Belatedly noting ‘Topical Report #2 Australia’s Progress to Net Zero by 2050’

We’d been otherwise focused a little over two weeks ago when (on Thursday 11th December 2025) the Net Zero Australia collaborative organisation released its latest publication, being this  ‘Topical Report #2 Australia’s Progress to Net Zero by 2050’:

We’d missed it at the time (and did not see any media mentions of it, either) so it was two articles in the Australian today that drew our attention to this:

• first it was Perry Williams with ‘Australia set to miss 2030 renewable energy target by up to a decade’; and
• that article pointed to the note ‘New report reveals Australia is failing on key climate goals despite battery boom’ from Michael Brear and Alasdair McCall (who are both with Net Zero Australia).

Now, the title of Perry’s article is the angle that some will say would be expected in The Australian … from my quick skim it’s page 26 that provides the basis of the ‘(late) by up to a decade’ headline:

Note that Net Zero Australia is not the only one who’s drawn attention to the increasing challenges of meeting our (2030, 2035 or 2050) goals.

Already here on WattClarity:

• We’ve seen Rystad note this on several occasions:
  • During QCES 2025, we noted that David said ‘we’re moving fast, but not fast enough’ in his talk there;
  • On 30th October 2025 we noted ‘David Dixon speaks again about the large gap between aspiration and reality’ at All Energy 2025,
  • and then David shared more in ‘24 GW in 24 months, a race against time for the NEM’
• Also at QCES 2025, we noted how Oliver Nunn from Endgame Analytics commented ‘the ISP Step Change Scenario is divorced from reality’ (with respect to the 2024 ISP).
• Of course, we also have written about these challenges many times, such as:
  • Back on 14th May 2023 we wrote the article ‘We’re not building enough replacement dispatchable capacity’.
  • Then on 28th August 2024 we wrote the article ‘Are we *still* not building enough replacement Firming Capacity?’
  • Then in 2025, Dan Lee wrote a series of articles about the Capacity Investment Scheme and similar:
    • starting with ‘Part 1: Tracking the progress of CIS projects post-award’ on 25th September 2025
    • continuing through 3 more parts and then summed up in a presentation to, and discussion with, the CEC Operations & Grid Directorate in November.
• And so on….

These challenges are increasingly obvious to most … and (whether we like it or not) may well have flow-on effects to the ideal closure schedule for coal-fired generation.

Some readers here will appreciate adding the December update from Net Zero Australia to their summer holiday reading list…