The Albanese government is more and more making Australia look like a Luddite fool when it comes to nuclear energy and most recently at the COP29 climate beano.
Just what is the point of these annual gabfests? Apart from, that is, giving climate activists and politicians an excuse to fly their private jets to some exotic locale and whoop it up on the taxpayer dime? It surely can’t be lowering greenhouse gas emissions, because those have only risen steadily in the three decades since COP started.
At least this year’s one laid the agenda bare: transferring hundreds of billions of Western wealth to greedy, grasping ‘developing’ nations like China and India. Because nothing says we live in a Clown World more clearly than developing nations with space programs.
On the other hand, nearly everything they do underscores just what a bunch of clowns the Albanese government are. Especially when it comes to nuclear energy. Until we were cursed with Anthony Albanese and Chris “Boofhead” Bowen, Australia was part of the cutting edge in next-generation nuclear technology.
The Albanese government is sabotaging Australia’s longstanding and deep involvement in next-generation nuclear research, just as the world is getting serious about the emissions-free technology.
We have been an active member of the world’s leading small-scale nuclear research group but not, it seems, anymore.
Chris Bowen has effectively said he will pull Australia out of the Generation IV International Forum (GIF) just as it moves from research to deployment phase and our major allies pour billions of dollars into research and development […]
Bowen’s comments on Tuesday make it clear we are getting out of the nuclear business at a time when our major allies are preparing to double down.
And our allies are taking note.
The Albanese government has been forced to defend “outlawing” nuclear energy and faced accusations of being an “international embarrassment” after rejecting an invitation from its AUKUS security pact partners to join a global move to speed up the spread of civilian nuclear energy.
At the COP29 climate change talks in Baku, Energy Minister Chris Bowen rebuffed an appeal from the UK and the US to sign the nuclear agreement, aimed at decarbonising industry from March next year.
The rejection was despite a British government statement that Australia was expected to join along with more than 30 other nations.
When even Ed Miliband is more forward-looking on nuclear energy than the Australian government, we know we’re in deep trouble.
UK Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said his country was “reversing a legacy of no nuclear being delivered and moving forward with its advanced nuclear-reactor program”.
“Nuclear will play a vital role in our clean energy future. That is why we are working closely with our allies to unleash the potential of cutting-edge nuclear technology,” Mr Miliband said.
Later he altered his ministerial statement and dropped all reference to Australia.
Albanese ought to start a new game with his ministers: Are you smarter than Justin Trudeau?
[Opposition leader Peter Dutton] used Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s comment that emissions targets can’t be achieved without nuclear technology, to declare Australia “can’t achieve the outcomes that we want for our economy or for the environment without nuclear power”.
To make it worse, our useless defence minister is trying to pretend that ‘outlawing’ nuclear power won’t apply to nuclear submarines.
Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles says the UK-US civilian nuclear industry deal and the AUKUS submarine pact are “completely separate”.
How can you ban nuclear energy, yet buy submarines powered by nuclear energy? It simply doesn’t make sense.
But, hey, this is a Labor government we’re talking about.
