As Japan’s ambassador to Australia acknowledged last week, Labor’s policies are reassuring Japanese investors that fossil fuels are here to stay.

Against the backdrop of this year’s COP climate change talks in Brazil, local events have revealed the ongoing credibility challenges for Australia as an aspiring future host.

At a purely domestic level, the federal government will not want to interrupt the Coalition as it mistakes fringe climate sentiment for future election-winning strategy. But international actors also continue to give Labor an unhelpfully easy ride on climate ambition — led by a Japanese government beholden to its own fossil fuel interests.

At the National Press Club last week, Japan’s ambassador to Australia, Kazuhiro Suzuki, celebrated Labor’s commitments to sustained liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports and invited Australians to subsidise carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects. Curiously, Suzuki only indirectly referenced “energy security” concerns as motivating Japan’s latest intervention in Australia’s climate and energy debate — breaking from a predecessor who regularly chastised Canberra’s supposed neglect on this front.

Suzuki’s softened language may reflect the diminished salience of Japan’s energy security arguments, following revelations that its LNG buyers on-sell much of the Australian gas they purchase.

The on-selling strategy has clearly damaged Japan’s reputation in Australia, particularly as strong LNG exports undermine our own gas security by pushing up domestic prices. But Australian officials still regularly reassure Japan that efforts to correct gas market settings, or enhance climate action, will not stop the LNG flowing, regardless of its final destination.

Last month, our top intelligence analyst and next Japan ambassador, Andrew Shearer, even echoed Tokyo’s sensationalist representation of Australian LNG as a bulwark against authoritarian fossil fuel providers such as Russia. Suzuki’s press club address nevertheless continued to locate LNG and CCS in a broader conversation on Japan-Australia security cooperation, including through invoking the concept of “economic security”.

Economic security is, indeed, the most appropriate lens through which to view Japanese fossil fuel concerns.

As the ambassador himself acknowledged, Labor’s policies, such as this year’s North West Shelf extension and last year’s Future Gas Strategy, mostly reassure Japanese actors that their fossil fuel investments are not under long-term threat of diminishing returns.

If Australia were to also bow to Suzuki’s CCS requests, it would have similar effect — it would convince Japanese businesses they can continue burning fossil fuels at home, bury the emissions abroad, and also export CCS-related technologies to us and other countries.

However, Australia’s leaders should appreciate the alternative, much greater security costs of continuing to aid Japan’s interests, which conveniently mirror those of our own fossil fuel lobby.

At the highest level, gas backers here or in Japan provide no real evidence to support the extraordinary claim that this fuel can minimise the biggest security threat of all: climate change. The simpler truth — inconveniently confirmed by research commissioned by the WA government — is that burning any fossil fuel increases global emissions.

Australia’s recent climate risk assessment, in turn, confirmed the physical risks that these increased emissions help sustain. Meanwhile, a more international, strategically focused climate security assessment from Shearer’s Office of National Intelligence remains hidden from the public — one potential explanation is that the bleak picture it paints might help shift security conversations towards supporting fossil fuel curtailment.

It is certainly difficult to see how meeting Japan’s — or any country’s — fossil fuel demands overrides Australia’s need to minimise climate-linked instability. 

It’s also difficult to consider acquiescence to Japan important enough to neglect other ties, led by those with Australia’s COP co-bidders in the Pacific, which have a perspective on security that rightly prioritises minimising climate threats.

Any need for Japan’s cooperation on other challenges, led by responses to China, should not change the equation, particularly not when, to reiterate, Japan doesn’t need our gas — or any fossil fuel, from anywhere — in the volumes and timeframes it claims.

No country serious about its climate goals should tie its long-term energy, economic, or other security interests to fossil fuels. Even absent climate motivations, arguments over the inherent security of fossil fuels have long been flawed, particularly for a resource-poor country such as Japan.

To begin with, imported gas, coal, and oil inevitably transit fragile trading routes. Globally, about 40% of bulk shipping moves fossil fuels. So a significant degree of maritime security concern — including issues Suzuki’s speech referenced — might be alleviated by simply using less of these fuels.

Faith in Australia as a direct energy provider also does not adequately insulate against less-trusted countries influencing markets and prices. This again requires lowering overall fossil fuel use.

Moreover, today’s critical energy choice is no longer between authoritarian and non-authoritarian fossil fuels but between fossil fuels and renewables. And renewables offer clear energy security benefits through their domestic availability and affordability.

Renewables are not constantly depleted, are more efficient, and use distributed assets such as rooftop solar panels rather than vulnerable equivalents such as centralised power stations.

On economic security, China has clearly shown the merits of genuine zero-emissions technology leadership. Though Japan significantly trails its great neighbour in this respect, there is no unassailable impediment to it shifting focus.

If the world is to meet its climate goals, it is unavoidable that Japanese actors begin to feel insecure about future fossil fuel investments. Australia’s leaders need a hard-headed reassessment of how our own energy and climate interests intersect with this reality.

Maintaining the current course jeopardises our own long-term development, including realisation of Labor’s renewable superpower vision, which can be considered Australia’s climate-aligned economic security strategy.