Energy Research & Social Science 28 (2017) 1116

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Energy Research & Social Science

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/erss

Perspectives

Wind beneath their contempt: Why Australian policymakers oppose solar MARK
and wind energy
Marc Hudson
Sustainable Consumption Institute, University of Manchester, United Kingdom

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Renewable energy has met with hostility from policymakers. This is particularly true of Australia, which has
Australia ample wind and solar resources. Explanations of this hostility have so far focussed on material and ideological
Renewable energy factors, especially policy capture by fossil-fuel interests. This article gives examples of discursive and policy
Policy capture hostility to renewables, before examining the material and ideological factors that partially explain policy-
Psychology of policymakers
makers hostility. It then discusses psychological and psychoanalytic perspectives, specically Mannheims
cohort eect and Beckers Terror Management Theory as additional explanations. Limitations of the study, and
scope for further action and research opportunities are discussed.

1. Introduction Low Emissions coal-red power stations. In early February, the

Renewable energy1 is often met with hostility from policymakers.
Some of this can be explained by incumbents defensive actions ([1,61])
and from the general inertia of socio-technical systems [57]. However,
the level of hostility towards energy systems more conducive to meeting
decarbonisation goals is extreme, despite being generally popular with
the electorate [2]. Australia is case in point, where, with its abundant
wind and solar resources, and its research capacity, it has potential
become a world leader [3]. Explanations as to why this hostility is so
extreme and prolonged are lacking. At time of writing a (conservative)
Federal government is refusing to set targets post-2020 for renewable
energy, is actively seeking to undercut state-based schemes that seek to
go beyond the relatively low level of ambition enshrined in the national
scheme, and is attempting to change the rules of its Clean Energy
Finance Corporation to enable new coal-red power stations to be
built.2
Transitions are as much cultural battles as they are political ones
(indeed, these iterate and imbricate over time). The study of policy-
makers cognitive frames and needs are a key part of the burgeoning
study of the politics of socio-technical transitions ([4,62]). This article
turns this attention to Australia, where renewable energy is in trouble.
In early 2017, at the beginning of the political season, there were
murmurs amongst senior gures in the Liberals and National Parties of
state support for the construction of new (so-called) High Eciency
Australian Treasurer, Scott Morrison, came to parliamentary Question
Time with a large lump of coal, provided by the Minerals Council of
Australia, the peak trade association for mining companies. The coal
was lacquered so as not to undercut the message that coal was clean.
Meanwhile, the main opposition party, the Australian Labor Party
(ALP) has recently retreated from the 50% renewable energy by 2030
target [5], that activists had laboriously campaigned for [6].
This article proceeds as follows. Firstly examples of discursive
hostility are provided surrounding alleged aesthetic, health and
environmental impacts, decarbonisation ineectiveness, and nally the
purported inability of renewables to keep the lights on. This is
followed by a brief overview of the policy-hostility displayed by the
Coalition government, but it should be noted that in oce the ALP also
moved slowly to introduce institutional support for renewable energy
[7,8]. The main body of the article begins by outlining the various
material and ideological explanations that have been put forward,
before turning to necessarily more speculative explanations around the
worldviews, psychological motivations and blind spots of policymakers.
The article concludes by anticipating critiques of these speculations,
and suggesting a research and action agenda.
2. Discursive and policy hostility
Discursive hostility to renewable energy has been a consistent

E-mail address: marcmywords@gmail.com.

1
As per reviewer comments, this is a broad term that can include renewable electricity, biofuel, passive heat, solar thermal. For the sake of brevity, here I use it to refer to large-scale
(wind-farms and solar plants) and small-scale (e.g. rooftop solar) electricity generation.
2
The data for this perspectives piece have mostly been collected during my PhD thesis, which studies the strategies and tactics of incumbents faced with challenges during a socio-
technical transition. They are illustrative and indicative rather than attempting to prove a set of hypotheses.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2017.03.014
Received 20 February 2017; Received in revised form 28 March 2017; Accepted 29 March 2017
2214-6296/ 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
M. Hudson
theme in Australian climate politics for more than a decade, mostly
originating from conservative parties. There are at least four discursive
subcategories argued the purported ugliness of wind-turbines, the
purported health impacts, the alleged ineectiveness of renewables in
reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the costs involved and the inability
of renewables to keep the lights on.
The relative beauty of windfarms is clearly a determined by a
complex interplay of individual values and tastes. Early proposed sites
in Victoria were defeated on grounds of their impact on the beauty of
the landscape and its value as a tourist destination [9]. From the mid-
2000s, senior conservative politicians were vocal in their opposition. In
July 2006, the Treasurer Peter Costello stated in a doorstop interview,
Well if you are asking me my view on wind farms, I think they are ugly, I
wouldnt want one in my street, I wouldnt want one in my own back yard.
[10: 254]. The next Liberal Treasurer, Joe Hockey said, on both radio
talkback shows and at energy summits that he found the wind turbines
around Lake George utterly oensive ([64]). Former Australian Prime
Minister Tony Abbott made many similar statements [11].
The health of both humans and non-humans have been central to
the claims of windfarm opponents. Conservative politicians have lent
support to the unsubstantiated claims that wind turbines have a
deleterious impact on human health [12]. In early 2014 the new
Abbott government began funding studies into this [13,14]. Shortly
before he was deposed as Prime Minister, Tony Abbott argued that
windfarms may have potential health impacts [15].
The potential impacts on wildlife have been a similar discursive
strategy. For example, in 2006, the Bald Hills windfarm was delayed
because the Federal Environment Minister over-ruled state approvals
ostensibly to protect the endangered orange-bellied parrot [10].
Questioning the ecacy of windfarms toward decarbonisation has
formed a cornerstone of conservative politicians arguments. It has been
argued that renewables have an intrinsic lack of eciency, that they
require a 100% back-up owing to the intermittency problem of
renewables, or point to the increased emissions in other parts of the
world. Environment Minister Ian Campbell told a Senate Inquiry in
2006 that If you genuinely tell people that building a wind farm here will
save the planet from climate change you are doing a massive disservice to the
environment. It is an atrocious misleading of the Australian community
[16]. In the same year, the Federal Industry Minister derided State
incentives as Mickey Mouse schemes [10: 254]. This hostility has
continued to date [17].
Economic equity and viability are a further discursive frame
deployed by Conservatives [55]. The argument often made is that
renewable energy requires extensive government subsidies in order to
compete with existing providers of energy (coal and gas) and that this is
unsustainable and unfair the language of rent-seekers is extensively
used [18]. Further, conservatives argue that this ineciency will drive
up energy prices for domestic consumers and manufacturers, with
devastating economic consequences. Economic modelling, commis-
sioned by incumbent rms and trade associations, is used to make
argue this case forcefully and regularly.
However, the most dominant argument deployed by conservative
policymakers is that renewables simply cannot keep the lights on. It
comes in both blunt and regretful clothing. The rst is best demon-
strated by a speech given by John Howard, who as Prime Minister of
Australia had actively resisted ratication of the Kyoto Protocol. He
told a group of business leaders in July 2006 that:
Renewables will play an increasing role in Australias energy mix, but
pragmatism, rationality and exibility also call for realistic expectations
about this role for the foreseeable future. The cost of delivering low-
emission electricity from renewables remains very high, with diculties
surrounding baseload power demands [10: 254].
That claim to hard-headed pragmatism and rationality sometimes
comes tinged with regret. For example Malcolm Turnbull, currently
Prime Minister, told journalists in early 2007 that You cannot run a
12
Energy Research & Social Science 28 (2017) 1116
modern economy on wind farms and solar panels. Its a pity that you cant,
but you cant [10: 254].3
While state and Federal support for specic renewable energy
applications date back to the 1950s, most commentators begin their
policy analysis in late 1997 [7,8,September]. The Howard Government
was seeking a 118% target for its greenhouse gas emissions at the forth-
coming Kyoto conference of the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change. Attempting to burnish his governments creden-
tials, both domestically and internationally, Howard announced a
Mandatory Renewable Energy Target (MRET 2% by 2010). After
much lobbying from electricity providers, the legislation nally passed
in 2001 [19]. Infamously, in 2004 it emerged that Howard and his
energy minister had called a meeting of fossil-fuel companies asking for
their help in suppressing renewables, which were growing faster than
anticipated, or desired [20]. Renewables were not supported in the
2004 Energy White Paper, which was described as the fullment of a
fossil-fuel industry wish-list [21].
Elected in November 2007, the Labor Government of Kevin Rudd
took almost two years to increase the target, which was later replaced
with targets for both large scale and small-scale generation. Under Julia
Gillards Labor Government, two new bodies the Clean Energy
Finance Corporation (CEFC) and the Australian Renewable Energy
Agency (ARENA) were created.4
Since taking power in September 2013, the Coalition government at
rst attempted to abolish the CEFC and ARENA, but was unable to do so
[58]. It has instead reduced their funding, reduced their independence
and changed their terms of reference. It also commissioned a review of
the Renewable Energy Target by a climate change sceptic, Dick
Warbuton. This has all contributed to massive policy uncertainty and
a drop in investment in renewables [22].
3. Explanations
Having presented examples of discursive and policy-hostility to-
wards renewable energy from elite policymakers, I now turn to
explanations. These can be grouped in three broad categories (which,
of course, can overlap and interact, either re-enforcing or undercutting
each other). Therefore, the headings are somewhat arbitrary. To aid the
reader through a relatively dense set of arguments, the following table
is provided (Table 1).
3.1. Material explanations
Running election campaigns has become steadily more expensive. In
Australia, Federal elections are held on three year cycles; political
parties are always hungry for cash. As Keane [24] revealed, since 2008,
the mining companies have disproportionately shifted donations to the
Liberals and Nationals. Individual politicians need to consider their
employment opportunities when (not if) they lose favour with either
their own party leaders or the voters [25]. Unlike many large incum-
bents, renewable energy companies and trade associations do not have
non-executive directorships and well-paid jobs (or sinecures) to hand
out.
Australian commentators (e.g. Ref. [26]) argue that the capacity of
the state to act consistently and eectively in response to persistent
3
After losing his position as leader of the Opposition in late 2009, because of his
support for a Labor-proposed emissions trading scheme, Turnbull became briey
evangelical about the role of renewables in driving down emissions. For example, he
spoke at the launch of the Beyond Zero Emissions groups Stationary Energy Policy in
mid-2010. This fervour did not survive his ascension to the Prime Ministership in
September 2015.
4
Even here there was controversy. The Greens, then in coalition with the ALP, insisted
the CEFC and ARENA be independent statutory authorities rather than departments of
state. Milne [23] states that this was to stop hostile Ministers from raiding and undermining
the purpose for which they were set up. The compromise was Martin Ferguson as Energy minister
retained them in his portfolio but had no power to wreck them.
M. Hudson Energy Research & Social Science 28 (2017) 1116

Table 1
Examples of explanatory factors.
Explanatory factors
Material Factors
Ideological Factors
Psychological Factors
Examples
Money (campaign donations, post-career jobs)
Blame avoidance
Lack of capacity of government to act
Informational factors
Active disinformation by incumbents
The rise of the twenty four-hour news cycle.
Neoliberalism and the role of the state
Growth at all costs
Climate change denial
Biographically-based world views
Tribal nature of beliefs and bounded rationality
Deep-seated needs and motivations
Need for authenticity and toughness
Denial of death
attract only a narrow type of personality, the pumped-up pugilists who
thrive on adrenaline and gain their power through cycles of destruction,
people who cant function without the constant armation of being a
public gure, and the endorphin rush of being front and centre. Politics
will, in essence, winnow out its best and brightest and most reective
people, and replace them with a production line of heavyweight boxers
looking for the KO, and a cadre of show ponies [30]
These selection pressures will lead to groupthink, tribal loyalties
and reward the ability to stay on-message around simple (and
simplistic) views, rather than encourage exploratory thinking and
experimentation. Those who cannot cope with being sentenced to
twenty years of boredom, for trying to change the system from within [31]
will refuse to engage.
3.2. Ideological explanations

In addition to these material factors, three ideological factors must

wicked problems is diminishing. It also appears that policy advice
systems have been diminished and/or captured (for a dissenting view,
see Tiernan [27]). Policy capture by a greenhouse maa of pro-fossil
fuel interests was noted by Pearse [63]. The revolving door between
business and government continues, with the Minerals Council of
Australias climate policy director moving to the Prime Ministers Oce
in February 2017 [28].
Hillman and Hitt [25] demonstrate how corporations and trade
associations act to shape the terrain on which policy is made by doing
three things they provide information (thick glossy booklets and
exquisitely timed independent studies), nancial incentives and also
constituency building gaining support of individual voters and
citizens who in turn express their policy preferences to political decision
makers (1999: 834). The Australian Coal Association and Minerals
Council of Australia have consistently targeted marginal (rural) con-
stituencies in their bids to prevent or weaken policies that would
support renewable energy. See for example the Lets cut emissions, not
jobs campaign in late 2009.
There are also active attempts on the part of incumbents to shape
policymakers views. Neither of the following examples is from
Australia, but are particularly clear examples of barriers renewable
energy faces. The rst comes from America; during the 2009 battle for
cap-and-trade legislation, a lobbying rm was caught forging letters
opposing the legislation on the letter head of various minority-rights
groups. Romm [29], in a bid to increase policymakers concerns about
voters views and intentions. The second comes from the Netherlands.
Smink et al. [1] report that incumbents met with the Minister of
Environment and repeatedly argued that the entrepreneurs innovation
was not ready for market. The minister only learned that this author-
itative statement was false when the entrepreneur actually demonstrated the
functioning of the LED light in person during a meeting. (2015: 92)
Politicians are also anxious to avoid blame for an experiment that
results in (or coincides with) higher prices or supply issues. As John
Maynard Keynes mournfully observed Worldly wisdom teaches that it is
better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally
(REF: PAGE). Given that new technologies inevitably have teething
problems, and that these can be (mis)ascribed as the cause of problems
for consumers (see for example the South Australian blackout of
September 2016), politicians may become cautious about their rheto-
rical or policy support for renewables.
The rise of the twenty-four hour news cycle, and more recently the
rise of social media, have created new attentional pressures on policy-
makers, especially on politicians. Generally this is argued (e.g. Ref.
[26]) to have reduced available time for reection, or consideration of
complexities. Murphy [30] reports the alarming perspective of an
Australian Federal parliamentarian, who argues that
politics is now unsustainable for normal people. . The profession will
be considered [56]. Since the 1980s, politicians have espoused eco-
nomic rationalism [32] arguing that government intervention in the
economy is both morally wrong and inevitably ineective. Such actions
involve picking winners at the behest of rent-seekers who are hiding
behind every tree [59]. This view, which seems to have survived the
2008 Global Financial Crisis intact, clearly privileges status quo actors,
in a Panglossian best of all possible worlds. Writing when market-based
responses to the climate problem had become popular, Christo
observed:
We now all seem mesmerised by emissions trading. As Annie Lennox
used to sing, Everybodys looking for something new wealth, greater
investor certainty, reduced regulatory interference, lower emissions, less
global warming, political salvation when the new commodity the
tradeable emissions permit) is created, literally out of thin Australian air.
And so carbon trading is being supported by unlikely allies across the
political, industrial and environmental spectrum from Alcoa and the
Australian Industries Group to the Australian Conservation Foundation,
and from the Greens to the Coalition. (2007: 82)
The ideology of growth has been propagated vigorously since before
World War Two [33]. From the 1970s a critique based on the
consequences social and environmental of growth has been made,
with little eect. As Gross notes:
But the growth of the pie did not change the way the slices were
distributed except to enlarge the absolute gap between the lions share
and the ants. And whether the pie grows, or stops growing, or shrinks,
there are always people who suer from the behaviour of the cooks, the
euents from the oven, the junkiness of the pie, and the fact that they
needed something more nutritious than pie anyway [34: 98].
A signicant number of conservative policymakers deny either the
trend, attribution or impact of climate change [35]. That is to say, they
either do not believe climate change is happening, or that if it is then
human activities are not contributing to it, or that it is a serious short-
term problem. Given any of those, the expense and disruption of a
major change to energy production and distribution systems are not a
necessary or attractive prospect.
There are two further factors rstly the selection pressure on
individuals who wish to remain or climb within hierarchies to be
perceived as a safe pair of hands. Intelligence and curiosity are, if not
selected against, certainly not selected for. Secondly, there is a path
dependency, at both the individual and organisational level. A change
in position on climate change/support for renewables would raise
awkward questions about the quality of information-processing and
decision-making, and recriminations over lost opportunities.

13
M. Hudson
3.3. Psychological explanations
Having covered material and ideological factors, I now turn to more
psychologically-based factors. In his 1923 essay The problem of
generations Mannheim [36] argued that the socio-historical environ-
ment of peoples youth (for example, notable events that impact on
them individually) has a signicant inuence on their worldview (see
also Ref. [37,60]). Douglas Adams, author of the Hitchhikers Guide to
the Galaxy, more pithily put it this way when writing about responses
to technology-
1. Anything that is in the world when youre born is normal and
ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that's invented between when youre fteen and thirty-ve is
new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in
it.
3. Anything invented after you're thirty-ve is against the natural order
of things [38: 95]
If Mannheim and Adams are right, it becomes signicant that many
of todays policymakers grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, during the
white heat of technological optimism about humans ability to control
natural forces (including being able to weaponise the atmosphere
[39]). Alternatively, if they grew up after the publication of The Limits
to Growth, [40] a faith is placed in the power of technology, human
ingenuity and the market.
This loss of the promise of control over nature occurred by
coincidence at the same time that the British Empire disintegrated,
and the US Empire met its match in the jungles of Vietnam, and while
feminism, civil rights and gay rights all sprang up. What scholars of the
Anthropocene have come to call the Great Acceleration from the
1950s, was followed by the Great (and still incomplete) democratisa-
tion of the 1960s and 1970s.
As humans, politicians and policymakers are caught in webs of
semantic meaning, where their tribe(s) have agreed basic views and
bounded rationality. The human need to t in with others views was
famously demonstrated in the Asch experiments. For politicians, whose
continued status within the hierarchy may depend more on the opinions
of a small number of powerful interests rather than on those of the
broader community [41], the career and friendship-network costs of
rejecting the party position on climate change may be prohibitively
high. This makes them especially prone to politically-motivated reason-
ing [42] and the misinformation tactics of incumbents. Given this tribal
belief, it is simply not worth a policymakers time or eort to
investigate matters fully. It is easier, and more strategically compelling,
to turn a blind eye.
Psychoanalytic approaches to human responses to climate change
are becoming more common [4345]. Psychoanalytic approaches often
focus on the human desire for a stable sense of belonging, meaning and
toughness, and also to cope with the fear of death. Both needs can be
seen in the actions of policymakers. For example, in July 2014 Liberal
Senator Ian Macdonald wore a Minerals Council of Australia hi-vis
jacket while debating the repeal of Australias federal emissions trading
scheme. This bid for authenticity is a micro-example of what British
journalist Monbiot [46] calls resource testeria when writing about the
attractiveness of extractive projects to politicians.
Supporting shale gas rather than the alternatives means strutting around
with a sti back and jutting jaw, meeting real men who do real, dirty
things, shaking hands and slapping backs, talking about barrels and
therms and rigs and wells and pipelines. Its about these weird, detached,
calculating, soft-skinned people becoming, for a while, one of the boys.
Conversely, solar panels and wind turbines act as material admis-
sions that scientists and other social actors have convinced us that our
promethean urges need limits, and that we must work with the grain of
nature. This admission of a loss of control would, presumably, be
14
Energy Research & Social Science 28 (2017) 1116
particularly threatening to those attracted to status, power and
hierarchy.
On the matter of death, Monbiot [47] invoked Terror Management
Theory which grew from Freudian-analyst Ernst Beckers book The
Denial of Death [48] to explain resistance to thinking about climate
impacts and the steps required to minimise them. Monbiot observed
that Dickinson [49]
proposes that constant news and discussion about global warming makes
it dicult for people to repress thoughts of death, and that they might
respond to the terrifying prospect of climate breakdown in ways that
strengthen their character armour but diminish our chances of survival
4. Conclusion
Resistance to the growth of renewable energy has been eective.
Part of the explanation is simply the inertia of established institutions,
both formal and informal. One understudied explanation is the world-
views of (conservative) policy makers (but see also Ref. [50]).
The argument of this article has been that although material and
ideological factors matter, psychological, social psychological and
psycho-analytic perspectives should not be ignored. Climate change
and the inextricably entwined technological response of renewable
energy press policymakers buttons because climate change reminds us
that ultimately, we are not in charge, despite all the vorsprung durch
tecknik promises made in the 1950s (nuclear power, DDT providing
endless increases in agricultural output, weather modication). We
have production science that helps us dominate nature, but our
impact science tells us that the costs of this power are becoming
unmanageable (the distinction is from Alan Schnaiberg see McCright
and Dunlap [50]).
There are two obvious criticisms of this paper from a policy
perspective. Firstly, it underplays the more general role of structural
factors, in determining policy trajectories, falling for a (not-so) great
man of history theory. But policies are made by people, history is made
by people, albeit not in the circumstances of their own choosing.
Secondly, the current deadlock in Australia might be interpreted as
merely the result of a small veto coalition that is able to prolong a
hurting stalemate, or simply a sign of the weakness and failure of
environmental movements more generally. However, the evidence
suggests that this hostility has grown rather than shrunk (previous
conservative governments countenanced support for renewables, albeit
reluctantly), and there seems to be no end in sight to the deadlock,
given Labors recently capitulation on a renewable energy target in
favour of a more general emissions intensity scheme.
More seriously, explanations that claim to identify forces that actors
cannot themselves identify and understand can be attacked for at least
three reasons. Firstly as examples of cod-psychologizing by unqualied
commentators with all the biases that entails; secondly, for the use of
the undisprovable and patronising idea of false-consciousness; and
thirdly for the pathologising or individualising actions that are parsi-
moniously explained by reference to material interests. I hope to have
avoided these by not delving into the childhood experiences of any
specic policymakers, eschewing the language of false consciousness
and extensively acknowledging the importance of material and ideolo-
gical factors.
The battles over renewable energy policy provide grist for academic
(wind)mills (see for example Ref. [51]). Work on the conservative
arguments against renewable energy could systematically examine the
counter-narratives which these actors deploy, teasing out the under-
lying visions and assumptions of what constitutes a safe and accep-
table vision of energy futures. This work could deploy, alongside
psycho-analytic tools, the recently developed policy narratives ap-
proach [52].
Keane [53] asks, rhetorically How hot does it have to get before the
angry old white men of the Liberal Party accept the need for real climate
M. Hudson
action? and answers by saying never. Meanwhile Monbiot [47] asks
whether the growth of climate denial is actually a response to the
hardening of scientic evidence? If so, how the hell do we confront it? That
is a good question. Perhaps, alongside conceptualising ways of accel-
erating the destabilisation of existing socio-technical regimes we need
also to act with awareness of the underlying psychological processes
and pressures that drive opposition to renewable energy. We may need
to argue not just on technical/economic grounds, but also on the
broader terrain of values and psychological constructs (see for example
Ref. [54]).
At an individual level, even proponents of climate action are not
immune to the psychological blind spots described here, and need both
cognitive and emotional humility and (self)- compassion to cope with
the troubled times ahead.
Funding
The author is a funded PhD candidate at the Sustainable
Consumption Institute, University of Manchester.
Conict of interest
None.
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