(Image: Private Media)

It’s never particularly clear in Saul Griffith’s excellent new Quarterly Essay, “The Wires That Bind: Electrification and Community Renewal”, whether the framing it takes is an intentional communication choice or just a gut instinct.

It doesn’t really matter. It’s the first essay I’ve read that injects a huge helping of heart into the dry, numbers-heavy topic of electrification. In doing so, it strikes at the problem of large-scale technological change in a way that has been badly missing from the climate debate. 

Griffith relitigates a point that has been justifiably on repeat for a few years, and largely stems from the two “rewiring” institutions Griffith set up in Australia and America on the benefits of electrification. Switching transport, homes and industry from fossil fuel technologies to electric alternatives results in immediate benefits entirely unrelated to the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on earth’s atmosphere.

It reduces energy bills, has a smaller environmental and social footprint (mining for fossil fuels is several orders of magnitude worse than mining the lithium required for batteries), and significantly increases efficiency, resulting in much lower total energy use compared with a fossil-dependent system.

The thousands of life years saved by avoiding air pollution are massive. Whether you’re acting on self-interest or charity, there is simply no argument against immediate, significant electrification. 

The essay comes at a significant point for Australia’s new government. At the time of writing, Labor and the Greens are tussling over the details of how to reform the former Coalition government’s safeguard mechanism, with Labor offering a loophole-ridden suite of changes mostly designed by the coal and gas mining corporations that make up half the covered emissions. Grimly, Labor has effectively scandalised voting against any climate policy as “against progress”, despite the policy itself being actively counterproductive, making any improvements unlikely. 

Somewhat buried in the details of the latest report from the Australian Energy Market Operator’s (AEMO) “Gas Statement of Opportunities” was its finding that electrification has progressed at a pace far, far slower than was anticipated last year. 

The consequent upwards revision in gas consumption is significant. The high-gas-forecast findings of the gas statement report were heralded by the government as proof Australia needs to open new gas mines and therefore that the safeguard mechanism scheme should be weak enough to allow for a huge expansion of fossil extraction. A failure on the electrification front, justifying a worsening of emissions elsewhere. Again: grim.

Having been in the guts of these issues the past few weeks, it feels almost physically impossible that the federal Labor Party would ever treat electrification or industrial decarbonisation as urgent. This is despite the release of the IPCC’s sixth assessment report synthesis last week which laid out the hard numbers behind the urgency of rapid, immediate emissions reductions.

Griffith’s essay is fascinating when it gets into politics. It lays out a communitarian, publicly owned and very left view of the process of swapping fossil fuels for electrification.

His plea is not that individuals pick up the slack of failed and corrupt political processes, but that communities in doing so reap the rewards fairly and immediately. It is a noticeable parallel with Rewiring America’s smart onboarding of US politician Stacey Abrams, a champion of environmental and climate justice. 

Griffith builds the case for fair electrification with broad yet specific examples. A problematic focus on home owners, those with a driveway and those who can afford the upfront capital cost of upgrades (even though these are paid back over time), has been a somewhat reasonable criticism of electrification advocacy in the past.

This essay, however, counters that by explicitly and constantly pressuring for a justice-focused pathway, in which those with the worst exposure to the price and health impacts of fossil fuels, and the least capability to escape, are given priority. 

In fact, every gripe and sub-gripe you probably have about advocacy of renewables, electric cars, electric cooking and heating and various other issues are probably addressed. The deadly impacts of ever-expanding vehicles (including electric vehicles) on pedestrians and cyclists get mentioned, as Griffith relates to cycling next to the monstrous suburban tanks: “It’s great that car companies are getting behind zero-emissions vehicles; on the other hand, what world are we creating?”

There is space carved out for demanding government action, but it’s mostly around facilitating cash flows and enabling access to electrification for those currently unable. There is a frustrated “fuck it, I’ll do it myself” between the lines, exemplified nicely by Griffith illegally modifying his electric bicycle to get around power output regulations, even as he (rightly) calls for government-mandated reductions in speed limits. 

This essay differs largely from simplistic technocratic thinking like former chief scientist Alan Finkel who, in promoting a previous Quarterly Essay, argued against behaviour shifts like cycling and vegetarianism.

Griffith’s complex, community-focused plea for a justice-driven electrification pathway puts him far closer to climate writer Rebecca Solnit, who recently argued for a “new kind” of abundance: “What if we see all the ways our lives are poor now — poor in hope, poor in social solidarity, poor in mental and emotional well-being and confidence in the future, poor in social connectedness, poor in relationship to nature.”

Solnit describes abundance not in the current language of excess, inefficiency and over-consumption, but one in which our lived experiences are cured of the injustices that dominate the societies of countries like Australia.

COVID has recently worsened already worsening inequality in Australia, and a fossil energy crisis has multiplied that several times over. Everyone knows that climate solutions are amazing, but only a tiny fraction have access to participate. Griffith knows how badly that needs to change.

I hope Australians take this essay as an invaluable call for communities to harness the power of change, and I hope politicians see it as a warning that their corruption and their failures are being circumvented faster than they know.