CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Vampire Planet: What the Story of China’s and Australia’s Solar Success Gets Wrong

Image by Alexander Mils.

Typically, I kick this column off with troubling news, but let’s begin with a positive for a change.

Australia’s solar is booming. A total of 40% of residential homes are equipped with rooftop solar, by far the highest rate in the world. Rooftop generation is the way to go, and accounts for 14% of the country’s total electricity generation. That’s obviously a very good thing, made possible by federal rebate programs and local incentives.

The US could learn a lot from how Australia has pulled it off. California was on a similar track with its rooftop solar, but as I interrogate in Bad Energy, Gov. Gavin Newsom, at the behest of the big utilities and corporate donors, gutted the state’s program. 

While Australia’s solar bonanza is welcome news and is changing the way the country produces electricity, it’s not the whole story. 

Australia remains the world’s largest coal exporter, shipping 70% of its coal to Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and India. It’s also the third-largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter, with 80% of its LNG shipped to Asian markets. Its solar boom doesn’t offset its massive contributions to climate change. 

When we talk about ending our use of fossil fuels, as Australia appears to be doing, at least on the surface, we are forced to reckon with the hard truth: Australia’s vast resources continue to power global capitalism, at the expense of the environment. Its rooftop solar surge may be helping, but not by much. The country remains a major consumer of fossil fuels. Its coal power emissions are the highest in the “developed world.” 

Australia is ranked 13th globally in per capita emissions. 

It’s the 14th-largest emitter overall and the 2nd-largest,........

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