The Talbot Oration: Climate Action - in Our National Interest

KIM MCKAY: So, as a cornerstone event of our Climate Solutions Centre, the Talbot Oration brings together you, the public, to hear from a range of voices on important environmental issues.

Tonight, the Honourable Matt Kean, Chair of the Climate Change Authority, and an adjunct professor at the UTS Institute for Sustainable Futures and the UTS Business School, will deliver the Oration. That's wonderful. UTS is also my alma mater and I'm on the board today, so it's a wonderful university that we also partner with here. Matt's talk tonight is titled: Climate Action in the National Interest. He has said it is incumbent upon our generation to take decisive and responsible action on climate change. It is the biggest challenge that will face our society and our economy in our lifetimes.

Tonight, he will tell us what this decisive and responsible action should look like, and what hopefully it could achieve for Australia. Matt is a long-time supporter and visitor to the Australian Museum, and now that he's just had his second child - thank you, Matt - it's gonna boost our audience even further. (LAUGHTER) I'm thrilled to welcome you to the Australian Museum tonight, Matt, to deliver the Fifth Annual Talbot Oration. (APPLAUSE)

MATT KEAN: Well, thank you so much, Kim. And good evening, ladies and gentlemen. May I join Uncle Allen in acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the land that we're gathered on tonight, the Gadigal people. I pay my respects to their leaders, past and present, and note the vital role this Museum is playing to remind us that care for country matters now more than ever.

Can I join Kim in acknowledging the distinguished guests who are here tonight, particularly my very dear friend and mentor, the President of the Legislative Council in NSW, Ben Franklin, one of the most outstanding policy minds and scientific leaders in the country, and someone that was key to the environment policies that I championed as the Environment Minister in NSW. And that's my dear friend, Professor Hugh Durrant-Whyte. Thank you for everything you did for good policy in NSW. (APPLAUSE) Could I acknowledge someone that I have the utmost admiration for, and that is my former colleague on the Climate Change Authority, Dr Cathy Foley. Cathy blazed a trail as the Chief Scientist of Australia and made a huge impact when it came to climate policy on the Climate Change Authority, so thank you so much for your continuing leadership and work in this space, Cathy. (APPLAUSE)

To AAP, Lisa, congratulations on how you've built this organisation so well, and we wish you every success in your next endeavour. And Kim McKay is absolutely spot-on. I want to acknowledge her. I was one of those people that crossed the other side of the street when I saw her coming. The NSW Budget is still recovering from all those requests that she made! But you are an outstanding leader. I haven't come across a more effective advocate for such an important institution, and may your work continue for many years into the future. Thank you, Kim. (APPLAUSE) And finally, can I take an opportunity to acknowledge the Talbot family? Thank you so much for the honour of having me as the speaker here tonight, and I'll speak a bit more about Frank in a moment.

It is a tremendous honour to present this year's Talbot Oration. The first since Professor Talbot's passing last October. We just heard Kim's fine words and watched a video about Frank's many contributions to this great institution and to others. May I add another tribute, noting the large family contingent that's here tonight. Extending kindness and encouraging others don't always feature in a list of someone's achievements, but they should. I hear on good authority that Charlie Veron - a name many of you know as the Godfather of Corals - got his early start in science thanks to Frank's generosity. Charlie remembers meeting Frank as a 10-year-old. Frank gave him a letter, replete with his big signature scrawled across the page, and that letter literally opened the doors for Charlie, launching a career that would include identifying about one-fifth of the world's coral species. "I love the guy," was Charlie's warm memory of Frank this week. "He's a hero." Decades after that first meeting, Charlie was heading to London to address the Royal Society on the threat of climate change to the reefs and the world's oceans. Naturally, he made sure to check in with Frank. Frank reeled off lots of advice, laced with what Charlie remembers to be strongly derogatory names for the climate change deniers. It was music to my ears, and helped galvanise my actions, he said.Now, we best not speculate on what those terms were, nor who might deserve them today. Let's just say I've got a little list, and I suspect many of you in the audience do as well.

Like Frank, though, I do want to focus on climate change, and even galvanise a bit of action here tonight. Scientists have long warned us that, by pumping out more greenhouse gas, we will heat up the planet. We can expect a more erratic climate, with worsening weather extremes, until we stabilise the concentration of carbon dioxide, methane, and those other heat-trapping gases. And it's not like we haven't seen this problem coming. Scientists described the greenhouse gas effect in 1824 - two full centuries ago - and just three years before this Museum's foundation. I'll argue tonight that it's definitely in our interest to take bold climate action, and not just because Australia is among the most vulnerable to wilder weather.

If we can rise to this necessary challenge of exiting fossil fuels, we can aid other nations' transition as well, and increase our prosperity in doing so. New engines of prosperity are up for grabs and we should be grabbing them with both hands. We cannot afford to wait. As climate scientist Joelle Gergis told us in her Quarterly Essay last year, "We are the last generation that will experience the world as we know it today." "The last to experience the tropical wonders of the Great Barrier Reef, summers uninterrupted by life-threatening storms, and the awe of wild places before they succumb irrevocably to the ravages of fire and intolerable heat."

You may have heard that last month's record flooding around Taree on this state's Mid-North Coast was a 1-in-500-year event. Once statistically rare, these events are now occurring with concerning regularity. So far this year, we've also endured huge floods in northern and western Queensland, while Cyclone Alfred veered much further south than most tropical tempests, leaving big power outages and another burst of floods.

The Federal Treasury put the immediate cost to the economy of these four events at $2.2 billion. Elsewhere, the driest start to any year in parts of South Australia and Victoria is adding to the ballooning disaster bill. Those tallies, however, doesn't count for the devastating loss of human life, including the deaths and the lingering damage for people whose lives, and livelihoods, have been upended. Ask the occupants of the thousand-plus homes destroyed in the Mid-North Coast floods alone. Their road back to some normalcy won't be easy, and we wish them the best. The Insurance Council of Australia says member firms are already processing about 9,000 insurance claims for those most recent floods. The North Queensland flooding event added another 11,000 claims, while damage claims for Cyclone Alfred are heading for 130,000, at least. The insured damage bill from those two Queensland events alone will climb past $1.5 billion any day now. As Treasurer of NSW, I learnt only too well how disruptive these not-so-natural weather events can be. We had to scramble to provide the recovery funds after the record Lismore floods in 2022. Part of the state's most expensive natural disaster.

Of course, Australia is hardly alone when it comes to a shifting climate. The world set a global annual heat record in 2023, only for 2024 to break it. This year won't be far off either. In decades to come, we'll probably look back at this trio of years at mercifully cool. In the past week, you may have seen the vision of the collapse of a Swiss alpine glacier, amid a record spring heatwave in Europe. Or the huge wildfires raging across Canada. On the Arctic Circle, we've had 30-degree days. In Siberia, minimum temperatures have smashed previous records by 10 degrees, all at the end of spring.

Frank Talbot would have recognised these mayday alerts for what they are - wake-up calls for action. Museums as old as this one help plot the past, while projecting our possible futures. It's why this place fascinates my 5-year-old son, Tom, and so many other children. He's insisted on countless weekend visits. My daughter Zoe - all of a fortnight old today - will no doubt totter in Tom's footsteps before long. So many treasures, from the dinosaur gallery, and Sir Hercules and the Bone Ranger, to the Morning Star Pole that the Dhuwa Yolngu people deployed to align key cultural events with the movement of Planet Venus across the skies over Elcho Island. Consider night and light ceremonies many centuries before Vivid Sydney. But did you know some of this Museum's most important collections are not in the public eye?

Deep in this building, among the mammalian collection of 65,000 specimens are two standard, beige cupboards that staff have labelled the "extinction cabinets". These contain remains of more than two dozen of the 39 Australian mammal species wiped out since Europeans arrived. One of the cabinets is mainly devoted to the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger. Several drawers contain full pelts of these lost animals. Their rich brown and tawny markings, better preserved than the bleached specimens you may have spotted in public displays here or elsewhere. The other cabinet holds remains of the pig-footed bandicoot, among others. A sweet little creature, it sported hoof-like feet and a long tail with a crested tip.

There's a sad and poignant tale of Europeans' early ignorance of this land. Picture Gerald Krefft, a future curator of this Museum, who has joined a collection tour in 1857 to the northern region of newly minted colony Victoria. The party secures several live landwang - as the local Yeri Yeri Indigenous people knew the bandicoots to be. Before long, however, the Europeans' provisions began to run low. As Krefft admits in his own journal, "My appetite more than once overruled my love for science."

These turned out to be among the last landwang ever recorded before this marsupial was deemed to be extinct. At least those early expeditions were attempts to understand Australia. 17 decades on, with all our accumulated knowledge of ecology, what's our excuse going to be when more species succumb. These extinction cabinets also contain the Bramble Cay melomys, a more recent addition. A century ago, this Museum dispatched an exploration party to Bramble Cay, a small sand island off the Torres Strait. This group described the island's lagoon as a giant aquarium of gorgeous fishes with an infinite variety of marine life. That was then. In 2019, the Federal Government declared the Bramble Cay melomys extinct. Rising sea levels had diminished its breeding prospects almost before anybody had noticed. To quote from one conservationist, "The Bramble Cay melomys was a little brown rat, but it was our little brown rat, and it was our responsibility to make sure it persisted, and we failed." The melomys became the first recorded mammalian extinction due to anthropogenic climate change. With habitat loss and a heating planet, we must ask ourselves, "How much storage space will this Museum and others need to set aside for extinctions?"

Now, the Government may soon give us some pointers. It has commissioned Australia's first Natural Climate Risk Assessment to assess the impact already from rising temperatures, both on the natural world and on society and the economy. The report will also scope out some of the consequences of a 2- or 3-degree-warmer world, compared with pre-industrial times. We're fast approaching 1.5 degrees already.

Many species are already being forced to migrate to survive, while some will make it, others will become endangered or worse. Their ecological niches narrowing to nothing.

Higher temperatures and higher humidity in the tropics won't be much fun for humans either. First Nations Australians, with their deep attachment to country, may be in for a dispossession driven by the thermometer.

The Risk Assessment dropped hints of what the final report will look like in its first pass, made public last year. Perils already of high concern are riverine and flash flooding, and droughts and changes in aridity. Does that sound familiar? We have long understood the atmosphere holds 7% more moisture per degree of warming. What we now think of as historically wet events may be exceeded in the future if temperatures keep climbing. In 2022, the University of NSW scientists revealed that downpours - short-duration, high-intensity rainfall events, have increased by 40% in the Sydney region over the past 20 years. What does that heating look like? The University of Reading in the UK has produced climate stripes, showing warming over time for hundreds of cities. Without needing an x- or y-axis, this iconic image combines science and art - something that museums excel at - to convey instant meaning.

Here is what Sydney's climate stripes look like. Are you seeing red yet? Because you should be. The World Meteorological Organization told us last month there is an 80 - 8-0 - percentage chance that at least one of the years from 2025 to 2029 will beat the record 2024 heat record. The WMO also estimates that there is a 70% chance the average temperature over the coming five years will exceed 1.5 degrees above the 1850-1900 baseline. A clear sign of persistent warming.

To be clear, the Paris climate agreement - that we and almost 200 nations signed up to - pledged to keep global warming to well below 2 degrees and under 1.5 degrees if possible. Those Paris markers refer to long-term warming levels, typically exceeding 20 years. That means we still have time to arrest this direction of travel to a hothouse destination that we do not want to reach. So, ladies and gentlemen, what are we going to do about it?

As the Dutch writer Rutger Bregman wrote in his new book, Moral Ambition, Martin Luther King Junior didn't rally Americans with "I have a nightmare". Rather, he laid out his dream, and so should we. First, we should ignore the doubters, whose main mission seems to be to prolong the life of fossil fuel industries. Opponents of climate action don't give up, even when their political parties cop an electoral hammering. To those politicians who are still providing a cover for vested interests, I say, "Get out of the way. Stop holding our country back and stop holding your political parties back. Try acting in the national interest, or take the low road to political oblivion." (CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

We can expect climate action opponents to query the economics because they've lost the argument over physics and chemistry. It's not a scientific denial, Andre Correa do Lago, the Brazilian diplomat who will head this year's climate summit in the Amazon, warned last week. "It's now an economic denial." He stressed that the measures needed to combat climate change can be good for the economy and for people, and it's a view that might run in his family. Correa do Lago, it turns out, is the youngest of five brothers, all of whom became economists. "My mother was horrified with our lack of originality," he joked in The Guardian. As you may know, Australia is in a two-horse race to follow Brazil and host next year's Climate Summit late next year. That will be COP31, or the 31st Conference of the Parties, as these gatherings are known. Wouldn't it be great if COP31 turned out to be the last one that we ever needed? That's probably getting a bit too dreamy. Let's secure the hosting rights for Adelaide first. Still, if we do become the COP hosts, along with our Pacific partners, we can expect climate matters to occupy an even more prominent place in our political discourse for the next year at least.

So, how might we make the most of this opportunity to accelerate action where it's already under way and to kick-start it where it's not? As a former Energy Minister in NSW, in a Liberal government, I saw an opening to reach out to political opponents, to help quell the climate wars in this state. It can be done. Even if some of those inclined against climate policy reside on your own side of the chamber. Hunt hard enough for common interests, though, and you can find it. It helps that the economics are also aligning with the science. As US energy investor Hal Harvey put it, "It's now cheaper to save the earth than to ruin it." (LAUGHTER) Investors are lining up trillions of investment dollars to decarbonise economies. Even so, we must be realistic about the scale of the task that lies ahead. Some have likened the challenge to Franklin Roosevelt's transformation of the US economy to defeat Japan and Germany in World War II.

And I just want to note Australia didn't shirk its international obligations then either. Progress has not been fast enough. Global carbon emissions are still rising. The recent good news is that China - by far the world's largest polluter - may have peaked in the past few months. It's early days yet, but the slowdown in emissions appears to be caused by China's rapid advance of renewable sources of electricity, not an economic slowdown. Despite US President Donald Trump's embrace of coal in his first term, or his promise to "drill, baby, drill" in his second, fossil fuels are increasingly eclipsed by renewables globally when it comes to luring new investment. And we'll need a lot more.

Earlier this year, Michael Cembalest, a respected energy analyst for US bank J.P. Morgan, estimated the global spend on new wind, solar, batteries, EVs, and other clean tech over the past decade amounts to some US$9 trillion. That's $15 trillion Aussie. To be clear, some of that money would have gone on replacing clapped-out coal plants, or other equipment, whose use-by date has now passed. Even so, renewables share of final energy consumption has only been advancing between 0.3 and 0.6 percentage points per year. So, where should we look for optimism? Try upwards. Bell Labs in the US made the initial solar cell in 1954. It took a young Australian researcher, Martin Green, toiling away in the early 1970s at the University of NSW, to develop a solar cell capable of mass production. Since then, the cost of solar panels has dropped about 99%. That's partly because graduates supervised by Professor Green unleashed a huge expansion of solar production in China and elsewhere. Price per unit has steadily dropped by about a fifth every time output doubled. Martin Green should be a household name, particularly among the 4 million Australian households that have solar panels. That's a world-leading share. This Museum is doing its bit, including Martin's work in an exhibition that can be viewed as an virtual tour.

You can zoom in on his donation of an early prototype solar cell. Solar and wind energy will be key to our success in halting climate action. As Bloomberg noted last month, "Renewable energy now makes up over 90% of annual new additions to the global power system each year." And there's more to be wrung out of these renewables. Costs may halve yet again by 2035 alone, Bloomberg estimates. And you can be sure that Martin will be among those extending the frontiers of knowledge. Nuclear, we can say, is playing a role globally. But note n2019, reactors produced five times the total amount of power as solar panels. Now the two sources are roughly equal, according to an energy think tank. One of those two technologies promises falling prices, while nuclear cost blow-outs remain the norm. Solar's emerging partner, of course, is storage. Whether made from lithium or an emerging raft of materials. Battery prices dropped by about a third last year and costs keep sinking as innovation combines with scale. Perhaps we should dub these twins "the charge of the light brigade".

Now, you may know that the Climate Change Authority, which I'm chairing, is the nation's source of independent climate advice. We are presently preparing to advise the Government on what Australia's 2035 obligations should be. I've said previously that I want the target to be ambitious, informed by the science, but also achievable. Part of our work is to understand what Trump's efforts to dismantle the Biden Administration's decarbonisation funding mean for our own pathway. Will they hamper us or will it help us? Some political or business leaders have suggested, if a target appears beyond reach, that we should throw in the towel. In fact, there are many ways we can do more, mostly by going with the electron flow. The pace of electrification will determine whether or not we succeed. Take electric vehicles. Globally, EVs will account for about a quarter of sales globally this year. Up from a fifth in 2024, according to the International Energy Agency. By 2030, EVs' share may rise to 40% or beyond. Australia has been a bit slow out of the blocks, but our pace should quicken along with the rollout of fast chargers. And last year, China had 3.2 million public charge points installed as at July. More Australian EV owners are recharging their cars off their own solar - free riders of a worthy kind.

In the future, many will also support the power centre by discharging power once vehicle-to-grid capability becomes more common. These so-called distributed energy sources of solar and batteries actually offer power to the people. An outcome the party of Robert Menzies has always believed in. Any fair-dinkum liberals and conservatives listening tonight should advocate for such policies today. (APPLAUSE) Indeed, giving more households more help to take up solar and batteries is not only good politics, it could pick up some of the slack if the larger grid overhaul takes longer than expected. Some of the handbrakes on large-scale renewables is easy. But challenges like clogged supply chains, labour shortages, slow approvals, and social licence issues still persist. Dr Gabrielle Kuiper, a distinguished expert on energy resources, distributed energy resources, sees opportunities for homes and smaller businesses to help the Government meet its 2030 goal of sourcing 82% of power from renewables as part of its legislated emissions reduction goal. Gabrielle estimates the grid is on track to fall shy of the target by an equivalent of 10 gigawatts' worth of large-scale solar farms. Given the need to add about six gigawatts a year of solar or wind farms to 2030, such a projected shortfall is sizeable. There's also a looming home and business storage gap of about four gigawatts versus the Integrated System Plan, modelled by the energy operator, according to Dylan McConnell, an energy expert at the University of NSW.

Fortunately, there are ways to respond, and some of them will soon ramp up. Well, the Government's new multi-year battery subsidy program will likely be very popular. Early indicators suggest the take-up may reach a million households versus the 75,000 batteries installed in homes in 2024. Likewise, gaze out the window next time you take off from a city airport. See how many factory, warehouse, or shopping centre rooftops appear ripe for solar. Bruce Mountain, head of the Victorian Energy Policy Centre, estimates his state's commercial and industrial rooftops could generate 56 terawatt hours of electricity a year.

Now, that's more than Victoria's total end-use power demand. But, so far, firms have tapped just 7% of the opportunity. We can unlock this potential by removing unnecessary charges or rules that still get in the way. Similarly, we can devise ways that owners and tenants can share the spoils. We should also encourage developers to build panel-ready new structures, both for factories and for homes. Governments should also insist on better energy efficiency outcomes for newly built homes so we don't lumber their owners with decades of energy waste and bigger bills. The same goes for appliances. Why should Australians accept poorly performing devices, whether locally sourced or imported? Whilst we cherish free markets and the role of private capital, we have to be realistic. Decarbonisation is not just going to happen. We have to help make it happen. That means governments setting ambitious goals and targeting big-emitting industries with judiciously granted support to achieve them. Think steel, cement, and even farming. The Superpower Institute, led by eminent Australians Ross Garnaut and Rod Sims, have spelt out how green steel and iron, and other new minerals, offer our workers and industries new avenues for exports and growth. Our fossil fuel exports, plus what we burn at home, make Australia a significant overall emitter, accounting for about 4.5% of the global total. By developing new, green industries, powered by our abundant sunshine and wind, we can help the world decarbonise perhaps twice that share, or around 9.6%.

So, we shouldn't shy away from this battle, especially when we can win. Imagine if the early abolitionists had given up their fight against slavery, or the suffragettes had accepted women didn't deserve the right to vote? Both groups took heart from small, initial wins, and regrouped after setbacks. They also sought allies in unlikely places to ensure their movements of change gathered momentum until they became irresistible. Bregman, who I mentioned before, noted support within the British Parliament for an end to slavery got its biggest boost by highlighting how British sailors on the slave ships were dying at a greater rate than the slaves. A parallel in today's battle might be that governments must ensure communities that will inevitably be weaned off fossil fuels are given every opportunity to share in the prosperity.

To conclude, great institutions like the Australian Museum have long fostered an awe for nature, but have also celebrated human endeavour and innovation. Their dedicated staff deserve all our appreciation. These places reveal how much science matters, and we're going to need a lot more of it, whether basic or applied, in the coming decades.

After all, our challenge is not just figuring out how to cut emissions but also how we're gonna cope with the climate consequences that are already in train. So, we have our work cut out. But so did those trying to land somebody on the moon, or devise on the fly a vaccine for COVID. The advances in the technologies we need, like solar, wind, and batteries, are absolutely amazing. And other breakthroughs will no doubt emerge. Machines that can learn, and quantum computing capabilities, could also be decisive allies. We should be optimistic but resolute and tireless too. A key message to leave you with tonight is that we can't afford to fail. Not if we want to have a Great Barrier Reef that is still great, with brilliant, iridescent corals, and those giant aquariums of gorgeous fish. Not if we want to live in safe, comfortable homes, spared from the worst floods, cyclones, and bushfires. Not if we want to avoid filling our museum collections with extinct species that we could have, and should have, saved. At stake, after all, is whether we really do leave our planet to our children, and their children, better than we found it, as Frank Talbot strived to do. That way, when my Tom and Zoe, and all the other children of this country, peer up in wonder into the cabinets continuing nature's gifts, they'll see species that are not extinct but, rather, remain wild and free. We will have succeeded because we knew the dangers and we acted. And in doing so, we leave our planet to our kids better than we found it, and our economy more prosperous in any generation of Australians has ever dreamed was possible. Thank you very much. (APPLAUSE)

For the audience, if you do have a question of our panel tonight, you will be able to ask questions. You can address your questions then and I'll remind you at the time to keep it just to a question, not to a statement. Otherwise, I will come after you! Thanks so much,

Matt. It sounds from your talk as if the transition to a renewable energy economy is certainly now well under way in Australia. Some states are running faster than others, correct?

Tasmania, I think, hydro is about 100% on renewables? South Australia, about 100% on renewables now? By 2037, they say, and likely to be exporting to other states. But there's still this doubt out there - I had a discussion with quite a famous Australian the other day, who got in my ear and said, "Look, yes, all this solar is great, and wind, and so forth, but it doesn't work long term." And he was advocating that we should be also putting nuclear in the mix of energy. And we know that takes a very long time to kick in. He was saying that battery power doesn't deliver. How do we negate that discussion? Because from your perspective, what's your thinking around that?

MATT KEAN: As I said in the speech, I mean, people arguing for nuclear are kind of the equivalent of people arguing that we should build Blockbuster video chains when everyone is watching Netflix. The economics of renewables are coming down in costs dramatically, and nuclear is going the other way. So, the benefit of using new technology... Oh, sorry.

KIM MCKAY: Oh, your mic isn't working?

MATT KEAN: Can people hear me? Is that better? I was just saying that people arguing for nuclear are arguing for older technologies that have been superseded. The advance in renewables and storage is dramatic, and it will continue to move in only one direction, and that is get more efficient, more effective, and cheaper. That's good for consumers, that's good for taxpayers. So, Australia is faced with a great opportunity here, and I think the Australian people have grabbed that opportunity as we saw at the last election. And that is get on with the job of modernising our electricity system in a way that not only benefits the planet but benefits consumers. I mean, today, the cheapest form of energy is renewables, backed up by firming, storage and transmission. So, people arguing for nuclear were kind of arguing for higher electricity bills, more pollution, and a less reliable grid. So, it didn't make sense, and the Australian people saw right through it. So, as I said, those politicians that want to act for vested interests, they should get out of the way. But those who want to act in the national interest have a great opportunity to do so. The Australian people have given them a big mandate. (APPLAUSE)

KIM MCKAY: Cathy, I know you also have some thoughts because you spent quite a bit of time as Chief Scientist, looking at this issue and looking at battery storage and how the stability of renewables in our economy could be?

CATHY FOLEY: Well, batteries work. I mean, I think that's the first thing. The second is it's a huge economic opportunity for Australia. At the moment, we have the periodic table here to dig up and use in ways that are going to be hopefully not too onerous on the environment, which is that challenge, because our wealth comes from the land, as does our food. And, actually, so, well, renewables actually take up some of the land as well. So, there's going to be a tension there and getting that balance right is not insignificant. Those of you who know the National Science Research Priorities, that's actually one of the priorities that we're looking at, is how do we get that balance right. The other is, though, we've got a track record of digging up stuff here and then shipping it off overseas, so that we're not getting the full value of it. But we are able to - and working towards - being able to process particularly the critical minerals that are important for batteries, but also we've got a whole range of different battery capabilities, particularly the stationary batteries, with the capabilities too, and we're seeing investment in building, manufacturing here of those sorts of batteries. So, that's a great opportunity for the country as well, and being able to then export them so that we're able to take them and be a new export for Australia. Because as we transition away from dependency on fossil fuels, that's probably... It's between $150 billion to $300 billion of exports we have to replace with new industries. And so batteries and AI, all those sorts of things which we are really good at in Australia,... And then replacing it with other things.

KIM MCKAY: The other thing about this, though, is we've got a lot of advocates out there in the community trying to ensure... To encourage advocates in the community. Like, what can people in the audience do in that regard? Whether it's local councils or media or teachers in our schools, to understand the detail of this?

CATHY FOLEY: Well, I guess the first thing is, if everyone had open access to research literature so that they could get the true information, it's great that AAP is going to be some of that for us, so, yay! But I think that's, first of all, access to trusted information is the number-one thing. And I haven't given that up yet, I'm still plugging away, hoping that we can get to a point where we can have a new approach for the way we engage with the academic publishers so that everyone can read research literature if they've got an Australian IP address.

But the other is also, we talk ourselves down as a country. We often don't trust that we can do it. We heard from Matt tonight, saying, "We can do this. We actually have all the ingredients." We've got all the capability to do it, we just need to have the will and the trust in ourselves to not be faint-hearted and to push through and deliver. And to some extent, that's going to require us, as a community, to back each other so that we actually stand up and call out misinformation and things which aren't based on evidence. And I suppose that requires us to make sure that our schools are giving information to our young people so they grow up knowing the realities and the evidence and be able to understand and have that critical thinking, so that they're able to respond in a way which is seeing where the opportunities are, rather than being caught up in a maelstrom of things which are not gonna lead us where we want to be as a nation.

KIM MCKAY: That sounds good to me. Because in all the trust indexes, museums, natural history museums rank at the very top of that - that we're the most trusted institutions in our society. So, we take our responsibility and role in that pretty seriously.

CATHY FOLEY: In fact, it's an extraordinarily important interface between research and the community because most - the research community is mostly in universities and public-funded agencies, and there's a little bit of outreach in that, but nowhere near the level that you do in museums and Questacon, and all those places.

KIM MCKAY: Chris, I've got a question for you. You have been very involved in the Institute for Sustainable Futures in looking at fairness and equity across the society, and access to be able to participate in the renewable energy economy. Could you perhaps tell us a little bit about that work? And I know also you've done some work with First Nations communities there too?

CHRIS BRIGGS: Yeah. Actually, just quickly to revert back to your first question, we've got around 2,000 megawatts of batteries currently built in the grid. There's 8,000 currently under construction. We're about to find out how well battery storage works very quickly. That might not be around for too much longer. I think the goal we should be aiming for is a fast but fair transition. It needs to be rapid for all the reasons Matt outlined. But big, rapid transitions often create winners and losers that fall differentially on the less vulnerable. There's tests for the energy transition. Will low-income households get access to clean energy, or will it just be people with solar and resources? Will coal regions get a reasonable transition to an alternative economy? Will the inland regions, the renewable energy where much of the infrastructure is being built, experience a construction, fly-in, fly-out boom, and experience benefits? Will First Nations people see this an improvement to their lives or will this wash past them? We have been working with land councils, looking at opportunities for them to own and store renewable energy. We have been working with the First Nations Clean Energy Network to look at employment. If you take employment, one in two First Nations people has a job currently compared to two in three Australians. That hasn't changed in three decades. Which is quite astonishing when you think about all the ways of mining and resource development has happened in that time. And a real warning, I think, for the clean energy transition, that the same could happen without proactive policies and programs.

So, if you're looking at the opportunities for First Nations people, you're looking at firstly improving cost and access to electricity. Land councils, we speak to on the edge of the grid in NSW, are primarily interested in solar battery microgrids because they don't have a reliable supply of power. They live in poor-quality housing which is expensive to run on energy. Secondly, there's a whole range of opportunities around employment that we're not currently taking up generally. So, when you're retro fitting Indigenous housing, you could be training people to be energy auditors, electricians. There's the occasional solar farm that does a great job. Avonlea, south-west of NSW, employ First Nations people that are unemployed. The community said it transformed that community. That's just 30 jobs. There's a whole range of other opportunities around wind farms looking for - say they would love to employ First Nations people as technicians but not sure what to do.

So, there's a real role for government, community and industry to actually collaborate because there's a range of ways in which you can create employment. Thirdly, very quickly, we've also been working with land councils around opportunities for ownership. So, they have significant landholdings, so at a local level. Some of it is culturally significant land but a lot of it has sort of ended up with them because no-one else really wanted it and it's a bit of a burden, but it's perfect to put little bits of solar around the place. And Canada has shown - Canada has 20% ownership of renewables by First Nations people. Which creates revenue streams that then First Nations communities can use to reinvest in health, social infrastructure, and all those sorts of things. So, it's a really big opportunity but it will take a big strategy. (APPLAUSE)

KIM MCKAY: That's fantastic. Thank you. We hear a lot about people who are working in the fossil fuel industry, in the coal industry, in particular, and about their jobs going. And what will happen to those people. I did see a stat the other day that claimed that there are fewer people working in the coal industry than are employed nationally by McDonald's. So, but there will be a lot of people who need extra support through this transition. So, you know - and this is for all of you to comment on - what are governments and communities doing, or can do, to support those fossil fuel workers in that transition?

CATHY FOLEY: Do you want to go first?

CHRIS BRIGGS: I could start. I guess, firstly, you're right, it's about 40,000 or 50,000... So, it is much smaller than many people realise. It's around 40,000 to 50,000 people roughly.

The coal-fired power stations, a lot of them are contractors who can actually be re-employed quite easily, electricians. The ones that can't are the actual power station operators, and so there's a bit of a transition job there, but it's mostly an ageing workforce. The bigger challenge is the mining sector, which currently, you know, sits on - obviously makes a lot of money and so forth - but around half that workforce is semi-skilled machine operators, so some challenges in redeploying them. There will be lots of jobs in mining. They just won't be in coal, and they'll be in different regions. There's a challenge to transition them. I guess the opportunity is probably gonna be in other industries that develop within the region, or it will be redeploying them probably to other types of mining. Miners have shown before that they can be quite a mobile workforce.

MATT KEAN: Well, I just add to that and say that the best way to replace a lost job is to create a new one. And that's why governments, working with industry, need to be building the jobs and the businesses of the future in areas that will be impacted by this transition. I mean, it doesn't matter how much Barnaby Joyce says that we've got to scrap net zero, the rest of the world is moving on this, OK? It's not gonna stop jobs being lost in the Hunter or Illawarra. These are global mega-trends. And what we need to do as Australians, or as Australian governments, is to put in place the policy settings that will create new industries and opportunities in those areas which could be affected. Let me give you the perfect example. Take in the Hunter, 1,500 direct jobs, and about 2,500 indirect jobs. So, that is, if you lost that smelter up there, or that aluminium facility up there, you're basically wiping out, or having a huge impact, on the whole Hunter region. So, we need to be focusing on supporting Tomago to transition to provide green aluminium in that area, to keep those jobs in those industries and all the spin-off workers that come with it. So, targeted, judicious government support, helping bridge green premiums is what's going to be required in some industries. But also industry development, creating new opportunities. So, hydrogen is something that's talked about a lot, and I know it's off into the future, but it genuinely is a major export opportunity that could displace export revenues from coal, for example, which is going to diminish in sales overseas, regardless of whether or not some people in the political class think that it won't.

CATHY FOLEY: Can I just add on to the fact that, actually, the number of workers that are available is diminishing. We're reaching a plateau, where the number of people working is not at the level, and at the skills, with the jobs that are there to be taken. You just look at our unemployment level, it has been going down, and it's one which has maintained at a low level. The biggest issue is having people working, and skilled, in the right areas where the jobs are. And being able to identify where we need to train people in the right place, so it's place-based, but also in the right subjects, and also looking at how can we be clever and make sure that we are having a whole-systems approach.

So that if we're, for example, locking up kids because - around different states, we're saying that 10-year-olds can go to jail because they've done the wrong thing - not good, sure. But also what are we doing to train them up so that when they leave detention, that they're actually able to have a productive life, not just becoming a new criminal of the future. And I think that one of the things that really worries me is that we're not looking at how we are using our full human potential, which is scattered in different places. That it's not just focused on what's happening in the capital cities. I think it's really important to recognise that regional and remote areas of Australia do feel like they're getting an unfair opportunity compared to those in the cities, because they feel that our wealth comes from the country and from the regions, and yet we're not putting stuff back in there. And education, supporting the young people to have jobs that allow them to stay in the regions, and thinking, "How can we make sure that the things we're looking at, such as renewable energy, which is very distributed across the country, will require very different jobs to what we have now?"

As you mentioned, I think it's something like 25,000 electricians are needed by 2035.

That's an awful lot of electricians, and where are they going to come from? And they're gonna be the jobs that are needed in more regional areas, not to mention in the cities, to be able to fix our cars and be able to operate all the different electrical systems that we're creating now.

KIM MCKAY: I know Cathy, as Chief Scientist, you're also looking at the issues of biodiversity and caring for country. But you also are aware of some of the innovations that are taking place in business to look after our natural environment better. Because there's no point transitioning - as we saw in Matt's talk, and looking at some of the species - it's the hardest day ever here to move a species from our endangered cupboard into the extinct cupboard.

And, you know, we're very lucky to live in this country, you know, with all it can offer from a natural perspective, natural biodiversity. Can you give examples of where you're seeing industry being able to adjust?

CATHY FOLEY: Well, I guess the main thing is that we do have strong environmental protection laws here. But one of the things is making sure we get the balance right so that we're not delaying the transition. So, that's one of the challenges we have, is making sure that we're protecting our environment at the same time as delivering the energy transition, and also our whole industry and economic transition. What we're seeing, I guess, is, for example, businesses that are coming out from First Nations, and recognising what value - not just from their knowledge systems but also products and things that come from the broader community - that's something that is emergent but still very small. I suppose one of the things that's really interesting is that a lot of small-to-medium enterprises are thinking in terms of high-tech that can be used to be able to deliver products that are needed, such as new batteries, new battery chemistries. So, if you look at some of the quantum companies that are developing at the moment, there's applications that are looking at designing new chemistry, which is gonna be more exact, and they're not there yet but they're looking at, "How can we prepare so that when we do get the computers that we are hoping will be delivered soon, we will be able to design the perfect battery material using the materials that are at hand?" That's sort of a little bit not direct but a little bit in the distance.

But I get a sense that you don't see people too often thinking of starting up a business saying, "How can I use this to wreck the country?" I suspect most people are thinking about, "How can I use it in a way for prosperity but also making sure that it's something that is not gonna leave a trail behind?" Which I'm gonna be apologising to my grandchildren about...

KIM MCKAY: And just before we go to questions from the audience, Matt, a final one from you. It must be very hard to be the organisation advising the Federal Government, balancing the advice you give when there are so many other voices coming into this. And there's so much to do. We like to think of ourselves as a clever country, but there are so many things that we're not... What's your number-one priority?

MATT KEAN: The number-one priority is making sure that we set a target that's in the national interest. I've outlined today how important it is that we have a high degree of ambition because the science requires us to do so. But we also need to make sure that it's anchored in reality and that the pathways to get there are going to help continue Australia's prosperity, not undermine it. So, there's, sometimes, some conflict between those two ideas, and we're trying to find a way through, and there is a way through. And I outlined some of those ways today. I mean, the uptake of using distributed energy resources is an obvious one. You can get huge amounts of capacity, renewable, clean, cheap capacity, into our electricity grid. And that structurally sets up other parts of the economy to decarbonise as well. Think everything that hangs off the electricity system - transport, industry, waste.

Transitioning the electricity grid unlocks the rest of the economy to be able to decarbonise as well, and do it in a way that's in our national interest, not against it.

KIM MCKAY: OK. So, now - thank you, Matt. We're going to open up to the audience. There are microphones here and over there. And, no, that's our photographer - she's not going to ask a question! Yes, please, go ahead. Give us your name and question.

KIM LOO: Dr Kim Loo from Doctors for the Environment. I'm wondering if you have comments on the North West Shelf. Because I work with very disadvantaged patients as well, and so the equity issues are really, really important. And it's such a big project that's going to last until 2070. Like, what can we do? I mean, I've written multiple letters to the Environment Minister, and so have many of my friends. And it was a decision that was made so rapidly when the election results were... I'm actually quite angry and distressed about it. (APPLAUSE) And the lack of care and respect for Aboriginal art is also incredibly distressing. Can you comment, please?

MATT KEAN: Well, Kim, thank you, firstly, for the work that you do, for Doctors for the Environment, and I really appreciate your advocacy on this issue, and so many issues. What I will say is that, obviously, it was a decision for the Government, and I'm an independent adviser to the Government of the day, whoever that should be. We at the Climate Authority had factored in the extension of that North West Shelf project as part of the work we're doing in the 2035 commitment. We haven't yet seen the conditions the Government has placed on it, but I will say this - the safeguard mechanism does apply to Woodside, or any of the top 200 emitters, which requires them to ratchet down their emissions in line with legislated targets. So, those targets - net zero by 2050 - although that project is expected to go until 2070, Woodside and other big emitters are required to meet that legislated target via the Safeguard Mechanism. So, again, Government has approved that within the constraints of the Safeguard Mechanism. We're yet to see what other conditions they've put on it, and I really do want to see that before I comment further.

KIM MCKAY: OK, thank you. Next. Question here?

LINDA: Thank you. My name is Linda and I wear a few hats. I do help policymakers internationally, governments write policies in different areas. I do some academic research and I lead a sustainability consultancy. One thing that joins all of these different roles is one topic, which is my favourite - sustainable finance. And, Matt, your background, but I would also like to hear from the other panellists. What do you think the new Government should, and could, do - not only the Federal Government, also state governments - to mobilise the capital that we need for environmental action, social action, and everything that drives just, low-carbon, and resilient transitions?

MATT KEAN: Thanks, Linda. Do you want me to have a crack at that first? If I was the Treasurer or the Federal Environment Minister today, and I was trying to catalyse climate finance, I would be trying to get the Government to take on more risk and not crowd out that finance. And that's what ARENA and the CEFC is meant to be doing, but too often I find they're too conservative and they're competing out private capital. What they need to be doing is taking on risks that private finance wouldn't take on and clear the way to de-risk it so that private capital can follow. That's going to be a very big focus of my advice to the Government on what we can do to crowd in capital and get people to be able to fund those areas that have been de-risked. The Government has a huge role to play in this. And as far as I'm concerned, the CEFC and ARENA can go a lot further in ensuring that private capital is able to do its bit in helping with this transition.

KIM MCKAY: Thank you, thank you. Yes, sir?

JIM: My name is Jim. Is it time to put the recalcitrant fossil fuel climate hucksters out of our misery by having a full-on, high-profile debate? They never seem to want to argue and put the evidence out.

MATT KEAN: Well, I mean, they've got very noisy voices. But the noisiest voice, I think, is the Australian people, and they've just given a huge mandate to politicians and political parties that want to take strong and decisive action on climate change. And political parties that want to put up these, you know, Trojan horses for the coal industry - i.e., seven. taxpayer-funded nuclear power plants to delay the transition - they got smashed. So, I think we should have a debate and just get on with what the scientists, the engineers and what the economists are telling us to do. (APPLAUSE) It's now cheaper to save the planet than to ruin it.

JONATHAN: Hi. My name is Jonathan. And I work in the space industry. But I'm actually just here out of my own interest. And the question I had was specifically around the, sort of, inequality in the transition and that sort of thing. Specifically, I know you were talking about some things like the government trying to get more action on, you know, getting renters to be able to install solar panels on their dwellings, or that sort of thing. But one thing that I'm particularly curious about is, is there any way that, you know, as someone who is renting and, you know, I've got a little bit of money to throw around at the end of the week but not that much - is there anywhere that I can put that to try and contribute to this transition now before having to wait for more government action along those lines?

CHRIS BRIGGS: Yeah, so renters are one of the groups that are challenging because, of course, you don't own your own roof space, and so on someone has to agree to put solar panels on. There are a range of community energy options. I can see Monica is in the audience, and City of Sydney has trialled quite a number of options for apartments, actually. But there are various community energy projects, you could be an investor in an energy project. An investor in the Young Henrys solar energy array myself, proudly. There are things called solar gardens, actually, which are specifically targeting apartment owners and trying to get - basically take it off your electricity bills but you're investing in an off-site solar thing. I would google "solar gardens" when you're out of here specifically, and you might find something of interest there.

MATT KEAN: Can I just add to that? There are things that all of us can do, if you don't have a lot of disposable income. You can effect change through the choices that you do make in how you spend your money. So, choose a super fund that is investing in the right things.

Choose a bank that is financing the right projects and has said 'no' to the wrong ones. Go and shop at retailers that are committed to net zero. By small acts, you can make a big difference and help us build the momentum that we need to get where we need to go. (APPLAUSE)

KIM MCKAY: Hear, hear. I'm a great believer that the public can change things, acting together. For those of you who don't know, I co-founded Clean Up Australia originally, a very long time ago, and I saw tens of thousands, eventually hundreds of thousands, of Australians turn out to try and put plastic waste and other issues on the agenda. Boy, was industry slow to react, and government to legislate, but eventually steps were made. Yes.

CHRISTINA TONKIN: Thank you. I'm Christina Tonkin, concerned citizen and ANZ banker. I have a question for the panellists. You know, I think, Matt, you were talking a little bit before about the Safeguard Mechanism. I'm kind of interested in your views around, you know, the carbon offset market and the role of carbon offsets. Particularly in the hard-to-abate sector, kind of going forward, when you're thinking about the '30-'35 plan, and any other comments from the panellists around that for nature restoration?

MATT KEAN: Well, the first thing I'd say is that the number-one thing that we should be doing is moving carbon from the economy. That's the number-one thing that we should be doing. So, phasing out fossil fuels. OK? (APPLAUSE) But where we can't phase out fossil fuels, because the technology doesn't exist at a price point that makes that a reality, we should then be secondly looking at what we can do to abate that carbon. So, we're trying to get to net zero, not real zero. And I think there is a role for carbon offsets. But let's be very clear - there are carbon offsets and then there are carbon offsets, OK? And some of the marketing around claims of being carbon neutral, or whatnot, or purchasing international offsets that have no integrity whatsoever, that is undermining the whole effort that we're making. Fortunately in this country, there is a compliance market that has been set up, with a regulator underpinned by the Federal Government, that ensures that carbon offsets do what they're meant to do, and that's abate carbon. But they should be used after... They should be used in a situation where the first and foremost consideration is, "Can we replace fossil fuels?" So, if you're using carbon to produce a product, and you could use solar instead, that should be the number-one priority. But if you can't displace whatever that process is - and I'm thinking of steelmaking, for example, electric furnaces aren't where we need them to be yet, they'll get there - in the meantime, those polluters should do their bit to offset emissions. That's what the Safeguard Mechanism requires. It needs to be underpinned by offsets that have integrity. For too long we've seen people marketing offsets that don't do what they're intended to do. And that is abate carbon.

KIM MCKAY: Yes, young man here. Tell us your name.

ADRIAN: Adrian. Matt, I think you should go take your speech to the highest court in Australia and actually use it, 'cause you could actually speed up net zero. Have, like…you could actually speed up getting to net zero. And I think you can do it considerably, like a few years. (APPLAUSE)

MATT KEAN: Adrian, firstly, thank you so much for getting up there. And I hope you know that - I've given a speech and I've had my time in public life, but very soon you're gonna be the one that is leading the way. And what I'd say is that you fill me with hope that we can get there. You know, people like you can get us there, because you understand, you know what needs to happen, and you're fearless about saying that. So, Adrian, can I just encourage you and your friends, this is your moment, and soon my time will pass but your time is here, and we need you to continue where we have all left off. So, thank you. (APPLAUSE)

ADRIAN: Thank you.

KIM MCKAY: Thanks, Adrian. Great. And a question over here.

KIRSTY: Hi, I'm Kirsty. First of all, thank you very much for having a great conversation about these issues. Strategically, I feel like we understand the big-set moves for energy transition, climate mitigation, but I'd love to hear the panel's views on what you regard are the big-set moves for climate adaptation? Thank you.

CATHY FOLEY: Look, this is one of the things which I think we haven't really focused on enough. If you look at the way houses are being built, if you're looking at the fact that - in the suburb I live in, at St Ives, every time they sell a house, it seems to get knocked down and rebuilt, and the embedded carbon there is just mind-boggling because it is so cheap to dump a house. It costs about $6,000, take a whole house and take it to the tip. I just don't get that. Why is it that we're not pricing things for what they really are, from what they represent? So, designing new houses, then, that are built and replaced, you think maybe they might be a little bit better and be able to have solar panels, batteries, having heat pumps for hot water, and induction heaters for cooking on. And they've still got gas and just regular electrical connections. So, that's one thing, is just not actually thinking through where we can design in for the future. Plus also building in a way that allows us to be prepared for bad weather that's going to still come. Even if Australia is able to play its part - and I wrote down the number, I was really impressed to hear - I hadn't realised we can actually make nearly a 10% difference to the world. We often say that Australia can't have a big impact. Even with 0.3% of the population, Matt, you told us we can. But we need 90% of the world to catch up, and things aren't necessarily pointing the way we want them to be. But that means that we're gonna have bad weather, hot weather, floods, bushfires, and we really need to design all our built environment with that in mind.

We also need to be thinking about how we look after people in areas that don't have the ability to build that in. You know, old people in hot weather being able to even sleep well at night when it's hot, 30 degrees all night, is not good for human health. So, we have a lot to do there, and I don't think we're focusing enough on that, in order to be prepared for the future, because it's not an easy future when it's three degrees hotter.

MATT KEAN: Look, I'd just add to say that we can't give up on mitigation. But we now also need to turn our focus to adaptation. And I'll give you a real-life example. Before the Coalition Government in NSW lost office, I had to finance the most expensive natural disaster in the state's history, being the Lismore floods. And that followed the worst bushfires that our state had ever seen, which followed the worst drought that our state had ever seen. So, you get the idea, that these are hugely expensive events. And to those people that say, you know, "The cost of taking action on climate change is too high," let me tell you, I've had to pay the bill for us not taking action on climate change. And it dwarfs, it dwarfs inaction. So, like, we need to - inaction dwarfs action. Let me make that very clear. When it comes to adaptation, Lismore, for example, once-in-100-year flood events now becoming 1-in-10-year flood events. And it got to the stage where we started thinking about, "Well, is it cheaper just to move the town of Lismore?" That's a question that governments will increasingly have to grapple with. And whether it be Lismore, whether it be Broken Hill, the NARCliM modelling in NSW, the science modelling in NSW shows that by 2040 on the trajectory that we're on, saplings will no longer…it will be so hot, saplings will no longer take. That means large parts of this state, large parts of this country, will become uninhabitable.

So, we need to focus everything we can on mitigation, but we need to also have the backup plan of adaptation and start changing the way we build our cities, we build our homes. The cyclone, for example, Cyclone Alfred, do you know the Housing Standards that require houses to be built to be able to withstand cyclones come in north of Rockhampton*1? OK? But these cyclones are now coming down as far south as the Gold Coast. OK, so we're gonna have to have a serious conversation about Housing Standards, just to make sure that people can be safe living where they want to live. So, this is the new reality. I think the Government is very focused on that, and you'll hear some things about what they're gonna do in adaptation very shortly. I'm hoping the Climate Change Authority can play a very constructive role, not just in our mitigation work but also on the adaptation front going forward.

KIM MCKAY: I've got three people who still have a question, so I'm going to ask you to be very, very quick. You, sir?

JASPER: Hi, guys. Thank you. My name is Jasper. I work for Pingala, a group responsible for Young Henrys solar and solar gardens. We finished up our Solar for Social Housing Project, that's been really successful. A lot of that was just in Glebe, down the road. It's been really great. And seeing the transition for vulnerable people, those First Nations, and how energy really affects their life. You know, we have one lady that, she's $13,000 in debt to Energy Australia. These things really affect people's lives. And solar, and hopefully electrification, can be a real solution to that. The Australian Government has about half a million social housing dwellings that they are in control of. Why has this transition not already happened for them and for those people? (APPLAUSE)

MATT KEAN: Well, it should! It should. I think that the focus of governments has been the utility scale, solar, wind, storage challenge. And that is borne out of necessity. Certainly, in the NSW context - and I'll just speak to that, sorry for being NSW-focused - when I first became the Energy Minister in NSW, Berejiklian had just won the 2019 election. She appointed me as the Energy Minister. I thought, "Oh, my God, what have I done to upset her?" This is after Turnbull had just been taken out, the climate wars were raging and whatnot. But the first briefing I got from the Energy Secretary in NSW was, "Minister, welcome to the role. By the way, the next 10 years, four of the five coal power stations are gonna be out of the system." This had nothing to do with climate change. These are old clunkers, literally in some cases being held together with gaffer tape. We needed to get on with a plan to replace them at the utility scale. The efforts of the government, in my time as the Energy Minister, were to put in place policies that could replace that capacity at scale.

The focus now needs to be more distributed solutions. So, whether it be social housing or households that mums and...ordinary households, or commercial and industrial rooftops, that's where the focus needs to be. It's the low-hanging fruit in this transition. You'll find that the cost of scaling infrastructure is gonna be more expensive for the reasons that I outlined, supply shortages, labour shortages, social licence issues. It's going slower than we anticipated. What can you do to get quick capacity into the system quickly? Well, government owns all that social housing, there's a lot of rooftops that they could do at scale very quickly. That not only helps social housing residents, provides stability services for the whole grid, and helps the overall community as well. So, I think you'll find that federal and state governments will now start focusing on the distributed energy solutions. And an obvious place to start would be on the rooftops that they have some control over. So, social housing is one. Schools, transport hubs, bus stops, that's the other. You can get a lot of capacity installed into the system very quickly, and I think that's what you'll find they'll do.

KIM MCKAY: Thank you.

WILLIAM CHAN: My name is William Chan. I'm a former councillor at the City of Sydney. During the term, I chaired the Environment Committee for our city. My question is to Matt about just transition. I have been visiting our regional areas, talking to mayors, local governments, on a just transition. And Australia will soon have its first renewable energy zone in regional NSW. Mayors and other local governments are very concerned that private companies stake significant developments, and while I'm very supportive of renewables, they're not delivering public benefits. We're not creating the public wealth, the common wealth, that should be shared with a new technology, with new industries, with that excitement that will really uplift communities. We're not delivering infrastructure, the right types of amenity that the public deserves, especially when it's delivered by private overseas companies in Australia. I'm really concerned about this as well, and share mayors' concerns, because I don't really want to see the Gina Rineharts of the future in terms of the 1% in renewables getting wealthier, and not sharing back that equity and the inclusion that's required. How do we tackle this? (APPLAUSE)

MATT KEAN: Well, firstly, William, thank you for your service on the City of Sydney and your leadership in climate. For those of you that don't know, William started a climate action initiative here in Sydney, and I just want to give a shout-out to that. You're right. You're right. We should be ensuring that those that will host the infrastructure are able to benefit from the infrastructure. And that's why, under the Energy Roadmap that we legislated here in NSW, in order to get the Government underwrite, companies need to compete on a whole range of things. Firstly, including benefits to First Nations people, including benefits to local communities. That's a competitive tension that we put into that. But I'm interested to hear what you're saying, because it sounds like we need to go even further. And I think that... I'll give you this small example of what could be done. When we were approving HumeLink, you know the transmission line between the Snowy Hydro and the network, farmers that hosted that infrastructure were getting paid $5,000 a kilometre. And they were very concerned about having to host that infrastructure and not sharing the benefits. We upped that to $250,000 a kilometre. The impact on consumer bills on the network charge was around two cents. OK? Now, we don't want to be increasing bills at all. But the offset is that that renewable energy that we get in the system would deliver a net benefit of $130 in saving to consumer bills over the period. So, there was a huge net benefit.

I think for some small adjustments to the pricing mechanism, which would see investment going into local communities, consumers would still be better off through the lower wholesale cost of renewable energy. So, again, the Energy Roadmap in NSW, that's a living document, it should be evolving to meet the challenges that are arising through this journey. What we legislated in 2020 clearly is different to where we are in 2025, and I think people like you and me need to continue to advocate on behalf of those communities to the government of the day so we can get this right and ensure that we all benefit from this amazing transition opportunity.

KIM MCKAY: Thank you. And the last question. And please make it quick, 'cause I'm in deep trouble!

MARCELA: I will. Hi. My name is Marcela, and I've just returned from the US, doing my master's in climate change science and solutions. A lot of the conversations I heard in the US were talking about the methane as the emergency lever, or the emergency brake, that we need to pull as a society to give us more time to roll out the transition. I know Australia has signed the Global Methane Pledge. I've read all about methane online and yet I just can't find where we're actively working in this industry, and where change is happening, both in the mining sector, the agricultural sector, the waste sector. So, I'm asking, both as a citizen and someone who wants to work in this industry, what's happening? And where's the action?

CATHY FOLEY: So, the action I do know about is that there's an expert panel, which I'm chairing, to look at methane measurement. So, at the moment, there's not really a good handle on just methane, for example, that's coming from particularly coal mines, but also from agriculture as well. So, that's one of the first issues, is actually knowing what you've got and being able to measure it. That, I do know, is happening. The other things I'm not aware of, but others might be aware of that.

MATT KEAN: Well, I mean, I think to that point, you've got to be able to measure things before you can tackle them. That's a big body of work that's under way. But as part of our 2035 target and our net zero commitment, methane is one of those greenhouse gases that we need to tackle. So, it is captured in what we're trying to do. We are turning our attention to it as we do the work in setting the 2035 target. And I guess, Marcela, we'll have more to say about that very shortly.

KIM MCKAY: Thank you so much. Thank you to all of our people who asked questions. (APPLAUSE) I must say, it's been an incredible honour to host such an important climate call to arms this evening. And I want to thank our panellists so much for their wisdom, ideas, and also your energy and commitment to this issue. We need more like you. Thank you so much. (APPLAUSE) And to close the evening, I'd like to invite Dr Jenny Newell, the Curator of the Australian Museum's Climate Solutions Centre, to give the vote of thanks. Jenny.

JENNY NEWELL: Thank you so much. Thank you, Matt Kean, for your powerful and important Oration this evening. We know Frank Talbot would have been applauding and cheering you on. Thank you also, Cathy Foley and Chris Briggs, for being part of the panel discussion. Your commitment to these issues is clear and inspiring. And thank you, Kim, for your strong leadership, as ever, making sure we are always working to advance the conversation on climate change here at the Australian Museum. And thank you to you all, our audience, for coming along this evening and for being here with us to think deeply about climate action, and we hope step up in your own capacity to advance solutions. We know from what we've heard in the question time that many of you already are.

Do keep an eye out for the Climate Solution Centre's activities to increase understanding and engagement in the climate crisis, from touring exhibitions, conversations, Climate Action Week activations, scientific research, and our resources online. And now, also, our Environmental News Feed with the support of AAP. And I must thank the Climate Solutions Centre's Advisory Panel, who are here with us tonight and who give their time freely to keep us on track and share ideas, to help us advocate for climate and environmental action. Tomorrow is World Environment Day, and to further mark this important time, the Australian Museum is hosting its first Environmental Film Festival from this Friday to Sunday. So, do join us. There's gonna be seven films, and three of which are Australian premieres. Some will be followed by discussions with directors and producers. A small ticket price applies and you can book on the Australian Museum's website.

And now, as the bar remains open until 8:45, I can recommend staying...

(LAUGHTER) ..to reflect and talk to new friends, and explore the exhibitions on view tonight, which are all free. So, there's Future Now, some dioramas just over there. Another touring exhibition, which is here at the Australian Museum, just about to open to the public, but you get a preview tonight, Birds of Australia STORYBOX. And also Garrigarrang: Sea Country, the First Nations exhibition, just around through there. So, thank you very much to our programming team, a big shout-out to Liz Young, and all the other staff at the AM for staging this evening, and to all of you for joining us. Goodnight. (APPLAUSE) (CHEERING)