As someone who clearly respects his readers’ time, David Leyonhjelm wastes none of ours by setting up immediately the strawman he's about to knock down - letting you know you needn't continue reading.

For those who didn't...

He reduces the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change to what “some people believe,” as if it’s just a rumour passed around at brunch. This lets him dodge any serious engagement with the evidence, framing climate action as some kind of lifestyle fad rather than a globally coordinated response to a planetary crisis.

From there, it’s a greatest-hits album of climate denial talking points.

He blames net-zero targets for high energy prices, despite the fact that wind and solar are now the cheapest sources of new power in Australia. He invokes the most well-worn denialist Whataboutism fallacy by pointing to China’s coal expansion, omitting that China is simultaneously installing record-breaking levels of renewables, with over 200 GW in 2023 alone.

He argues for removing subsidies while pretending fossil fuels aren’t still subsidised (both directly and indirectly) and fails to mention that market distortions like these are precisely why climate policy exists. His idealised “free market” can’t price what it refuses to count.

Snowy 2.0? A “white elephant,” apparently - even though it’s crucial for energy storage in a renewable-powered grid. EVs? Too expensive. Not because of a lack of domestic support, but apparently because reality just isn’t living up to libertarian expectations fast enough.

But the piece de resistance is his environmental concern for the visual blight of wind turbines, paired with zero mention of open-cut coal mines, ash dams, or global warming’s impact on biodiversity, agriculture, or extreme weather.

Leyonhjelm’s vision isn’t policy. It’s performance - a libertarian daydream where externalities don’t exist, markets are omniscient, and the laws of physics politely wait for ideology to catch up.

I clicked to make a comment then I realised it would just
not be worth the bother.

From a truly libertarian perspective, governments must not sign international agreements regarding which energy sources [if any] its citizens will use in future, simply because that is up to the citizens themselves and them alone.

Nor should government subsidise any energy source whatsoever, nor even care whether its citizens have power or not and whether or not it is reliable - that is plainly none of its business.

What concerns me is the author's suggestion of "no restrictions on exploration or extraction [of gas]": why should commercial companies be allowed to trespass and disturb people on their own land? Surely it is not right for government to hand power to big corporations against individual land owners - that is not very libertarian of him!

Yuyutsu,
Ideally yes however, when the majority of the Nation's voters don't have the ability to think beyond today, net Zero will mean that it'll be zero for all & everything full stop !
Imagine a net zero in the real world ? No air con, no travel, no work, no Tv, no phones, no cars, no anything ! Who do think would be the ones screaming loudest ? The intellectuals of course & their mindless followers !

Dear Indyvidual,

«No air con, no travel, no work, no Tv, no phones, no cars, no anything !»

That does not scare me and it's not "no anything" - there were lots of things before these, other things, and people were at least as happy as they are today, if not more. With all that air-con, travel, work, tv, phones and cars, people nowadays rarely even find the time and energy to make love!

I don't really care about "net zero" or "no net zero", that should be for those interested in it to choose - what I care about is that we get our lives back from states and their governments and be free to choose our own lifestyles ourselves.

Indyvidual,

That’s an impressively breathless leap - from “net zero” to “no cars, no phones, no air con, no anything.”

Net zero doesn’t mean “zero energy.” It means reducing net emissions - through cleaner energy, smarter infrastructure, and technologies that either avoid or offset carbon output. The world doesn’t grind to a halt, it just continues to change as it always has.

Also, the irony here is almost poetic: you lament that voters can’t “think beyond today,” while painting net zero as if it’s tomorrow’s apocalypse. If anything, net zero is the plan from people who can think beyond today - to avoid letting short-term complacency and tribalism create long-term disaster.

And as for “intellectuals and their mindless followers” being the ones who’d complain without modern conveniences... Keeping the lights on, and the air con running is one of the main goals of net zero. Sticking with the status quo indefinitely would eventually see our access power as limited and unreliable as North Korea's.

You don’t have to like the policies, but let’s at least argue against what net zero is, not what it never claimed to be.