Speech at United Nations Climate Week

It’s wonderful to be with you at this very important session. And this Climate Week comes as Australia has just presented our nationally determined contribution to the UNFCCC of a cut in emissions by 2035 of 62 to 70 per cent. A target we regard as ambitious but also achievable. Hard work, not automatic, won't be easy, but achievable, which is the key thing.

But this morning I just want to share with you two very quick key core messages. Firstly, a challenge. Climate denial is still with us but it takes new forms. All too hard, they said, it’s all too hard. Or no one else is doing enough. Why should we do this when the rest of the world isn't moving? And that's an easy message and narrative for the deniers and the delayers to communicate when there's plenty of doom and gloom and stories about how the world is not proceeding with action on climate change. We know though it isn't true. Two trillion dollars of investment in renewable energy, twice the investment in fossil fuels. The world undertaking a transition at very rapid pace, with renewables going to overtake coal as the largest source of energy sometime this calendar year.

So we need to continue to tell the story that the world is acting, that progress is being made, and that we can't simply sit by and do nothing in the excuse that others aren't doing enough. Yes, we'd like to see more right around the world, but we can't pretend that things aren't happening.

My second message is a positive one. There are remarkable opportunities to put consumers, to put individuals in charge for the first time. In the old days, we used to just get an energy bill and had no choice but to pay it. That is rapidly changing, certainly in my country. A country with the highest rooftop solar penetration in the world, with more than a third of Australian houses having solar panels on the roof, more than have a backyard swimming pool, and many Australian houses have a backyard swimming pool. More have solar panels on the roof, incharge of their own energy, and now increasingly with a home battery. A thousand Australian households a day installing a home battery as we speak.

We introduced a new scheme on 1 July to provide a 30 per cent rebate. Since then 63,000 Australian houses have put batteries in. Now, that means they are now a power plant. With a solar panel on their roof, with a battery in their garage, they can decide what to do with their energy. And they can provide energy to the grid when prices are high and instead of getting an energy bill, they choose to get an energy rebate each month. Get a cheque from their energy provider instead of sending a cheque like we used to do in the old days.

Now, this is a remarkable opportunity to transform consumers into pro-sumers, producers and consumers of energy all at the same time. And this is part of the story that we can tell that, there are challenges and headwinds and delays, but there are remarkable opportunities, not just the jobs that can be created in large-scale wind and large-scale solar, as important as that is, but each and every day a revolution being undertaken in our suburbs and our regions. Saying to consumers, you no longer just have to accept what you are given, but you can be in charge of the energy you need, whether it's production or consumption.

So put these two stories together, that the world is taking action and that consumers and individuals and households and small businesses can take control of their own energy use with the right policy settings, then we have a remarkable story of optimism to tell. A story that this is not too hard. Yes, it is hard, but it is not too hard. And we can reject this all too hard-ism that so often infects the debate, that yes, climate change might be real and maybe it’s important, but it's all too hard, so we shouldn't worry.

That is a narrative we fundamentally reject in Australia. We see this as an opportunity, an opportunity to create jobs, an opportunity to create wealth, and an opportunity to put consumers in charge for the first time in their lives. We have to keep going. We now have 53 months to 2030. That is not long. That will go very fast. And then we have to drive on to 2035 and 2050 and net zero.

Well, my friends, Australia will be there all the way on this journey. Yes, we are historically a very large fossil fuel producer, but we want to continue to be an energy powerhouse, just a different type of energy going forward. Renewable energy, supported by all necessary technologies. At conferences like this, an important opportunity to find friends and partners in that journey. Thank you for being a friend of Australia. Thank you very much.