Australian Billionaire Claims Renewable Energy Will ‘Take Over’ Farm Land

Australia’s richest person, mining magnate Gina Rinehart, claims one-third of Australia’s “prime agricultural land” could be “taken over” by renewable energy infrastructure.

Rinehart made the comments during her acceptance speech for the Australian Financial Review’s 2024 Business Person of the Year award. She also used the speech to condemn taxes and the push to increase the use of renewable power, including “eyesore” solar panels.

Her stance on renewable energy projects comes after a the anti-emissions reduction Institute of Public Affairs released a report earlier this month that claimed one-third of Australia’s agriculture would need to be “sacrificed” to renewable energy developments in order to meet Australia’s energy needs by 2050.

The IPA has also previously called for Australia to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement – a global agreement which mandates greenhouse gas emissions reductions to limit global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

The Australia Institute, the Clean Energy Council and the Australian Energy Market Operator responded to the IPA by questioning the legitimacy of the report’s predictions.

“I can’t overstate how ridiculous the extrapolations in this report are,” Mark Ogge, the Australia Institute Principal Adviser, told Guardian Australia.

Nicholas Aberle, the Director of Energy Generation and Storage at the Clean Energy council also said the report’s predictions and calculations “ignores critical facts that do not support a predetermined view of Australia’s clean energy transformation”.

A spokesperson for Rinehart confirmed her comments were in reference to the IPA report, and that the IPA was “renowned over many years for their meticulous research”.

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Adele is the Junior Writer & Producer for VICE AU/NZ. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter here.

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