Near 60 per cent jump in price of offshore wind in the UK a cautionary tale for Chris Bowen and his unprecedented new renewables remit

Sky News AU

2 hours ago

UN climate chief Simon Stiell has warned that megaâ€'droughts could one day make fresh fruit and vegetables a 'onceâ€'aâ€'year treat' in Australia, alongside a forecasted $6.8 trillion GDP loss by 2050 unless emissions targets are dramatically ramped up.
It would be funny if it weren't being parroted so earnestly.
An unelected Grenadian bureaucrat, clocking up air miles on long-haul jets, presuming to tell Australian taxpayers what their priorities should be, as though it's his divine right.
Another climate hypocrite in the conga line of green evangelists, shrieking about catastrophe while living comfortably above the sacrifices they demand of everyone else.
Next month, the Albanese government is expected to lock in its 2035 emissions target once the Climate Change Authority, chaired by former NSW Liberal premier Matt Kean, hands down its advice.
The figure will likely fall between 65 and 75 per cent cuts compared to 2005 levels, dwarfing the already ambitious 43 per cent reduction due by 2030.
This is less a public mandate than a frantic bid to impress international delegates ahead of Australia's COP31 hosting bid.
Yet no one seems to have asked Australians whether bankrupting their country for climate kudos is a good idea.
Or if they're prepared to see food and energy become luxuries in the name of 'ambition'.
Meanwhile, households and businesses are already paying for this grand experiment.
Between 2023 and midâ€'2025, energy bills have soared around 40 per cent nationwide.
From July, default market offers climbed up to 10 per cent across NSW, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia; slugging families with an extra $280 a year.
That's hardly pocket change for people who already turn the heating off to keep costs down.
Small businesses are on life support.
A family-run grocer in Wagga Wagga expects a $24,000 annual hike despite rooftop solar.
Across the country, policy shifts have added roughly $4 billion to energy costs, squeezing margins, fuelling inflation and driving up food prices.
Electricity costs rose 8.1 per cent in the past year alone, feeding directly into the 4.3 per cent spike in grocery bills and 4.5 per cent rent increases.
The same policymakers who promise to save the planet are making it harder for ordinary people to afford dinner.
And here's the kicker: Australia is one of the most resource-rich nations on earth.
It has the largest coal deposits in the world, vast gas reserves, uranium for nuclear energy and critical minerals that the green transition itself depends on.
Yet these assets are increasingly politically off-limits.
Billions are poured into renewables while the grid can't cope with intermittent supply, new transmission lines face fierce local opposition, and large-scale storage remains a fantasy.
The government wants 82 per cent renewables by 2030, yet warns of looming blackouts.
The numbers don't add up, but the ideology marches on.
Simon Stiell's sermon about fruit scarcity and GDP losses comes with theatrical hand-waving but little mention of the obvious: China, which builds coal-fired plants with impunity, emits more in a fortnight than Australia does all year and faces no comparable scolding.
If Australia disappeared tomorrow, global emissions would barely flinch.
Yet our leaders are desperate for pats on the back from unelected bureaucrats, ready to sacrifice competitiveness and affordability for a headline moment on the world stage.
We've reached a point where even questioning the policy orthodoxy (what the UN frames as ambition) is treated as blasphemy.
If you ask why the West should commit economic self-harm while other nations refuse to play ball, you're a denier.
Nigel Farage found his bank account closed in part for being climate-sceptical.
A climate priesthood is emerging, intolerant of dissent, allergic to scrutiny, and intoxicated by its own rhetoric.
Britain's experience should be a cautionary tale.
Successive governments have thrown billions at offshore wind, locking consumers into spiralling costs.
The latest strike prices in Contracts for Difference auctions are around £60 per megawatt hour, nearly 60 per cent higher than two years ago.
With wholesale electricity averaging £70–75/MWh, taxpayers are effectively underwriting inflated returns for developers while grid bottlenecks and storage delays mean intermittency remains unsolved.
The supposed 'cheap wind revolution' has never materialised on consumer bills.
Instead, households face higher costs and dwindling energy security- all for climate milestones that look impressive on a spreadsheet but feel punishing in reality.
This hyperbolic messaging is deliberate.
Andrew Neil exposed it live on the BBC when an Extinction Rebellion spokesperson admitted that exaggerated claims about climate-related deaths were used because 'alarmism works'.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres took it further in 2023, declaring that 'the era of global boiling has arrived', that 'the air is unbreathable, the is heat unbearable'.
Apocalyptic wordplay wins headlines, but it breeds despair, not action.
A 2021 University of Bath survey found 56 per cent of young people worldwide believe humanity is doomed.
If you think the end is guaranteed, why invest, innovate or adapt?
Why train as an engineer or put capital into clean tech when the message from leaders is that it's already too late?
In Canberra, politics has devolved into theatre.
Labor governs with a majority but faces a Senate pulled between Greens and Teal independents demanding even harsher cuts, and a Coalition that only half-heartedly argues for gas and a slower transition.
The tug-of-war has left no space for serious debate about cost, reliability or trade-offs.
Real people pay real bills, industries consider offshoring, and taxpayers fund green gambles that threaten jobs and prosperity.
Yet politicians fall over themselves to show 'ambition' to the UN, treating pain at home as proof of virtue abroad.
There is a saner path.
We can slash emissions without strangling growth or making families choose between heating and eating.
With Australia's vast natural resources, it should be using cleaner coal, advanced gas technology, nuclear power where viable, and investing properly in energy storage and transmission to make renewables work.
Innovation, not ideology, will get us to lower emissions faster than bureaucratic diktats and theatrical targets.
But for now, the West seems intent on policy masochism, applauded by the same unelected officials who never pay the price.
If climate leadership now means empty wallets, unreliable grids and strawberries rationed like wartime luxuries, we've gone badly wrong.
We're not decarbonising the planet.
We're decarbonising prosperity.
It's time to bring common sense back to the table before the only thing we power reliably is fear.
Esther Krakue is a British commentator who has regularly appeared on Sky News Australia programs, as well as on TalkTV and GB News in the UK. She launched her career with Turning Point UK, with whom she hosted a show featuring guests including Douglas Murray and Peter Hitchens