Joyce is unapologetic about his stance, telling this masthead he believes that One Nation\u2019s \u201cpure\u201d position against climate science will elevate it over the Coalition he abandoned.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe day One Nation\u2019s vote got to 18 per cent was the day that the written-in-blood, sealed-in-concrete commitment by the Coalition to net zero was removed within 24 hours,\u201d Joyce says.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow they\u2019re trying to have a bet both ways by being in [the] Paris [agreement], which is net zero with a French accent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last week Joyce posted video of himself watching a broadcast of AGL\u2019s Liddell coal-fired power station being demolished<\/a>, offering a commentary of contestable talking points.<\/p>\n \u201cCoulda refurbished it. Coulda fixed it up,\u201d he said. \u201cThere goes Australia\u2019s prosperity, the end of coal. See they are making absolutely certain you can\u2019t go back to coal-fired power because they are making too much out of the swindle. They are ripping you off because they think you are gullible.\u201d<\/p>\n AGL said that it had shut down the power plant because at 52 years old it was beyond its life expectancy and was too unreliable and expensive to maintain.<\/p>\n But Joyce was just warming up.<\/p>\n A news story came on his TV screen explaining that east coast power prices were falling<\/a> due to the uptake of renewable energy.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd then there is this ridiculous thing,\u201d said Joyce, pointing to the screen. \u201cHow are you going to do that when you are reducing how much power we can get? They always say this rubbish.\u201d<\/p>\n The new climate<\/p>\n Five years ago it appeared that climate action was entrenched in global politics. United Nations climate talks secured universal agreements on the need to phase down coal, and later all fossil fuels.<\/p>\n In 2022, the Biden administration passed the Inflation Reduction Act<\/a>, the biggest commitment of spending on emissions reduction in history. Two years later the UK closed its last coal-fired power plant<\/a>. The climate was rapidly warming, but willingness to act was accelerating.<\/p>\n That was to change.<\/p>\n US President Donald Trump abandoned the Paris climate agreement<\/a> on day one of his second term, issued orders to bypass regulations on oil and gas exploration, dumped clean energy subsidies and gutted emissions standards.<\/p>\n Climate change, he railed at fellow world leaders at the UN General Assembly<\/a> months later, is \u201cthe greatest con job ever perpetuated\u2026 If you don\u2019t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail\u201d.<\/p>\n Right-wing populism surged globally and its leaders were emboldened on climate.<\/p>\n The Alternative for Germany party, now the country\u2019s second-largest political force, explicitly rejects both climate change and the need for emissions reduction. \u201cThe alleged scientific consensus on man-made climate change has always been politically constructed,\u201d says its manifesto in part. \u201cThe predictions of the IPCC are based on inadequate models.\u201d The IPCC is the UN\u2019s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.<\/p>\n Related Article In the UK, Nigel Farage\u2019s Reform party is now topping Labour in polls, and rejects climate science.<\/p>\n In an interview with the Bloomberg climate podcast Zero<\/a> a fortnight ago, Farage\u2019s deputy Richard Tice refused to even look at charts that laid out the link between carbon emissions and temperature increases.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t agree with any of it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t present me with a whole load of graphs that I can\u2019t read that may well be bullshit\u2026 This terminates now. It\u2019s end of podcast.\u201d<\/p>\n The interview did not end, and over an hour Tice laid out his view that the link between human emissions and warming was not settled (it is<\/a>) and that the climate has always changed (it has not on the current timescale)<\/a>.<\/p>\n He rejected any action to reach \u201cnet stupid zero\u201d and laid out a set of policies that would see government support for nuclear power, end all subsidies for renewable energy, encourage offshore drilling for more oil and gas and ban battery energy storage.<\/p>\n Tice also warned investors in renewable energy to redirect their capital to fossil fuels.<\/p>\n \u201cWe put people on notice. Invest in nuclear. Invest in gas. Invest in oil. Don\u2019t invest in renewables.\u201d<\/p>\n Joyce takes a similar position. Asked if One Nation\u2019s policies would drive renewables investment away from regional Australia, he says bluntly, \u201cI\u2019m hoping so\u201d.<\/p>\n In his view the renewable energy zones created to encourage clean energy development, and the wind farms being constructed in them \u2013 which he likes to call \u201cswindle factories\u201d \u2013 are of no benefit to locals.<\/p>\n \u201cAll their promises about labour are just complete and utter lies. There are no permanent jobs. They\u2019re fly-in, fly-out contractors,\u201d Joyce says. \u201cIf that was the case, Glen Innes would be a much bigger town than it was before, and $2 billion worth of precincts went into their area.\u201d<\/p>\n He also believes One Nation has captured the zeitgeist.<\/p>\n \u201cI can road-test this by giving a speech in town halls, and one of the biggest claps I get is when I say \u2018I am going to get rid of the climate change department\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n One Nation has taken the lead in the polls<\/a>, and in conservative policymaking, Joyce says.<\/p>\n The Liberals have shifted their energy policy away from emissions reduction since the 2025 election, when then-opposition leader Peter Dutton pledged an ambitious rollout of nuclear power plants to support clean energy in the grid.<\/p>\n After the election, Dutton\u2019s replacement, Sussan Ley, announced a plan that edged away from nuclear and promoted the need for carbon capture and storage to cut the emissions from coal plants.<\/p>\n Current leader Angus Taylor is now full throated in his support for coal<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI announce that a Coalition government will work with coal-fired power plant owners to keep them running as long and as hard as possible to get electricity prices down,\u201d he said in his budget reply speech last month.<\/p>\n However, Taylor was treasury spokesman when Dutton pledged $331 billion<\/a> in taxpayers money for nuclear plants and was sceptical of the use of public funds. While One Nation has pledged billions of dollars to build coal plants, Taylor has stopped short.<\/p>\n Joyce claims the Liberals are equivocal and conflicted. \u201cThey\u2019re in Paris now out of net zero, it\u2019s just ridiculous. Just be pure about this. They\u2019ve fooled no-one.\u201d<\/p>\n Opposition energy spokesman Dan Tehan rejects Joyce\u2019s claim that the Liberals are following One Nation\u2019s lead.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re focused 100 per cent on Australia and doing the right things by Australians. We all remember that, Barnaby Joyce was the one who signed the agreement, that led to net zero for the Coalition,\u201d Tehan says.<\/p>\n Though the Liberals support Australia\u2019s continued participation in the Paris Agreement, Tehan says, the party does not believe it forces Australia to actually deliver on net zero by 2050.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone knows it\u2019s a toothless tiger and not the main game. The main game is energy abundance and energy affordability, and that\u2019s what we\u2019ll be pursuing,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Related Article Former prime minister Tony Abbott, a leading opponent of net zero since he was ousted from parliament in 2022, was recently elected as Liberal Party president<\/a>.<\/p>\n Nationals Leader Matt Canavan has campaigned for years against Australia\u2019s net zero commitment and claimed credit for pushing the Coalition to ditch its support for the goal.<\/p>\n In his first speech as leader to the National Press Club in April<\/a>, Canavan said advocates of net zero used the policy to pursue a socialist agenda.<\/p>\n \u201cThey want to tell us what energy we can use, what car we can drive, what food we can eat, lots of them don\u2019t think we should eat red meat, and some of them, even want to control what we say.\u201d<\/p>\n As political warfare over climate rages on, University of Melbourne specialist in climate denial Dr John Cook, has detected a shift in rhetoric.<\/p>\n Where once politicians tended to pay lip service to accepting climate science, he believes they are becoming increasingly likely to reject scientific advice entirely.<\/p>\n \u201cThe idea that they\u2019re emboldening each other does seem to be the case,\u201d Cook says. \u201cI think in the US, especially, it is climate denial on steroids, and they\u2019re not just giving arguments, but they\u2019re actually dismantling climate science, defunding it, and shutting down organisations.\u201d<\/p>\n He detects a growing disconnect between political philosophy and the policy debate.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/dac30bd0b120055bc2f295f9f9ebed9945cb3779.jpeg\")
A video Barnaby Joyce posted as he watched the Liddell Power Station stacks topple on May 26.Facebook<\/p>\n![\"Joyce](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/f1da8270f6eb105bd7f7e049a5a7a01b5528ba08.jpeg\")
Joyce commenting on a news report on power prices in his posted video. Facebook<\/p>\n![\"US](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/da981e4096d3072a17a082a965817f7d23a32d90.jpeg\")
US President Donald Trump signs an executive order in April last year that will expand the mining and use of coal inside the US, reviving a declining US fossil fuel industry.Bloomberg<\/p>\n![\"Illustration](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4892520517bf2d438e753639da4f427844f59d82.jpeg\")
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Rallying call: The Reform UK team Suella Braverman, Robert Jenrick, Richard Tice, leader Nigel Farage, Lee Anderson, Andrew Rosindell, Sarah Pochin and Danny Kruger following Farage\u2019s speech in Birmingham in February.Bloomberg<\/p>\n![\"Polling](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/fcb3244c75f6e356aae68d226ab69bc22406222a.jpeg\")
Polling surge: One Nation\u2019s Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce.Alex Ellinghausen<\/p>\n![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/45df3a061a71dfcb94677e3ee47361e78255fc5e.jpeg\")
New Liberal Party president former prime minister Tony Abbott with Liberal leader Angus Taylor at the party\u2019s federal conference last weekend. Abbott is a leading opponent of net zero.Joe Armao<\/p>\n![\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/24a3b013cf3572ba8b78aa9b0e22c7d04e84e45dfe4f38da86696559a64bf5f9.gif\")
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