Hydrogen is a battery, not an energy source. To make hydrogen with truly zero emissions it has to start with green electricity anyway, only it squanders more than half of that energy as waste in the energy conversion. In short, hydrogen is electrification, but a roundabout and very inefficient way of doing it. If we do hydrogen for the majority of the energy economy, it doubles or triples the amount of clean energy we have to produce. It is an expensive sideshow to the main event: electrification. Yes, a small amount of hydrogen, but let’s not get carried away. Beware! There are obvious reasons the gas industry likes to lobby for this idea. Australia is dangerously addicted to the Hydrogen narrative, and we should be more realistic about its role in Australia’s future.

Carbon sequestration can’t do it. It is unrealistic to expect that humanity will be able to develop enough carbon sequestration in time to hit our climate targets. This emphasises the need to electrify and decarbonise faster.

The impact of making new technologies for electrification (e.g. batteries, electric cars, and solar cells) is far less than the impact of the existing fossil fuel technologies they will be replacing. Creating our energy (in practically any way) has an impact which should be measured and managed, but the more detail we delve into for the full lifetime impacts of technology, the more reason we have to electrify everything faster. As an example, an EU Transport & Environment study from March 2021 showed that over the lifetime of an electric vehicle, the weight of petrol or diesel burned is around 300-400 times that of the weight of raw metals lost in an electric vehicle's lifetime.

An electrified household simply replaces any existing fossil fuel devices, like gas water heaters and petrol cars, with modern efficient electric versions. It also makes the most of Australia's abundant sunshine by having solar on the roof and a home back-up battery in the garage to store the cheap energy made on the rooftop.

Reducing meat and dairy consumption is one of the easiest personal choices people can make to reduce climate impact, specifically cow products and sheep products. But alone it will not solve our climate problem as agriculture only makes up around less than 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions. The largest proportion of emissions, by far, is our energy use, which is why we need to electrify and decarbonise how we use energy.

It would be unwise to bet our future on technology miracles, as our timeline for climate change solutions is now too short. Any ambitious technology like these would take decades to develop. We don't have decades. The actual miracles are that solar and wind are now the cheapest energy sources, electric cars are better cars than those we already have, and electric radiant heating is cozier than our existing heating systems.

Don’t be fooled by those who will profit from confusion, with ideas like natural gas as a bridge fuel. When natural gas burns, it emits carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and other carbon, nitrogen, and sulfurous compounds into the atmosphere - just like other fossil fuels, contributing to the global greenhouse gas effect and local air pollution.

It is a good idea to study geoengineering schemes, and it does help us understand earth systems better, but this is not a realistic permanent solution. It could draw large amounts of resources away from technologies we already know can solve the problem.

Flying is energy-intensive per minute but not per mile. Normalized per passenger-mile traveled, it is approximately the same as driving in a car with a passenger. In the electrified future, short-haul flights (<500 miles) will be electric, enabled by increases in the power density of motors and batteries. Long-haul flights will use biofuels to get enough range.

Carbon taxes might have been sufficient if we’d started with them in the 1990s, but for the taxes to achieve the 100% adoption rates we need now they would have to ramp up very quickly. They would be difficult to implement, as well as regressive, hitting lower-income people hardest. A carbon tax is useful in decarbonizing the hard-to-reach end points of the material and industrial economy, but won’t be rapid enough to transition home heating to furnaces to heat pumps, and vehicles from internal combustion engines (ICEs) to electric vehicles (EVs) at the rate required.

Yes, we can.

Building efficiency is important for new homes and can significantly reduce energy consumption, but the time scale we now have left on climate change is too short to only focus on new homes. We must focus on retrofitting old homes and providing solutions that any home can use at any income level. We must solve this problem for all the houses that already exist in the world.