Speech to the Investor Group on Climate Change, Melbourne

We meet on the lands of the Kulin people, whose elders I acknowledge and celebrate.

While acknowledgement and celebration are right and proper, they’re not sufficient.

As custodians of the lands and waters for many thousands of years, our First Nations people have a unique insight as we watch our climate change right across Australia.

The State of the Climate report released last week by the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology, shows human induced climate change is leading to more extreme heat events, longer fire seasons, more intense rainfall and sea level rises.

This affects people everywhere, but there is no inequality that climate change doesn’t make worse, including indigenous inequality.  

More positively, acting on climate change can and should provide opportunities for First Nations people to share in ownership and dividends from renewable energy, from carbon abatement programs and from work we do to increase climate resilience around Australia.

So I’m looking forward to announcing our First Nations Clean Energy Strategy soon.

We’re getting on with the job

Your conference theme, “Mission 1.5, maintaining momentum” is a good one.

We’ve built a lot of momentum in the last two-and-a-half years in Australia. The key is to build on it, and build more.

In less than 30 months we’ve introduced key reforms that have us on track to reach our target of 82 per cent renewables in our electricity grid.

Like our Capacity Investment Scheme, to increase certainty for investors and developers building new renewables.

No-one here would argue that there aren’t challenges with getting more utility renewables into the grid. But it’s happening, and it’s gaining momentum.

September and October have seen the lowest penetration of coal in our grid, ever.

On the 30th October, we hit the highest renewable penetration recorded, at nearly 75 per cent. It was the third record broken in quick succession.

Five years ago, peak renewables in the system only reached around 46 per cent. This progress is an indication of what is possible.

There’s now a record 45GW of renewable projects in the process of connecting to Australia’s grids.

Some of those projects will be supported by our Capacity Investment Scheme, but the CIS will also bring on more projects beyond this number.

And it also doesn’t include offshore wind.

So it’s clear the appetite for ongoing investment in new renewable development is strong.

Reforms like the CIS have us well positioned to meet our emissions target for 2030 as well as land comfortably within our ten-year carbon budget we legislated alongside the Climate Change Act, in 2022.

These targets are ambitious but achievable.

They aren't easy to achieve. If they were, others would have done it.

No-one expected it would be easy. Or happen quickly. But we are making good progress.

Today I want to talk a little about maintaining that momentum, about the importance of sending the right signals to drive momentum – investment signals, diplomatic signals, and policy signals.

And I want to talk about implementation.

Under the former Coalition government, we got a decade of delay and denial.

We got an emissions reduction target so low you’d trip over it.

We got:

• hostile relationships between Federal and state and territory energy counterparts;
• a Federal government that failed to deliver a capacity investment scheme; and failed to deliver emissions standards for new vehicles;
• but did manage to talk endlessly about an investment program to underwrite new generation... although that failed to deliver a single watt of electricity

We’ve legislated the Net Zero Economic Authority, corporate climate disclosure requirements, and the New Vehicle Efficiency Standards.

A new Guarantee of Origin scheme has been introduced to Parliament and will become the emissions accounting backbone for Australia’s net zero industries - a critical component for our $22.7 billion Future Made in Australia commitments.

It works in tandem with our beefed-up Safeguard Mechanism, supported by $1.4 billion in industrial decarbonisation funding though Powering the Regions.

Because of the new Safeguard Mechanism, we’re now on track to abate 200 million tonnes of emissions from Australia’s heaviest emitters, by 2030.

For perspective, that’s the same as taking two thirds of the cars off our road, in the same period.

Our national electricity sector emissions are down 14%, or 25 million tonnes, since 2019.  

We’ve got $20 billion in Rewiring the Nation to support new transmission capacity for the renewables rollout.

And our capacity investment scheme is set to deliver 32GW of new renewable generation and storage by 2030.

I’m confident we’ll reach our target, in no small part because of the collaborative work that’s been underway with states and territories to lock in obligations on both sides to smooth roadblocks currently facing developers, governments and communities.

This week we’ve finalised agreements with New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania, adding to those in place with Western Australia, South Australia and the ACT.

They should provide investors with greater comfort and a whole lot more certainty about delivering renewable projects in each of those states.

While we are rightly focused on mitigation, this doesn’t mean adaptation can or will be neglected.

Because, as you know, we are living climate change now. We are trying to arrest the worst of it, but it’s too late to stop it.

So we must adapt to this changing climate.

You have been one of the loudest voices leading this charge and I thank the IGCC for being deeply, and constructively engaged in the work happening right now with the National Climate Risk Assessment and National Adaptation Plan.

And to better manage future risks, we first need to understand the risks better.

That means having the best data possible to base decisions on. We agree with the IGCC’s call for more robust, high-resolution climate and hazard datasets, and five-year plans.

We’ve put more than $27m towards this over the next two years to deliver the first National Climate Risk Assessment, and National Adaptation plan – both of which are being very capably led by Assistant Minister Josh Wilson.

You know these risk assessments will be the foundation for our climate response for years to come.

I expect some of you here have also been at the workshops progressing the risk quantification work here in Canberra this week.
We want this risk assessment to be strong, well-constructed, and incorporated properly into what we do going forward.

It is not an easy task, and it takes time.

The tension, as IGCC identified in its report yesterday, is that climate-related capital flight is becoming an ever-closer risk, exacerbated by the possibility of greater levels of unpriced climate risk.

That is not good for Australia.

But I am optimistic that the market and government can increase resilience and - as the IGCC has called for - better support adaptation innovation together.

The process is underway

In March, we released the first pass assessment.

It marked a major milestone in the process for determining risk across sectors, industries and asset classes.

As Minister Wilson has said, that assessment identified “basically everything” is at significant risk because of climate change.

So, the second pass assessment will be a deeper quantitative analysis of the top priority risks.

You get a sense for the scale of the work underway when you think the list has been narrowed down to a very streamlined....11 .... priority risks.

These risks include acute and chronic climate change impacts, from climate-related financial system shocks or volatility.

Financial markets must account for these risks and that’s why the Treasurer’s work on climate risk disclosure is so important.

In parallel, work continues across government on our sector plans and Net Zero plan.

The data is already showing the central role that policy measures like the Safeguard Mechanism, ACCU scheme, and our New Vehicle Efficiency Standards will play in getting to net zero. Which is good.

Market mechanisms driving investment and innovation is great.
Setting clear investment priorities to allow private capital to do its work, is the next step.

Which leads me to the question of signals, and how important signals are to maintaining momentum as the world transforms to net zero.

The right signals to maintain momentum

Through our strong reform agenda, Australia is well on the path to net zero.

Now, of course, there is an alternative.

A momentum killing alternative.

Let me be clear, the Coalition’s nuclear power scheme is not about providing a serious solution for meeting Australia’s energy needs.

It’s about creating uncertainty, and perpetuating anti-renewables fearmongering to delay the transition.

It’s about ignoring the urgency of needing to address climate change with action this decade. The critical decade.

And it is about deliberately sending signals that will chill investment in the infrastructure, innovations and industries we need, if we’re serious about mitigating, and adapting to, climate risk.

International signals and COP29/31

Of course, it’s not just action at home that’s important.

In a couple of weeks I'll be flying to this year’s Conference of the Parties in Baku.

It’s COP29 this year, meaning it’s been nearly three decades since the conference started.

A lot has been done in that time.

But there is a huge amount still to do.

Investment signals, and the movement of private capital to different geographic regions and to different industries and asset classes sends signals about the appetite for change.

It can feed, or starve, the momentum for change at a local, regional, or global level, across markets, governments and communities.

For the third year in a row, we've been asked to take a significant role in the COP proceedings.

For ten years Australia had no role and no reputation in the international arena.

More accurately, we had a reputation, but not one I'd want.

Our role at COP now is a signal that the international community has acknowledged the massive shift in approach between those who came before us, and our government.

This year, I’ve been asked to co-chair the NCQG negotiation.

The job is trying to find agreement between all the parties about what’s known as the New Collective Quantified Goal.

The outcome will determine (hopefully) how much investment, and what type of investment, can and should be directed to those countries that need it most to decarbonise.

The existing goal so far has been quite blunt - $100 billion from the developed world each year to the developing world.

The question we need agreement on this year is not just quantum, but who pays in?

And what kind of money is it – is it just government money, is it concessional private finance, is it blended finance, is it MDBs? What counts? ...

As has been a bit of a theme so far, this is not going to be easy.

But I’m pleased to have been asked to do it.

It's in our geopolitical interest. It’s good to punch above our weight, and I think we are.

But, maintaining momentum, and maintaining high ambition at COP cannot be taken for granted.

A COP with a less than ideal outcome is not a good thing.

So we will be arguing for strong language on ambition, with the Dubai consensus as the absolute baseline.

The signals we send are important, as a government, and as an industry.

Those opposite have signalled they will scrap the 2030 emissions target and backslide on our Paris Agreements.

They have signalled that they will halt new utility scale renewables and extend fossil fuel reliance while waiting to build nuclear energy.

As we get closer to an election they have signaled their willingness to increase sovereign risk for political gain.

While they’re fostering disruption, we’ve been focused on implementing our reform program.

The only signal from us is, we’re getting on with the job. We’re delivering.

And I want to thank the IGCC, and those of you here today, for doing the same.