cheap and clean. They need no fuel. They won't cause the world to heat up even more. They don't kill people with air pollution, because they don't cause any. The desire for a better world aligns with the new cheap technologies, not with the nostalgic nonsense of the Right.

It's wonderful that facts are on the side of the dreamers, now. And surely very perilous for the Right. For ordinary citizens also want a better world for themselves and their children. And they know that renewables are not just necessary but also superior to the technologies of the past: cleaner, healthier, cheaper, better.  As global temperatures rise, and the consequences of global warming--droughts, floods, hurricanes, sea level rise, killing heat waves--become more and more serious, public opinion will sharply shift.  Those who have spent decades lying about global warming will become outsiders, and right-wing parties will carry an enduring stigma.  Prudent politicians on the Right would be wise to start disowning the denialist fictions and severing their ties with denialist "thinktanks" or they will pay the electoral price.