Interview with James Glenday, ABC News Breakfast

JAMES GLENDAY: All right, it is time for a little bit of a change of pace now because the top story we're covering this morning is all the reaction to the Albanese Government's new 2035 emissions reduction targets and I'm happy to say we are joined now by the Climate Change Minister, Chris Bowen. Minister, welcome back to the program.

CHRIS BOWEN: Thanks, James. Thanks for having us on.

JAMES GLENDAY: Now, I'm hoping you might be able to spell out some of the changes that will need to happen if Australia is going to hit this target. So if we could start with transport. How many cars will need to be electric by 2035 to hit this target? And is that sort of demand there among Australians at the moment?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, this is a big lift in ambition for our country. As the Climate Change Authority made clear in their advice to me and the Government, not going to be easy or automatic, but vital, and in our economic national interest. And it will require basically a doubling of our emissions reduction compared to the last decade, or that's equivalent to taking all of transport Australia's emissions out twice over the next decade.

Now, in terms of your particular question, we don't have a particular EV mandate or a target. There's – the Climate Change Authority runs through in their advice the sorts of things that would need to be achieved, but that's not a – the Government doesn't set a sales target. What we do do is encourage choice, and our new vehicle efficiency standard is seeing a massive growth in EV choice for consumers right across Australia. You're already seeing that, and you're going to see a lot more over the next 12 months.

JAMES GLENDAY: Just that advice seems to suggest that all new cars – about half of all new cars will have to be electric to hit this target. To get there, are you going to have to further ramp up vehicle efficiency standards for diesel and petroleum cars? And then are you going to have to also try to fight against this road user charge idea in order to make electric vehicles more attractive so that more people want to buy them?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, let's take both issues separately. Firstly, new vehicle efficiency standards only just come in really this year. So let's give it a chance to work. It is working. We're already seeing lots of new models come in, models that are inexpensive, models that are expensive, models that are fancy, models that are basic, because that's a lot more choice for Australians. That's a great thing. And again, there's new brands coming in every day. I think Australians are only just sort of seeing the sorts of impacts it's going to have. Let's let it work for a bit. Then we'll do a review in due course and see how it's working and see what tweaks are necessary.

In relation to road user charging, you would have seen the state and federal Treasurers put out a statement a couple of weeks ago saying that the move towards road user charging over time needs to ensure continued uptake of EVs, not less uptake of EVs. Now, I think everyone's sort of on the same page that this is something which is going to have to happen in due course, but needs to be very carefully worked through to ensure, as that communique from the Treasurer has said, quite rightly, we need to work together to ensure Australians get to take up EVs, not to disincentivise it. And I agree with that.

JAMES GLENDAY: Can I take you then to the power grid? The power from renewable energy projects needs to increase to about 90 per cent in 10 years. A lot of that heavy lifting happens over the next five. Do you have a rough estimate of how many wind and solar farms that you're going to need, extra ones, and how much transmission lines you're going to need around the country to plug them all into the national grid?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, in relation to transmission lines, that's all set out the ISP. That doesn't really change as a result. That's 5,000 kilometres, not the sort of 28,000 kilometres you hear people talk about. 5,000 kilometres, of which, you know, a lot is already under construction in the final stages of planning. So that's in the shorter term, 10,000 in the longer term.

Now, in relation to renewable energy, yes, it's a lift. We are more on track for 82 per cent by 2030 than you'd think reading some commentary, but it's an ongoing task to ensure delivery. And yes, it's big stuff. It's big solar farms, big wind farms and big transmission. That is true. But it's also households. You know, a thousand Australians yesterday put in a home battery. A thousand Australians today will put in a home battery. A little bit less tomorrow. Of course, it'll be a Saturday. But then on Monday, another 1000 Australians will put in a home battery and a lot of them will put in solar for the first time. 60,000 batteries today we've surpassed since 1 July. That's more than a gigawatt hour of capacity, about 1.13 gigawatt hours of capacity. That's a huge boost to our renewable energy system and that will continue.

Yes, so it's big and small, but it's also about putting consumers more in charge. A lot of those consumers putting in a home battery are taking charge of their power for the first time. Used to just get a bill and not have much choice. Now you can decide, you know, how much you want to produce, when you want to produce it, whether you want to sell into the grid. All this is putting Australians in charge with more choices. It's a pretty common theme, whether it be EVs or what's on your roof, in your garage, on your driveway. It's putting you in charge of the journey. Yes, the big stuff's important. And our Capacity Investment Scheme, I released another auction last – earlier this week, which showed great results and a lot you know, a lot of bids and a strong pipeline. Are there planning challenges and delivery challenges? Of course. But nevertheless, we're getting on with the job.

JAMES GLENDAY: OK. I just want to take you to the issue of coal power. I was reading some of the documents last night. Does 90 per cent or above 90 per cent renewable energy essentially hint that coal power will be all but phased out by 2035? Is that your sort of ideal scenario?

CHRIS BOWEN: Over the 2030s, there's no doubt. I mean, and that's been the case, you know, for living memory. Everyone's known that. You know, the previous government knew it and do nothing about it. You know, I think 20 out of 24 coal-fired power station closures were announced under them. They just didn't have any plan to create the new energy to replace it. We do. So, yes, and no one should pretend, the Liberal and National Party sort of does pretend that there can be new coal-fired power. There can't be, there won't be. And the coal-fired power is ageing, and it's the biggest threat to the reliability of our system now is coal-fired power station closures, I mean, outages, when they break down, and we've got big ones that we're managing at the moment that are broken down. So we do need to create that new energy to replace it.

JAMES GLENDAY: Yeah. I just wanted to jump in there. The Coalition is pretty divided on this issue, to say the least. It's not clear what their policy on net zero is going to be. They have signalled, however, they're going to campaign on the cost of the transition, which is really not surprising to anyone who's paid attention in this space. Is that partly why you modelled the economic impact of a number of scenarios out into the future, looking at the economic pros and cons of acting earlier and faster?

CHRIS BOWEN: No, the modelling was undertaken to help the government make a decision in the national interest. But it does show that this target that we set out yesterday is the best economic model for the country and the energy prices will be higher if we delay the transition or pretend it's not happening, that the economy will be smaller, that the treasury modelling makes that very clear under the sort of Liberal Party's fantasy land that all this can be delayed or denied, our economy will be smaller and energy prices will be higher. So we're happy to have that debate with the Coalition. They're currently working out whether climate change is real. After stuffing it up for a decade in office, they're still – three and a half years later – still having the same arguments. Meanwhile, the Australian people told us to get on with it and we're getting on with it.

JAMES GLENDAY: Okay. Just before I let you go, Minister, there's been all sorts of reaction to environment – by environment groups who are criticising this target. We'll bring our audience a bit of that later. We've been broadcasting from the Torres Strait, though, and yesterday I spoke to Uncle Willie Wigness about climate change, some of the effects it's already having on his area. I just want to play this grab.

[Excerpt]

WILLIE WIGNESS: What you see now is because of climate change, the rising water. The old jetty behind us is coming out. Before it wasn't there. It was full of beach all the way around. Red Island Point, it was full of beach. Now it’s exposing corals. So it's everywhere in the [indistinct] again. Our area where turtles nest in, the beaches are all gone.

[End of excerpt]

JAMES GLENDAY: So Minister, that was Uncle Willie Wigness, a Torres Strait Islander, traditional owner from Thursday Island, Waibene. One of the things he was asking for and saying is that climate change is already here for his communities. Is the government going to have to pump a lot more money into mitigation, things like seawalls, scientific research, in order to try to mitigate the effects of climate change, which are now already locked in?

CHRIS BOWEN: So we call that adaptation, James, and, yes, governments are going to have to work together to do more. And earlier this week, I released the National Risk Assessment and a National Adaptation Plan, which is a framework for governments and the private sector and communities to talk about this, because even if emissions fell to zero tomorrow across the planet, net zero, we are going to live with the impacts of climate change. We can avoid the worst of it, but the world has left it too late.

So he's right. I've been to the Torres Strait, my Assistant Minister was in the Torres Strait last week talking to communities. We need to work with relevant governments and with those communities, and we do. We've invested more money in the Torres Strait since we came to office. We focus quite rightly on the Pacific and our Pacific brothers and sisters, but we have our Torres Strait community within our country that is also living climate change, as are the other islands around Australia and other communities. There’s not a community in Australia not impacted by climate change, not one. And Torres Strait is at the front line, but every single Australian community is impacted. And the risk assessment I put out this week shows that those Australians in regional Australia, outer suburbs and particularly the north of Australia are really at the front line.

JAMES GLENDAY: Alright, Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen, that's all we've got time for. We do appreciate you joining News Breakfast this morning.

CHRIS BOWEN: Go on, James. Nice to chat.