In terms of excitement and passion, the Big Debate on Tuesday night had to be one of the most important events we’ve ever held.
In terms of timing, too.
Just over four weeks ago, before the US unleashed Epic Stupidity upon the world, you could say this was almost a regular topic.
How could our rules, regulations and codes be improved to accelerate decarbonisation in our buildings and cities?
A pretty run of the mill topic for the built environment, you’d think.
Except it wasn’t.
Scratch the surface, and you’d quickly find a quagmire of discontent, frustration and confusion with the National Construction Code and the other green rating tools that professionals deal with on a daily basis and are supposed to get us to net zero.
“They’re too complicated. Some standards in the NCC contradict other standards – such as window openings that are too small and prevent air circulation.
“The states are going rogue. They’re implementing their own version of Section J that deals with energy efficiency, driving even the best engineers nuts.
Or opting out of better energy efficiency altogether.
While the vision for a harmonised, if not harmonious, regulatory system fades away.
Then there’s the green rating tools: too “tick-a-box”: the option to trade one outcome for another that should not be traded; and not sufficiently aligned to the climate.
Australia lags woefully behind Europe – why?
There’s immense inertia to change for the better in the industry. But why, when other parts of the world seem to be way more nimble and adept?
The UK, for instance, has a carbon budget for buildings. You can’t just knock something down without a lot of justification and evidence that you are not wrecking the joint.
Here’s the UK’s Sixth Carbon Budget for Buildings.
Timing
But since 28 February, when we were plunged into a world of pain – as if we didn’t have enough challenges – all of these questions have acquired sudden new urgency.
The world has overnight realised how dependent on oil we are – and how vulnerable that makes us.
Whatever happens now in the Strait of Hormuz, even if the bombing stops tomorrow, is going to disrupt entire economies globally, from transport and logistics to food security.
And now we’re hearing of massive escalations in the cost of building and construction.
Right now, we need to radically and urgently reduce our appetite for fossil fuels.
We need to amp up renewables and battery storage.
And we know that buildings and cities are at the forefront of decarbonisation.
We know exactly how to do it.
It’s not rocket science.
The brilliant thing is that this industry is ready to do its part!
We’ve withstood governments that tried to deliberately stifle innovation and decarbonisation.
We survived Trump’s inauguration and the federal election last year, which threatened that a change of government would pull Australia out of the Paris Agreement and freeze the NCC.
This industry now has decades of knowledge, innovation and skills to call on.
It’s huge, growing every day.
And it’s way more resilient than ever!
The twists and turns we see every day in the political arena are now like water off a duck’s back. Trump’s tantrums would be boring if they didn’t hurt so many people and further wreck our planet.
Increasingly, it’s clear this industry does not take him seriously.
And neither the rantings of new Nationals Leader Matt Canavan against coal, net zero and the referendum. Though we fully applaud his and fellow conservative Andrew Hastie’s campaign to take down One Nation.
Here’s a spinoff from Niki Savva’s devastating article on Thursday that Pauline Hanson and her number one backer, Gina Rinehart, are now putting America First and not Australia. That puts them in the crosshairs of Canavan and Hastie, which some might think is verging on the treasonous. (They use words like that in times of war, right?)
And especially now, as we decouple from the shackles of the US – willingly or unwillingly – like Europe and much of the rest of the world, we are forced to find new levels of determination to stand on our own feet and build our own resilient, sustainable economy where no one can hold us to ransom over filthy oil and filthy petrol.
Like Daniel Bleakley, for instance
During the week, we saw the inspiring Daniel Bleakley, who’s been featured on these pages, spruik his great electric truck innovations.
See his Muck Rack posts here
That’s one potential answer to the wild dependence we’ve been revealed to have on diesel.
Again, the world knows how to do this – Check out how the noise from China shows it’s ready to roll out renewable clean energy options for the entire planet, if needs be.
Now our national security is at risk
But it’s not just the petrol, the diesel and the fertiliser that’s wanting, it’s that these are adding up to a national security issue.
In a grim turn of events, the war in the Middle East has made energy a defence issue.
Last week, a report by the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group, led by former head of the Australian Defence Force Chris Barrie, said our reliance on oil had become a “national security threat”.
It has consequences for Australia’s sovereignty, economic resilience, disaster readiness and strategic autonomy, the group said.
EV take up was now a matter of national security.
But it’s worse than it looks on the surface.
As Gareth Hutchens at the ABC tells us, these defence heavyweights say Australians are being subjected to a global “disinformation war” about fossil fuels and climate change.
The consequences extend to “Australia’s sovereignty, economic resilience, disaster readiness and strategic autonomy”.
The thing is, this is part of an extremely well funded campaign, thanks to people such as Gina Rinehart, the Koch brothers, Peter Thiel and co, that goes much further and deeper than telling us to stop windfarms because they are harmful to nature.
These people get their sticky fingers into every crevice of thinking in our democracy. They plough squillions into conservative think tanks and then weasel their way into disinformation programs, such as how to solve the housing crisis through abundance and deregulation.
We suspect it’s why there is so much built environment inertia to the kinds of big sustainable shifts that other countries, such as the UK and Scandinavia, find so much easier.
It’s about controlling the narrative.
PVC is allowed in Green Star, we heard on Tuesday night. Carbon offsets are allowed as valid greening. We’re forced to have regulatory impact statements (RIS) on every change to the building code at a cost of $100,000 or so.
The fossil fuelers need to enforce our energy poverty to fund their wealth. They say wind farms destroy nature and kill baby whales – they are very convincing.
The call is simple – let the market rule. We did, actually, and this is the mess it’s given us.
When it comes to AI, do you see where that line of thinking is going?
Back to the generals
Retired Admiral Barrie and his supporters say, “There has been a failure to understand how energy dependence on fossil fuels will cause both economic disruption and more perilous physical conditions for Australians.
“Now the two issues are colliding. We are facing an unprecedented energy crisis [made] worse by the world’s failure to face its fossil fuel addiction.”
The consequences are threats to Australia’s sovereignty, economic resilience, disaster readiness, institutional trust and strategic autonomy.
“If these threats are not checked, accelerating climate change will crash society as we know it.
“This is not speculation — it reflects the warnings of the world’s leading climate scientists.”
So why is it so difficult to act and change the game?
As we said, the built environment knows exactly how to decarbonise our world and make it safe and secure.
What’s stopping us is not the market as it was imagined and created. The market in its pure form is a kind of democracy – majority rule, with weighting for what we value, via prices.
Unfortunately, we don’t have markets. We have a bunch of people standing in the way, working together, highly organised, very well funded, and intent on funding their wealth at our expense.
We’ll bring you highlights of the report soon but the full recording and edited transcripts will be available to ticket holders and TFE members only. Sign up here, from $10 a month