Energy Independence or Green Dependency? What Net Zero Won’t Tell You

By The Fair Go Movement | July 2025

“Are we securing our future—or simply trading coal dependency for cobalt dependency?”

Australia has committed to Net Zero by 2050. The marketing makes it sound simple: solar panels, wind farms, electric vehicles, and storage batteries. But what they don’t tell you is where it all comes from—or who profits from it.

Today’s so-called “clean energy transition” is rapidly replacing one form of dependency (coal and gas) with another: imported batteries, foreign solar panels, and global carbon credit schemes. All the while, energy prices keep rising and grid reliability keeps falling.

We’re Not Building Sovereignty—We’re Outsourcing It

To meet our Net Zero goals, we now depend on:

• Chinese-manufactured solar panels (over 80% of global supply)
• Congolese cobalt and South American lithium for EV and grid batteries
• Foreign ownership of wind and solar infrastructure built on Australian soil
• Global offset markets that let polluters buy virtue rather than reduce emissions

That’s not energy independence. That’s global energy entanglement—with all the risk and none of the control.

The Grid Is Getting Weaker, Not Stronger

As intermittent renewables increase, Australia’s energy grid becomes more unstable. Blackouts, frequency control issues, and oversupply events are growing. Instead of firming our grid with sovereign baseload power—like hydro, gas, or nuclear—we’ve committed to complexity without resilience.

Every time we subsidise a rooftop solar system but fail to invest in transmission reform, we further fragilise the grid. Every time we export Australian gas while importing battery components, we lose strategic leverage.

The Fair Go Energy Vision

Net Zero can be part of our path forward—but not if it makes us weaker. We need a model based on:

1. Australian-made infrastructure: solar, wind, batteries, nuclear and more built here, owned here
2. Baseload security: invest in energy sources that keep the lights on 24/7
3. Resource sovereignty: refine and use our own rare earths and minerals, not just export them
4. Balanced climate targets: practical emissions reduction without economic self-harm

True energy independence means control over our future—not dependency dressed up as progress. It’s time we got honest about what Net Zero really means for Australia.

Published by The Fair Go Movement. All rights reserved.