There’s a whole lot of hypocrisy a workin’ man shouldn’t have to put up with, but finger-wagging ‘carbon emissions’ lectures from a mining billionaire surely is one of the worst. This is a guy, after all, owes his entire fortune to carbon emissions, and to the single biggest carbon emitter in the world, China. So you’ll forgive me if I take his ‘green’ posturing with a Siberian dose of salt.
Especially when he keeps trying to put his hand in my pocket.
Andrew Forrest-led Fortescue has quietly slashed references to hydrogen in its latest plan to eliminate carbon emissions from the company’s iron ore mining operations after a string of setbacks with its green energy ambitions.
Not least being the sudden dearth of other people’s money.
In a significant setback for Australia’s green hydrogen ambitions, the Queensland government has rescinded its support for the Central Queensland Hydrogen Project (CQ-H2), which was slated to become the nation’s largest hydrogen production facility. The project, centered in the strategic Port of Gladstone, has faced abrupt cancellation following the government’s decision to deny a critical $1 billion funding request from Stanwell Corporation.
Stanwell, it should be noted, is a Queensland government-owned corporation. Still, climate hucksters can always rely on another gawping rube in a government somewhere to cluelessly keep forking out taxpayer’s money.
Despite the setback at the state level, the project had secured federal support, with potential access to a slice of a AUD $4 billion federal funding program. Federal Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen expressed disappointment at the state's decision, highlighting its potential impact on national energy and climate goals.
Of course Boofhead would say that.
Meanwhile, for all his posturing and pontificating, Forrest is still pumping out those evil carbon emissions just as fast as he can say ‘yuan’.
Fortescue’s direct carbon emissions from mining increased to 2.64 million tonnes in 2024-25, up by almost 300,000 tonnes on the previous 12 months, and it remains one of Australia’s biggest emitters.
That’s direct emissions. Using the same logic the Climate Cultists do to blacken Australia’s name, by attributing emissions generated overseas using Australian raw products (such as cement or iron ore), Forrest has his hands dirty from ‘destroying the planet’ at a rate of knots: China, his paymaster, is the world’s single biggest carbon emitter. In 2019 alone, China belched out 2.33 gigatons of CO₂ from steel production. Given Australia supplies 64 per cent of China’s iron ore, and Forrest’s Fortescue Metals Group accounts for around one quarter of that, that would put his indirect emissions at around 598 million tonnes.
So spare us the climate lectures, Carbon Boy.
And stop fishing for our money.
