May 8, 2025 • 37 mins
Australia is in a unique place when it comes to the energy transition. It is the world’s largest exporter of coal and a leading exporter of gas, yet has set a target to reduce emissions by 43% and have 82% renewable electricity by 2030.
It is also caught juggling relations between the US, its military ally, and China, its biggest trading partner — as the two superpowers fight over trade. It is an unenviable challenge for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who has just been voted back into the office with an impressive new majority and also wants Australia to host the COP31 climate summit in 2026.
This week, David Stringer, Bloomberg Green's managing editor in Asia, joins Zero to unpack Albanese’s full agenda and what his re-election means for Australia’s climate ambitions.
Explore further:
- Australian PM’s Next Campaign Is to Secure COP31 Climate Talks - Bloomberg
- China Slowdown Has Australia’s Economy Under Pressure, Chalmers Says - Bloomberg
- Trump Backlash Helps Australia’s Leader to Historic Re-Election - Bloomberg
Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd. Special thanks to: Jessica Beck, Sommer Saadi, Mohsis Andam and Siobhan Wagner. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at zeropod@bloomberg.net. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to zero. I'm akshatarati. This week climate elections two
point zero. Australia, the land of flood whites, beautiful corals
(00:22):
and ridiculously poisonous animals, just had an election, and like
Canada's election last week, it produced a surprise result. Ladies,
crime pals got the nine my majority, Live, government, promise
and deliberate. Since Trump returned to the White House, the
(00:46):
Australian electorate has swung away from the center right Liberal
Party and toward the incumbent centre left Labor Party. The
swing has been large enough that Labor, led by Prime
Minister Anthony Albanesi, now has a large majority in the
Lower House. Just a few months ago, Labor was projected
to lose seats. And it's worth understanding what happened in
(01:09):
the Australian election because what happens in Australia matters to
the world. Australia is the world's largest exporter of coal
and one of the largest exporters of gas, but it
also has abundant sun and wind, and so it is
a prime location to build renewables. It is also the
world's largest producer of iron and aluminum ores, as well
as the biggest exporter of lithium and other rare earth
(01:31):
metals that are crucial for battery manufacturing and other green technologies.
So which resources Australian politicians choose to exploit will shape
global emissions. Australia is also hoping to host COP thirty one,
the annual United Nations Climate Summit, in twenty twenty six,
and we know what happens at Corp also shapes global emissions.
(01:56):
Labor Party first came to power in twenty twenty two
in what was hailed as a climate election, not just
because it pushed out politicians that were opposed to climate action,
but also because it saw the rise of independent candidates
and a move away from the two party system. The
Greens and especially the so called Teal Independence were voted
(02:16):
in because they had a strong climate agenda, and that's
one reason why the Labor Party under Albanesi was able
to pass Australia's first climate law in over a decade
back in twenty twenty two. So what happens next? How
do the next three years under Albanesi play out for
Australia's emissions? Is the country caught between a rock and
(02:39):
a hard place. Given the trade wars and given its
dependence on the US and China, and are the repeated
fires and floods reshaping the climate debate. To unpack it all,
we're joined by David Stringer, Bloomberg Greens Managing editor in Asia,
who was based in Melbourne. They welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Thanks, Echa, glad to be here.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
So last week we had the Canadian election and a
wave of anti US sentiment helped Mark Carney and his
Liberal Party in Canada to victory. This week we had
the Australian election, which even though all the votes haven't
been counted, we can be quite certain that Anthony Albanesi
and his Labor Party are going to hold the majority
(03:25):
of the parliament and Anthony Albanesi will be the Prime
minister now. In both elections, the leaders of the opposition
party who aligned with Trump, so Pierre Poliev in Canada
and Peter Dutton in Australia lost their seats in the parliament.
So Trump is proving to be quite the gift for
left of center politicians. Huh.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Well, as you said, the final votes are still being
counted as of Tuesday evening in Australia, but the result
is completely beyond diet. This was a real landslide electoral
victory for Antony Albanesi and is Labor Party, and just
one caveat from the top about names, the Labor Party
in Australia is a sort of political brethren akin to
(04:09):
the Liberal Party of Canada, rather than the Liberal Party
here being equivalent to its opposite number in Canada. But Albanzi,
He's really had a commanding victory and that certainly confounded expectations.
I think going into Saturday's election there was a sense
that he may have to rely on the support of
(04:30):
potentially Australian Green Party, potentially independent lawmakers to get his
policies through. That's not been the case, I think in
terms of the influence of Trump. Quite clearly, for Mark
Karney and for Canada, we saw at least a very
real perceived threat to sovereignty from Trump's administration. It was
a very visceral part of that campaign for Australia, less
(04:54):
so the direct impact of Trump. Sure, exporters really don't
like this, the idea of tariff's. You know, the majority
of Australian exports are subject to that ten percent baseline.
There are some products, you know, subject to a higher Levey.
But what we did see is some adopting of that
Maga type rhetoric, you know, rather than focusing on the
policy platform, and they did have one, you know, to
(05:17):
address the economy, to address housing. What we saw from
Peter Dutton's Liberal Party is a bit more of a
focus on culture war issues, you know, and we even
had some calls for Australia's own version of Doge. So
certainly that rhetoric wasn't a help. Not only did the
Liberal Party lose, Peter Dutton himself was booted out of office.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
And Australia has a three year election cycle. In the
twenty twenty two election, which we covered on the podcast,
we had both a Green Party member and an independent
joined the podcast. It was labeled the Climate election this
time around. In his victory speech this weekend, Prime Minister
Anthony Albanesi vowed to govern for all Australians, including for
(06:00):
as he said.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Every Australian who knows that climate change is a challenge
we must act.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Together to made for their future around bar.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
And knows the fact that renewable energy is an opportunity.
We must work together the seas to a future.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Out with that in the weekly speech, was climate still
a big issue in this election?
Speaker 2 (06:29):
The truth is no, in this election it wasn't. And
as you've said, you know, and as the podcast covered
in twenty twenty two, climate has been a really large issue.
It's hard to overstate how divisive climate and energy policy
has been over the past decade two decades in Australia
and how important it's been to election results. Even if
(06:51):
we think back to twenty thirteen, that was my first
election here after moving to Australia, the key issue really
was carbon pricing. Then Liberal Party leader Tony Abbott. He
campaigned on repealing a carbon price one office and ultimately
carried out that policy. Twenty twenty two, the last national election,
(07:12):
the forefront of voters' minds was still the twenty nineteen
twenty twenty bush fires, the wildfires that killed more than
thirty people and that burned an area about half the
size of Canada. The fact that the then Liberal Party
coalition government was seen as doing too little in terms
of an emissions reduction was seen as being a negative
(07:35):
force in global climate diplomacy and also dismissive of technologies
like electric vehicles. That was front and center of that campaign.
This time around, climate has taken a huge backseat housing,
cost of living, inflation, interest rates, they've been the key issues,
and in truth, even though Anthony Albanesi's Labor Party is
(07:58):
seen as much more committee, it's a climate action, in reality,
we've seen one or two new policies outlined during the campaign,
one of them a very modest proposal to support household
batteries with subsidies.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
This is something we've seen in elections all around the
world following the pandemic, that economic issues have taken precedence.
And yet when Albinizi did become Prime Minister in twenty
twenty two, because of this momentum that was there for climate,
he did get to pass a major climate legislation, a
first in a decade, with a target to reduce Australia's
(08:35):
emissions by forty three percent by twenty thirty relative to
two thousand and five levels and increase renewables to eighty
two percent of electricity by twenty thirty. Do we see
Australia's push towards green energy as something that helps the
economy and is that something that Labor Party uses as
a way to push forward its goals because it is
(08:56):
clearly not on track. Even today, forty seven percent of
Australia's electricity comes from coal.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
I think you're right to identify a couple of things there,
and even the passage in that victory speech on Saturday
night ties some of those threads together. I was really
struck listening to his speech that climate merited only a
small mention, but when it did and we heard him
there tie the desire to increase the share of renewables
(09:23):
in Australia's energy mix. He tied it to as an
economic driver, and his government has really encouraged Australians to
see renewables and to see investment in renewables as a positive,
forceful job creation, to see as a necessary renewal of
communities that are currently dependent on fossil fuels, whether that's
(09:44):
extraction of coal, whether that's gas production, or whether that's
power plants. It's clear that coal is still really crucial
to Australia's energy mix, but that is slowly, albeit very
slowly changing. We are seeing giant coal fired power plants
gradually be retired, and in fact that will continue and
(10:06):
will accelerate over the next decade decade and a half.
All of that means that if we look at those
emissions targets, Australia is arguably on track to meet its
twenty thirty goals. So if we look at the most
recent data, that's emissions in the year through to the
March twenty twenty four, emissions were twenty eight point two
(10:28):
percent below that two thousand and five baseline. The majority
of analysts thinks that puts Australia on a track to
meet that forty three percent number. Now we can argue
about whether that target itself is ambitious enough, and I
think plenty of people would say it isn't. But what
we do know is the policies that are in place
(10:49):
and that will continue should allow Australia to achieve that number.
The harder task is hitting that renewable energy goal. Getting
to that eighty two percent of electricity generation coming from
clean sources. That will require a significant ramp up of
deployment of solar and wind, and really crucially, it involves
(11:12):
billions and billions more investment into the energy system in Australia,
not only in generation capacity but also in grids, in infrastructure.
Whether the government can achieve that is a far more
difficult question to address.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
So on this show we've talked a bunch about the
electricity sector. We're going to do a series about electrification
and the bottlenext to electrification very soon. But we've also
noted that the decarbonization of electricity relative to other sectors
is an easier problem. What about the other sectors in
the economy, What about transport, what about industry? How is
(11:50):
the country doing now and does the Albanese government have
policies to reduce emissions from those sectors.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
It does, and it's right to point to other parts
of the economy. Emissions from the electricity sector and account
for roughly a third of the total. Transport is another
huge issue for Australia to tackle. Twenty two percent there
thereabouts of emissions are related to transport, you know, and
(12:18):
simply haven't seen the kind of improvements in that sector
that other nations have. Albanese's government has implemented new vehicle
efficiency standards and they will continue to ratch it up
and the hope for the government is that helps to
drive further adoption of electric vehicles. That should help in
the passenger vehicle segment. That should see Australia, you know,
(12:40):
begin to recover some ground. But there are bigger questions
and more difficult questions when it gets to trucks, trailers,
and then think about those giant, enormous vehicles we see
on mind sights in parts of Australia. You know, we've
seen some trials of electrification, some use of trials of
hydro gen as a fuel source. Cracking those kind of
(13:02):
emissions is also vital to Australia's trajectory.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
You know, Australia doesn't have much of a car sector
and so most of its cars are imported. Now tell me,
commuting into work today, how many buids did you spot?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
This makes me laughuck Suat because this is something I
literally have done on a number of occasions on my cycle,
a thirty minute cycle into the Bloomberg office here in
the center of Melbourne. I have in the past off
and counted byds and I did it precisely because it
was so noticeable. In twenty twenty two we saw the
(13:35):
Atto three, one of Byde's most popular sort of small
suv models. We saw that slowly introduced to Australia. My
latest favorite thing is to look for the numbers of
BYD sharks. Now that is the sort of flatbed truck
or a ute as we call it here in Australia,
the most popular vehicle category in Australia. And finally, there
(13:59):
is a lower emission in this case BYD's hybrid option.
For that, I think I saw my first BYD shark
three or four weeks ago, and now I'm seeing them
probably every other day. They're really proliferating in the way
that other BYD models had in the past couple of years.
And of course still Tesla's remain ubiquous as well. So
(14:22):
that said, we know from the data that actually it's
only one in every ten new car sales in Australia
that's either electric or a hybrid.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
On the industrial side and on the energy side, the
energy exporting side, especially given how much Australia exports call
and gas to the world. We have seen the Albanesi
government come under criticism for approving new gas fields, for
expanding several existing coal mines. Is there going to be
(14:55):
any change in strategy in this coming term? Given climate
wasn't really a big to driving this election, It's.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Really hard to see an impetus for Albanesi to change
the approach that he and his government have had in
their first term. You know, we did have a party,
the Australian Greens, at this election that campaigned on a
platform that advocated for no new oil and gas approvals.
Votes are still being encountered, but the Greens have had
(15:22):
a really poor election, you know thus far. It's that
lack of impetus from seemingly from voters that will probably
you know, give Albanesi some comfort in his current position.
As you said, his government has approved new coal mines
and expansions, also new gas fields, and there's been a
lot of support for those traditional fossil fuel extraction and
(15:44):
exporting industries. And don't forget they generate a significant proportion
of export earnings for Australia. There is a really interesting
test case that will come up very early in this
new term. There is an approval that needs to be
considered by the government to extend the lifespan of a
facility called the Northwest Shelf. It's Australia's oldest and largest
(16:08):
liquefied natural gas export facility. It's been coming towards the
end of its current approved tenure. Albanesi's government has to
decide whether to give it a reprieve and to allow
it to continue to operate in its current form. That
could be a real lightning rod moment for this second
term of the Albanese government. It'll really define how do
(16:31):
they view gas and coal. And I'll be honest, you
know what we've seen in the past few years is
you know, them talk a lot about the not only
export earnings, but the numbers of jobs they see is
directly supported, particularly by that gas industry. You know, in
Albanesi's Resources Minister Madeline King, she's even talked about seeing
gas as an important energy source through to twenty fifty
(16:55):
and beyond.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
While this is happening, there is the trade war that
is being sparked by Donald Trump in the US. Australia
has a ten percent tariff. Maybe it goes away. We
don't know what's happening with tariff policies these days and
how frequently they change. But for Australia, the biggest trading
partner is China, and we know the US is going
really hard after China with one hundred percent plus tariffs
(17:20):
on the country. So if as a result of what's
going to happen between the US and China, China starts
slowing down. Does that have a serious impact on the
Australian economy as well? Given how much Australia exports to China.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Australia's in a really difficult position. Not on the one
hand sort of diplomatic security cultural partner in the US,
and on the other hand it's biggest trading partner China.
You know, Australia's economy has for so many decades prospered
from its ability to export iron or the biggest export
(17:58):
earner in Australia to China, to fuel China's steel industry.
It's been a major contributor of GDP and you know,
and we've seen huge companies here, BHP, the world's biggest minor,
others like Rio Tinto. They've all benefited from that trade
in the midst of a property crisis, in the midst
(18:20):
of a deceleration of its economy. That's already having an
impact now, you know, for Albanese's government and for a
lot of that resources sector. There's also been a lot
of optimism in their ability to export other raw materials,
other minerals to China. You know, Australia has been a
huge supplier of lithium, raw materials. It also is an
(18:42):
exporture of nickel, of manganese, of all of the kinds
of metals and raw materials that are required for batteries,
for lots of the kind of clean energy supply chains
that China dominates. The risk as you've identified there is
what happens is Donald Trump and his administration put pressure
(19:03):
on Australia to alter its relationship with China. We saw
in the wake of COVID China removed its imports of
a whole list of Australian products, coal, crayfish, wine, devastating
lots of those industries. So China knows it does have
this ability to have a huge influence on the Australian economy.
(19:28):
And so yeah, Albanezi finds himself in what is a
very unenviable position, caught between two large competing superpowers, and.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
China chose to restrict those imports from Australia as a
result of the politics around COVID and where did the
virus come from? Now you have a different challenge in
Donald Trump and the White House. But look, Donald Trump
is also interested in rare earth minerals. In critical minerals
in lithium, in nickel are there any conversations the trade
(20:00):
level that you know that are happening right now with
the US government to look at whether the US is
ready to import these critical minerals from Australia instead.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
For a number of years, these conversations have been ongoing,
you know, in a in a previous role, I wrote
predominantly about the mining sector, and I have been in
those rooms, you know, with those US trade representatives and
a group of whether it's you know, owners of rare
earth projects who are seeking funding to develop those minds,
(20:33):
you know, whether it's nickel producers. You know, this is
a new thing. You know, Australian developers of mining projects
have been you know, desperately seeking funding from the US
precisely because of this ongoing desire to reduce reliance on
China's supply chains. And no, I'm not aware of any
current and existing conversations that are going on, but obviously,
(20:56):
you know, under the Biden administration there was a emphasis
on French shoring in the critical mineral space. Australia was
a big part of that. I can only imagine that
those conversations continue with the Trump White House, and it's
relatively reasonable, I think to expect that, you know, as in,
if there are any of those conversations around tariffs, that
(21:18):
critical minerals will become part of that conversation for the
Trump White House, I think very interesting. One thing we
have seen in the past few weeks and months from
the Albanize government is, you know, is a commitment to
develop a strategic reserve of critical minerals. Having that stockpile
potentially gives them some leverage if there are those conversations
(21:38):
around tariffs, around the kind of trading relationship that Australia
has with the US, maybe that is, you know, something
that they can potentially leverage.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
We'll be back with more of my conversation with David
Stringer after the shortbreak. And Hey, if you're enjoying this episode,
please rate and review Zero on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
You have.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Feedback really matters and helps new listeners discover the show.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
It's worth noting, though, that this election played out a
little differently from the previous elections I've watched in Australia,
where the opposition party in the Liberals and the coalition
partner typically are quite climate denialist and they want nothing
to do with climate policy. This time around, they weren't
really pushing against the net zero target that Australia has.
(22:37):
Actually they were embracing it. They even had a plan
to build a whole lot of nuclear power plants.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
And today we announce seven locations that we have looked
at in great detail over a long period of time
that can host nuclear sites.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Dutton's plan, as far as I could see, was really
quite a expensive and he got really badly hit in
the campaign by coming up with this plan. So given that,
and given the fact that there are currently non nuclear
power plants in Australia, do you think there is any
future for nuclear power in Australia anymore?
Speaker 2 (23:16):
It seems really unlikely that the idea of developing a
nuclear power industry from scratch is something that is feasible.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Now.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
I get the impression that the rejection of that idea
and policy wasn't necessarily that Australian voters were opposed to
the idea of nuclear energy. I think the thing that
people rejected in this election in Australia was the was
the cost and the timeline and the costings were very contentious.
(23:46):
Dutton's party insisted that this plan, which would have been
to develop seven nuclear reactors, seven nuclear power sites, some
of them small modular reactors, you know, a technology that
isn't something that is that is commercially available right now.
The costing that it would have been a minimum of
around one hundred and sixteen billion Australian dollars that plant
(24:08):
a minimum. The Labor Party countered with a figure of
more like six hundred billion Australian and to many voters,
they saw this as as a strategy that would have
extended the lives of existing coal fired power plants that
not only have a negative climate impact, but are expensive, inefficient,
(24:30):
you know, and would have required potentially regional or national
avent government subsidies to keep them open. And an additional problem,
of course is that Australia it isn't even legal to
have nuclear power at this point. There are federal bands
in place on having nuclear power stations.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
This time around, between January and April, there were massive
floods in Queensland, in the state that is known for
mining a lot of coal.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
Authority to say people were stuck on the roofs of
their homes as rising waters cut off entire areas. And
if that wasn't enough, thing we can show you a
crocodile seen swimming in a storm drain. This is in
the town of Ingham, ser.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
The area that covered was larger than Germany and France combined.
Do you think that these natural disasters, just given the
size of Australia and the extremities with which it's being felt,
will have an impact on people wanting to support climate
policies in the future or is it now economics first
(25:31):
and real see about climate later.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
It really feels like the latter at this point. And
as you say, there have been some quite significant natural
disaster events in the opening months of the year. You
mentioned those huge flooding in the west of Queensland. You know,
we also had Cyclone Alfred, which happened in March. The
impact of that cyclone even impacted the date of the election.
(25:56):
You know, Albanesi had intended to call the election, but
instead was had to defer because he and his government
were busy dealing with the impact of that specific, you
know event. And even in the past few days, you know,
we've we've we've seen data, government data that showed, you know,
household spending declined as a result of it. You know,
we we saw millions of you know, insurers talk about
(26:19):
millions of losses, significant events, and yet we didn't see
them discussed in the election campaign. We've seen although this
this wildfire bushfire as we call it here season, you know,
was was relatively benign compared to other recent seasons, we
still saw significant catastrophic fires. Again, they weren't part of
(26:45):
the campaign, they weren't necessarily discussed. Ultimately, people won't be
inured to the impact of these events, I think, you know,
and particularly as we see attribution of these events to
climate change, I think we'll see policymakers take up that.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Climate policies might not be popular these days. But the
climate calendar continues, and there is one coming up later
in Brazil COP thirty, and countries are supposed to submit
their plans for twenty thirty five with updated higher ambition.
In Australia, which is supposed to submit its plans by February,
(27:21):
deferred that and we are expecting it to come idly
before COP thirty. Do we have any sense of when
it'll come and whether it will show the ambition that
the world needs.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
In honest truth, we don't at this stage. You know,
it was as you say, it was deferred really for
two reasons. One, there was an election pending, a lot
of attention was focused on campaigning, and also there was
a realistic proposition that had there been a change in government,
we would have seen a much radically different, new nationally
(27:53):
determined contribution. And in fact, Dutton's party had talked about
potentially rolling back the targets or for twenty thirty Never mind,
you know the twenty thirty five.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
But look, there is another cop that comes after. Cop
thirty was just Cop thirty one, And before the election
we knew that Anthony Albanzi wanted to host Cop thirty
one in Australia, even going as far as noting that
Adelaide might be the location where it will be held.
And typically countries wanting to host cops have to show
(28:27):
that they have the ambition, that they have the desire
to support the Paris Agreement. Would that do you think
matter in the targets that Australia sets out this year?
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Oh, I'm absolutely you know, I mean, having won one
election and convinced the Australian voters to return him to office,
you know, Albanese's sort of next campaign as well. He's
got to persuade a group of climate diplomats, you know,
in the rotating blocks within the COPS structure. He's now
facing the task to convince them that it's Australia and
not Turkey that ought to be the host of the
(29:00):
twenty twenty six UN Climate Conference COP thirty one. So
part of that clearly will need to be showing greater
ambition and getting his homework, getting that next NDC in
as soon as possible to the UN. Certainly we expect
that to be launched before the bellum COP. And it's
I think it's fair to assume, you know, given the
(29:21):
direction of travel we've seen from this government, that it
will set a more ambitious target. You know, as we've discussed,
there are areas of Australia's economy where climate policy is developing. Transport,
industrial emissions, you know, really importantly, you know, there is
a policy in place that covers some of the biggest
(29:42):
polluting facilities, industrial facilities in Australia. The targets for them
to cut emissions continue to ratchet up and we'll see
that kind of contribution. So I think it's fair to
assume a more ambitious new plan. It's a separate question
of whether all of that will be sufficient to to
persuade climate diplomats of Australia's credentials.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
It's been a conversation that's been sort of dour and
climate policies, and I think we are on the upswing here,
so let's keep on that upswing. And you know, of
course you're based in Melbourne, You're based in Australia, but
you look over our Asian coverage for bloombergrain, are there
places outside of Australia where you are seeing green shoots
(30:27):
that show why climate policies might endure or climate action
might be strengthened.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
I think there are, and that is really critical because,
as we know, Asia as a region accounts for more
than half of total global greenhouse gas emissions, and so
what happens in Asia is utterly critical to the trajectory
of planetary warming. We can look at governments in places
(30:55):
like the Philippines or Malaysia where there's really interesting work
going on to advance policies that are accommodating greater investment
in renewable energy. There's a huge amount of activity across
the region to catalyze and improve on emissions trading systems
you know, there's a enormous amount of interest you know,
(31:16):
in the government to government trading of common credits too,
and you know, we should see in the coming months
Indonesia take some significant steps there. But the two big
economies that I've spent most time, I guess thinking about
in this region are China and India, huge contributors to
global emissions. And late last month, we saw China's President Jijiping,
(31:41):
you know, address a virtual conference of fellow global leaders
to talk about climate policies, to talk about the kind
of commitments they're going to be needed at COP thirty
in Brazil, and that was really significant to me. The
fact that we had President Ji committing China to more
ambitious emissions reduction, committing the country to target not just
(32:06):
carbon dioxide emissions but all greenhouse gas emissions hugely significant
because China's total climate footprint, its contribution of gases outside
of carbon dioxide is absolutely mammoth, you know, actually bigger
than the majority of other countries' total emissions. Very significant
(32:27):
intervention from g and that suggests that China will continue
to accelerate its development of climate policy. Clearly, as we know,
there is a lot of work to do. Yes, they
have had this remarkable, scarcely believable adoption of renewable energy,
but it hasn't necessarily translated into genuine decarbonization of their
(32:50):
power sector because energy consumption continues to rise. The rhetoric
from g some of the policy development we're seeing I
think you know does sugges yes, that we're going to
start to see genuine inroads made by China on its
emissions profile. When it comes to India, we're not yet
seeing the same policy settings. It's a country that still has,
(33:12):
as you know, as we both know, as we both
reported on a huge task ahead in terms of decarbonization. Yes,
there are green shoots in the region, but there's still
a lot of work to do, and there's still big
economies with huge tasks ahead of them.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
We've had analysts looking at Chinese emissions and recognizing that
perhaps they may have peaked as of twenty twenty four,
and given the economic rejectory, they might just prove to
be right. But there is one aspect of what's happening
in the world, especially from the Asian perspective, that I
want to get your view on, which is that a
lot of the trade policies, at least in rhetoric, are
(33:50):
about stopping China dumping cheap stuff into America or into
Europe because Europe wants its own solar manufacturing capacity and
Europe wants its own electric vehicle manufacturing capacity. But if
that is the garb under which these trade policies are
being deployed, there are tons of other countries in the
(34:12):
world who do not want to build their own auto
manufacturing sector, or do not want to build their own
solar manufacturing sector. They could become real beneficiaries of this
cheap solar and evs that are sitting in China and
are not going to go anymore to the US or
even to Europe, but might end up in African countries,
(34:33):
might end up in South American countries, might end up
in Australia, as we've seen with the bids. So those
green shoots could really go and have an impact elsewhere.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Absolutely, and I think when it comes to electric vehicles,
when it comes to green clean energy equipment, you're absolutely
right there is an opportunity there. I think back to
comments last year from BYD and its executives. You know,
they were asked about the problem that they face with
you know, not really being able to sell in the US.
(35:04):
And their response is it doesn't trouble us. There are
so many other markets for them to exploit and to target,
you know, whether it is Latin America, whether it is Europe,
whether it is Australia, the same I'm sure will prove
to be the case for solar sales or modular exporters.
Just look at some situations we've had, you know, even
(35:26):
last year, like suddenly a huge surprise in imports by
Pakistan of solar equipment. You know, we've seen that some
of the faster grown regions for adoption of solar places
in the Middle East. You know, there are dynamic markets
that China's dominant manufacturers will naturally gravitate towards. The truth is,
you know, exports to the US for many of those
(35:48):
Chinese manufacturers haven't ever been huge. You know, they've only
ever accounted for small amounts of their exports, and so
there definitely is that happy sort of marriage of over capacity,
huge clot of manufacturing capacity, whether it's in solar and
wind and EV batteries in evs, and then markets that
really stand to benefit from a lower cost of those
(36:11):
clean energy products so yeah, that absolutely could see that
being a trend and a theme that we start to
see accelerate in the in the months and years ahead.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Thank you for listening to zero and now for the
sound of the week. That's the sound of an EMU,
Australia's unofficial National Bird Proving Ones and for all that
birds really are just dinosaurs in cute clothing. If you
(36:47):
like this episode, please take a moment to rate and
review the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Share this
episode with a friend or with someone running for office.
This episode was produced by Oscar Boyd. Noomberg's head of
podcast is a Bauman and head of Talk is Brendan newnham.
Our theme music is composed by Wonderly Special Thanks to
Somersadi Mosses Andim and Sherwan Wagner. I'm Akshatrati back soon.
Welcome to zero. I'm akshatarati. This week climate elections two
point zero. Australia, the land of flood whites, beautiful corals
(00:22):
and ridiculously poisonous animals, just had an election, and like
Canada's election last week, it produced a surprise result. Ladies,
crime pals got the nine my majority, Live, government, promise
and deliberate. Since Trump returned to the White House, the
(00:46):
Australian electorate has swung away from the center right Liberal
Party and toward the incumbent centre left Labor Party. The
swing has been large enough that Labor, led by Prime
Minister Anthony Albanesi, now has a large majority in the
Lower House. Just a few months ago, Labor was projected
to lose seats. And it's worth understanding what happened in
(01:09):
the Australian election because what happens in Australia matters to
the world. Australia is the world's largest exporter of coal
and one of the largest exporters of gas, but it
also has abundant sun and wind, and so it is
a prime location to build renewables. It is also the
world's largest producer of iron and aluminum ores, as well
as the biggest exporter of lithium and other rare earth
(01:31):
metals that are crucial for battery manufacturing and other green technologies.
So which resources Australian politicians choose to exploit will shape
global emissions. Australia is also hoping to host COP thirty one,
the annual United Nations Climate Summit, in twenty twenty six,
and we know what happens at Corp also shapes global emissions.
(01:56):
Labor Party first came to power in twenty twenty two
in what was hailed as a climate election, not just
because it pushed out politicians that were opposed to climate action,
but also because it saw the rise of independent candidates
and a move away from the two party system. The
Greens and especially the so called Teal Independence were voted
(02:16):
in because they had a strong climate agenda, and that's
one reason why the Labor Party under Albanesi was able
to pass Australia's first climate law in over a decade
back in twenty twenty two. So what happens next? How
do the next three years under Albanesi play out for
Australia's emissions? Is the country caught between a rock and
(02:39):
a hard place. Given the trade wars and given its
dependence on the US and China, and are the repeated
fires and floods reshaping the climate debate. To unpack it all,
we're joined by David Stringer, Bloomberg Greens Managing editor in Asia,
who was based in Melbourne. They welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Thanks, Echa, glad to be here.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
So last week we had the Canadian election and a
wave of anti US sentiment helped Mark Carney and his
Liberal Party in Canada to victory. This week we had
the Australian election, which even though all the votes haven't
been counted, we can be quite certain that Anthony Albanesi
and his Labor Party are going to hold the majority
(03:25):
of the parliament and Anthony Albanesi will be the Prime
minister now. In both elections, the leaders of the opposition
party who aligned with Trump, so Pierre Poliev in Canada
and Peter Dutton in Australia lost their seats in the parliament.
So Trump is proving to be quite the gift for
left of center politicians. Huh.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Well, as you said, the final votes are still being
counted as of Tuesday evening in Australia, but the result
is completely beyond diet. This was a real landslide electoral
victory for Antony Albanesi and is Labor Party, and just
one caveat from the top about names, the Labor Party
in Australia is a sort of political brethren akin to
(04:09):
the Liberal Party of Canada, rather than the Liberal Party
here being equivalent to its opposite number in Canada. But Albanzi,
He's really had a commanding victory and that certainly confounded expectations.
I think going into Saturday's election there was a sense
that he may have to rely on the support of
(04:30):
potentially Australian Green Party, potentially independent lawmakers to get his
policies through. That's not been the case, I think in
terms of the influence of Trump. Quite clearly, for Mark
Karney and for Canada, we saw at least a very
real perceived threat to sovereignty from Trump's administration. It was
a very visceral part of that campaign for Australia, less
(04:54):
so the direct impact of Trump. Sure, exporters really don't
like this, the idea of tariff's. You know, the majority
of Australian exports are subject to that ten percent baseline.
There are some products, you know, subject to a higher Levey.
But what we did see is some adopting of that
Maga type rhetoric, you know, rather than focusing on the
policy platform, and they did have one, you know, to
(05:17):
address the economy, to address housing. What we saw from
Peter Dutton's Liberal Party is a bit more of a
focus on culture war issues, you know, and we even
had some calls for Australia's own version of Doge. So
certainly that rhetoric wasn't a help. Not only did the
Liberal Party lose, Peter Dutton himself was booted out of office.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
And Australia has a three year election cycle. In the
twenty twenty two election, which we covered on the podcast,
we had both a Green Party member and an independent
joined the podcast. It was labeled the Climate election this
time around. In his victory speech this weekend, Prime Minister
Anthony Albanesi vowed to govern for all Australians, including for
(06:00):
as he said.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Every Australian who knows that climate change is a challenge
we must act.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Together to made for their future around bar.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
And knows the fact that renewable energy is an opportunity.
We must work together the seas to a future.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Out with that in the weekly speech, was climate still
a big issue in this election?
Speaker 2 (06:29):
The truth is no, in this election it wasn't. And
as you've said, you know, and as the podcast covered
in twenty twenty two, climate has been a really large issue.
It's hard to overstate how divisive climate and energy policy
has been over the past decade two decades in Australia
and how important it's been to election results. Even if
(06:51):
we think back to twenty thirteen, that was my first
election here after moving to Australia, the key issue really
was carbon pricing. Then Liberal Party leader Tony Abbott. He
campaigned on repealing a carbon price one office and ultimately
carried out that policy. Twenty twenty two, the last national election,
(07:12):
the forefront of voters' minds was still the twenty nineteen
twenty twenty bush fires, the wildfires that killed more than
thirty people and that burned an area about half the
size of Canada. The fact that the then Liberal Party
coalition government was seen as doing too little in terms
of an emissions reduction was seen as being a negative
(07:35):
force in global climate diplomacy and also dismissive of technologies
like electric vehicles. That was front and center of that campaign.
This time around, climate has taken a huge backseat housing,
cost of living, inflation, interest rates, they've been the key issues,
and in truth, even though Anthony Albanesi's Labor Party is
(07:58):
seen as much more committee, it's a climate action, in reality,
we've seen one or two new policies outlined during the campaign,
one of them a very modest proposal to support household
batteries with subsidies.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
This is something we've seen in elections all around the
world following the pandemic, that economic issues have taken precedence.
And yet when Albinizi did become Prime Minister in twenty
twenty two, because of this momentum that was there for climate,
he did get to pass a major climate legislation, a
first in a decade, with a target to reduce Australia's
(08:35):
emissions by forty three percent by twenty thirty relative to
two thousand and five levels and increase renewables to eighty
two percent of electricity by twenty thirty. Do we see
Australia's push towards green energy as something that helps the
economy and is that something that Labor Party uses as
a way to push forward its goals because it is
(08:56):
clearly not on track. Even today, forty seven percent of
Australia's electricity comes from coal.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
I think you're right to identify a couple of things there,
and even the passage in that victory speech on Saturday
night ties some of those threads together. I was really
struck listening to his speech that climate merited only a
small mention, but when it did and we heard him
there tie the desire to increase the share of renewables
(09:23):
in Australia's energy mix. He tied it to as an
economic driver, and his government has really encouraged Australians to
see renewables and to see investment in renewables as a positive,
forceful job creation, to see as a necessary renewal of
communities that are currently dependent on fossil fuels, whether that's
(09:44):
extraction of coal, whether that's gas production, or whether that's
power plants. It's clear that coal is still really crucial
to Australia's energy mix, but that is slowly, albeit very
slowly changing. We are seeing giant coal fired power plants
gradually be retired, and in fact that will continue and
(10:06):
will accelerate over the next decade decade and a half.
All of that means that if we look at those
emissions targets, Australia is arguably on track to meet its
twenty thirty goals. So if we look at the most
recent data, that's emissions in the year through to the
March twenty twenty four, emissions were twenty eight point two
(10:28):
percent below that two thousand and five baseline. The majority
of analysts thinks that puts Australia on a track to
meet that forty three percent number. Now we can argue
about whether that target itself is ambitious enough, and I
think plenty of people would say it isn't. But what
we do know is the policies that are in place
(10:49):
and that will continue should allow Australia to achieve that number.
The harder task is hitting that renewable energy goal. Getting
to that eighty two percent of electricity generation coming from
clean sources. That will require a significant ramp up of
deployment of solar and wind, and really crucially, it involves
(11:12):
billions and billions more investment into the energy system in Australia,
not only in generation capacity but also in grids, in infrastructure.
Whether the government can achieve that is a far more
difficult question to address.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
So on this show we've talked a bunch about the
electricity sector. We're going to do a series about electrification
and the bottlenext to electrification very soon. But we've also
noted that the decarbonization of electricity relative to other sectors
is an easier problem. What about the other sectors in
the economy, What about transport, what about industry? How is
(11:50):
the country doing now and does the Albanese government have
policies to reduce emissions from those sectors.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
It does, and it's right to point to other parts
of the economy. Emissions from the electricity sector and account
for roughly a third of the total. Transport is another
huge issue for Australia to tackle. Twenty two percent there
thereabouts of emissions are related to transport, you know, and
(12:18):
simply haven't seen the kind of improvements in that sector
that other nations have. Albanese's government has implemented new vehicle
efficiency standards and they will continue to ratch it up
and the hope for the government is that helps to
drive further adoption of electric vehicles. That should help in
the passenger vehicle segment. That should see Australia, you know,
(12:40):
begin to recover some ground. But there are bigger questions
and more difficult questions when it gets to trucks, trailers,
and then think about those giant, enormous vehicles we see
on mind sights in parts of Australia. You know, we've
seen some trials of electrification, some use of trials of
hydro gen as a fuel source. Cracking those kind of
(13:02):
emissions is also vital to Australia's trajectory.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
You know, Australia doesn't have much of a car sector
and so most of its cars are imported. Now tell me,
commuting into work today, how many buids did you spot?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
This makes me laughuck Suat because this is something I
literally have done on a number of occasions on my cycle,
a thirty minute cycle into the Bloomberg office here in
the center of Melbourne. I have in the past off
and counted byds and I did it precisely because it
was so noticeable. In twenty twenty two we saw the
(13:35):
Atto three, one of Byde's most popular sort of small
suv models. We saw that slowly introduced to Australia. My
latest favorite thing is to look for the numbers of
BYD sharks. Now that is the sort of flatbed truck
or a ute as we call it here in Australia,
the most popular vehicle category in Australia. And finally, there
(13:59):
is a lower emission in this case BYD's hybrid option.
For that, I think I saw my first BYD shark
three or four weeks ago, and now I'm seeing them
probably every other day. They're really proliferating in the way
that other BYD models had in the past couple of years.
And of course still Tesla's remain ubiquous as well. So
(14:22):
that said, we know from the data that actually it's
only one in every ten new car sales in Australia
that's either electric or a hybrid.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
On the industrial side and on the energy side, the
energy exporting side, especially given how much Australia exports call
and gas to the world. We have seen the Albanesi
government come under criticism for approving new gas fields, for
expanding several existing coal mines. Is there going to be
(14:55):
any change in strategy in this coming term? Given climate
wasn't really a big to driving this election, It's.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Really hard to see an impetus for Albanesi to change
the approach that he and his government have had in
their first term. You know, we did have a party,
the Australian Greens, at this election that campaigned on a
platform that advocated for no new oil and gas approvals.
Votes are still being encountered, but the Greens have had
(15:22):
a really poor election, you know thus far. It's that
lack of impetus from seemingly from voters that will probably
you know, give Albanesi some comfort in his current position.
As you said, his government has approved new coal mines
and expansions, also new gas fields, and there's been a
lot of support for those traditional fossil fuel extraction and
(15:44):
exporting industries. And don't forget they generate a significant proportion
of export earnings for Australia. There is a really interesting
test case that will come up very early in this
new term. There is an approval that needs to be
considered by the government to extend the lifespan of a
facility called the Northwest Shelf. It's Australia's oldest and largest
(16:08):
liquefied natural gas export facility. It's been coming towards the
end of its current approved tenure. Albanesi's government has to
decide whether to give it a reprieve and to allow
it to continue to operate in its current form. That
could be a real lightning rod moment for this second
term of the Albanese government. It'll really define how do
(16:31):
they view gas and coal. And I'll be honest, you
know what we've seen in the past few years is
you know, them talk a lot about the not only
export earnings, but the numbers of jobs they see is
directly supported, particularly by that gas industry. You know, in
Albanesi's Resources Minister Madeline King, she's even talked about seeing
gas as an important energy source through to twenty fifty
(16:55):
and beyond.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
While this is happening, there is the trade war that
is being sparked by Donald Trump in the US. Australia
has a ten percent tariff. Maybe it goes away. We
don't know what's happening with tariff policies these days and
how frequently they change. But for Australia, the biggest trading
partner is China, and we know the US is going
really hard after China with one hundred percent plus tariffs
(17:20):
on the country. So if as a result of what's
going to happen between the US and China, China starts
slowing down. Does that have a serious impact on the
Australian economy as well? Given how much Australia exports to China.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Australia's in a really difficult position. Not on the one
hand sort of diplomatic security cultural partner in the US,
and on the other hand it's biggest trading partner China.
You know, Australia's economy has for so many decades prospered
from its ability to export iron or the biggest export
(17:58):
earner in Australia to China, to fuel China's steel industry.
It's been a major contributor of GDP and you know,
and we've seen huge companies here, BHP, the world's biggest minor,
others like Rio Tinto. They've all benefited from that trade
in the midst of a property crisis, in the midst
(18:20):
of a deceleration of its economy. That's already having an
impact now, you know, for Albanese's government and for a
lot of that resources sector. There's also been a lot
of optimism in their ability to export other raw materials,
other minerals to China. You know, Australia has been a
huge supplier of lithium, raw materials. It also is an
(18:42):
exporture of nickel, of manganese, of all of the kinds
of metals and raw materials that are required for batteries,
for lots of the kind of clean energy supply chains
that China dominates. The risk as you've identified there is
what happens is Donald Trump and his administration put pressure
(19:03):
on Australia to alter its relationship with China. We saw
in the wake of COVID China removed its imports of
a whole list of Australian products, coal, crayfish, wine, devastating
lots of those industries. So China knows it does have
this ability to have a huge influence on the Australian economy.
(19:28):
And so yeah, Albanezi finds himself in what is a
very unenviable position, caught between two large competing superpowers, and.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
China chose to restrict those imports from Australia as a
result of the politics around COVID and where did the
virus come from? Now you have a different challenge in
Donald Trump and the White House. But look, Donald Trump
is also interested in rare earth minerals. In critical minerals
in lithium, in nickel are there any conversations the trade
(20:00):
level that you know that are happening right now with
the US government to look at whether the US is
ready to import these critical minerals from Australia instead.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
For a number of years, these conversations have been ongoing,
you know, in a in a previous role, I wrote
predominantly about the mining sector, and I have been in
those rooms, you know, with those US trade representatives and
a group of whether it's you know, owners of rare
earth projects who are seeking funding to develop those minds,
(20:33):
you know, whether it's nickel producers. You know, this is
a new thing. You know, Australian developers of mining projects
have been you know, desperately seeking funding from the US
precisely because of this ongoing desire to reduce reliance on
China's supply chains. And no, I'm not aware of any
current and existing conversations that are going on, but obviously,
(20:56):
you know, under the Biden administration there was a emphasis
on French shoring in the critical mineral space. Australia was
a big part of that. I can only imagine that
those conversations continue with the Trump White House, and it's
relatively reasonable, I think to expect that, you know, as in,
if there are any of those conversations around tariffs, that
(21:18):
critical minerals will become part of that conversation for the
Trump White House, I think very interesting. One thing we
have seen in the past few weeks and months from
the Albanize government is, you know, is a commitment to
develop a strategic reserve of critical minerals. Having that stockpile
potentially gives them some leverage if there are those conversations
(21:38):
around tariffs, around the kind of trading relationship that Australia
has with the US, maybe that is, you know, something
that they can potentially leverage.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
We'll be back with more of my conversation with David
Stringer after the shortbreak. And Hey, if you're enjoying this episode,
please rate and review Zero on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
You have.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Feedback really matters and helps new listeners discover the show.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
It's worth noting, though, that this election played out a
little differently from the previous elections I've watched in Australia,
where the opposition party in the Liberals and the coalition
partner typically are quite climate denialist and they want nothing
to do with climate policy. This time around, they weren't
really pushing against the net zero target that Australia has.
(22:37):
Actually they were embracing it. They even had a plan
to build a whole lot of nuclear power plants.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
And today we announce seven locations that we have looked
at in great detail over a long period of time
that can host nuclear sites.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Dutton's plan, as far as I could see, was really
quite a expensive and he got really badly hit in
the campaign by coming up with this plan. So given that,
and given the fact that there are currently non nuclear
power plants in Australia, do you think there is any
future for nuclear power in Australia anymore?
Speaker 2 (23:16):
It seems really unlikely that the idea of developing a
nuclear power industry from scratch is something that is feasible.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Now.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
I get the impression that the rejection of that idea
and policy wasn't necessarily that Australian voters were opposed to
the idea of nuclear energy. I think the thing that
people rejected in this election in Australia was the was
the cost and the timeline and the costings were very contentious.
(23:46):
Dutton's party insisted that this plan, which would have been
to develop seven nuclear reactors, seven nuclear power sites, some
of them small modular reactors, you know, a technology that
isn't something that is that is commercially available right now.
The costing that it would have been a minimum of
around one hundred and sixteen billion Australian dollars that plant
(24:08):
a minimum. The Labor Party countered with a figure of
more like six hundred billion Australian and to many voters,
they saw this as as a strategy that would have
extended the lives of existing coal fired power plants that
not only have a negative climate impact, but are expensive, inefficient,
(24:30):
you know, and would have required potentially regional or national
avent government subsidies to keep them open. And an additional problem,
of course is that Australia it isn't even legal to
have nuclear power at this point. There are federal bands
in place on having nuclear power stations.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
This time around, between January and April, there were massive
floods in Queensland, in the state that is known for
mining a lot of coal.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
Authority to say people were stuck on the roofs of
their homes as rising waters cut off entire areas. And
if that wasn't enough, thing we can show you a
crocodile seen swimming in a storm drain. This is in
the town of Ingham, ser.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
The area that covered was larger than Germany and France combined.
Do you think that these natural disasters, just given the
size of Australia and the extremities with which it's being felt,
will have an impact on people wanting to support climate
policies in the future or is it now economics first
(25:31):
and real see about climate later.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
It really feels like the latter at this point. And
as you say, there have been some quite significant natural
disaster events in the opening months of the year. You
mentioned those huge flooding in the west of Queensland. You know,
we also had Cyclone Alfred, which happened in March. The
impact of that cyclone even impacted the date of the election.
(25:56):
You know, Albanesi had intended to call the election, but
instead was had to defer because he and his government
were busy dealing with the impact of that specific, you
know event. And even in the past few days, you know,
we've we've we've seen data, government data that showed, you know,
household spending declined as a result of it. You know,
we we saw millions of you know, insurers talk about
(26:19):
millions of losses, significant events, and yet we didn't see
them discussed in the election campaign. We've seen although this
this wildfire bushfire as we call it here season, you know,
was was relatively benign compared to other recent seasons, we
still saw significant catastrophic fires. Again, they weren't part of
(26:45):
the campaign, they weren't necessarily discussed. Ultimately, people won't be
inured to the impact of these events, I think, you know,
and particularly as we see attribution of these events to
climate change, I think we'll see policymakers take up that.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Climate policies might not be popular these days. But the
climate calendar continues, and there is one coming up later
in Brazil COP thirty, and countries are supposed to submit
their plans for twenty thirty five with updated higher ambition.
In Australia, which is supposed to submit its plans by February,
(27:21):
deferred that and we are expecting it to come idly
before COP thirty. Do we have any sense of when
it'll come and whether it will show the ambition that
the world needs.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
In honest truth, we don't at this stage. You know,
it was as you say, it was deferred really for
two reasons. One, there was an election pending, a lot
of attention was focused on campaigning, and also there was
a realistic proposition that had there been a change in government,
we would have seen a much radically different, new nationally
(27:53):
determined contribution. And in fact, Dutton's party had talked about
potentially rolling back the targets or for twenty thirty Never mind,
you know the twenty thirty five.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
But look, there is another cop that comes after. Cop
thirty was just Cop thirty one, And before the election
we knew that Anthony Albanzi wanted to host Cop thirty
one in Australia, even going as far as noting that
Adelaide might be the location where it will be held.
And typically countries wanting to host cops have to show
(28:27):
that they have the ambition, that they have the desire
to support the Paris Agreement. Would that do you think
matter in the targets that Australia sets out this year?
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Oh, I'm absolutely you know, I mean, having won one
election and convinced the Australian voters to return him to office,
you know, Albanese's sort of next campaign as well. He's
got to persuade a group of climate diplomats, you know,
in the rotating blocks within the COPS structure. He's now
facing the task to convince them that it's Australia and
not Turkey that ought to be the host of the
(29:00):
twenty twenty six UN Climate Conference COP thirty one. So
part of that clearly will need to be showing greater
ambition and getting his homework, getting that next NDC in
as soon as possible to the UN. Certainly we expect
that to be launched before the bellum COP. And it's
I think it's fair to assume, you know, given the
(29:21):
direction of travel we've seen from this government, that it
will set a more ambitious target. You know, as we've discussed,
there are areas of Australia's economy where climate policy is developing. Transport,
industrial emissions, you know, really importantly, you know, there is
a policy in place that covers some of the biggest
(29:42):
polluting facilities, industrial facilities in Australia. The targets for them
to cut emissions continue to ratchet up and we'll see
that kind of contribution. So I think it's fair to
assume a more ambitious new plan. It's a separate question
of whether all of that will be sufficient to to
persuade climate diplomats of Australia's credentials.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
It's been a conversation that's been sort of dour and
climate policies, and I think we are on the upswing here,
so let's keep on that upswing. And you know, of
course you're based in Melbourne, You're based in Australia, but
you look over our Asian coverage for bloombergrain, are there
places outside of Australia where you are seeing green shoots
(30:27):
that show why climate policies might endure or climate action
might be strengthened.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
I think there are, and that is really critical because,
as we know, Asia as a region accounts for more
than half of total global greenhouse gas emissions, and so
what happens in Asia is utterly critical to the trajectory
of planetary warming. We can look at governments in places
(30:55):
like the Philippines or Malaysia where there's really interesting work
going on to advance policies that are accommodating greater investment
in renewable energy. There's a huge amount of activity across
the region to catalyze and improve on emissions trading systems
you know, there's a enormous amount of interest you know,
(31:16):
in the government to government trading of common credits too,
and you know, we should see in the coming months
Indonesia take some significant steps there. But the two big
economies that I've spent most time, I guess thinking about
in this region are China and India, huge contributors to
global emissions. And late last month, we saw China's President Jijiping,
(31:41):
you know, address a virtual conference of fellow global leaders
to talk about climate policies, to talk about the kind
of commitments they're going to be needed at COP thirty
in Brazil, and that was really significant to me. The
fact that we had President Ji committing China to more
ambitious emissions reduction, committing the country to target not just
(32:06):
carbon dioxide emissions but all greenhouse gas emissions hugely significant
because China's total climate footprint, its contribution of gases outside
of carbon dioxide is absolutely mammoth, you know, actually bigger
than the majority of other countries' total emissions. Very significant
(32:27):
intervention from g and that suggests that China will continue
to accelerate its development of climate policy. Clearly, as we know,
there is a lot of work to do. Yes, they
have had this remarkable, scarcely believable adoption of renewable energy,
but it hasn't necessarily translated into genuine decarbonization of their
(32:50):
power sector because energy consumption continues to rise. The rhetoric
from g some of the policy development we're seeing I
think you know does sugges yes, that we're going to
start to see genuine inroads made by China on its
emissions profile. When it comes to India, we're not yet
seeing the same policy settings. It's a country that still has,
(33:12):
as you know, as we both know, as we both
reported on a huge task ahead in terms of decarbonization. Yes,
there are green shoots in the region, but there's still
a lot of work to do, and there's still big
economies with huge tasks ahead of them.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
We've had analysts looking at Chinese emissions and recognizing that
perhaps they may have peaked as of twenty twenty four,
and given the economic rejectory, they might just prove to
be right. But there is one aspect of what's happening
in the world, especially from the Asian perspective, that I
want to get your view on, which is that a
lot of the trade policies, at least in rhetoric, are
(33:50):
about stopping China dumping cheap stuff into America or into
Europe because Europe wants its own solar manufacturing capacity and
Europe wants its own electric vehicle manufacturing capacity. But if
that is the garb under which these trade policies are
being deployed, there are tons of other countries in the
(34:12):
world who do not want to build their own auto
manufacturing sector, or do not want to build their own
solar manufacturing sector. They could become real beneficiaries of this
cheap solar and evs that are sitting in China and
are not going to go anymore to the US or
even to Europe, but might end up in African countries,
(34:33):
might end up in South American countries, might end up
in Australia, as we've seen with the bids. So those
green shoots could really go and have an impact elsewhere.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Absolutely, and I think when it comes to electric vehicles,
when it comes to green clean energy equipment, you're absolutely
right there is an opportunity there. I think back to
comments last year from BYD and its executives. You know,
they were asked about the problem that they face with
you know, not really being able to sell in the US.
(35:04):
And their response is it doesn't trouble us. There are
so many other markets for them to exploit and to target,
you know, whether it is Latin America, whether it is Europe,
whether it is Australia, the same I'm sure will prove
to be the case for solar sales or modular exporters.
Just look at some situations we've had, you know, even
(35:26):
last year, like suddenly a huge surprise in imports by
Pakistan of solar equipment. You know, we've seen that some
of the faster grown regions for adoption of solar places
in the Middle East. You know, there are dynamic markets
that China's dominant manufacturers will naturally gravitate towards. The truth is,
you know, exports to the US for many of those
(35:48):
Chinese manufacturers haven't ever been huge. You know, they've only
ever accounted for small amounts of their exports, and so
there definitely is that happy sort of marriage of over capacity,
huge clot of manufacturing capacity, whether it's in solar and
wind and EV batteries in evs, and then markets that
really stand to benefit from a lower cost of those
(36:11):
clean energy products so yeah, that absolutely could see that
being a trend and a theme that we start to
see accelerate in the in the months and years ahead.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Thank you for listening to zero and now for the
sound of the week. That's the sound of an EMU,
Australia's unofficial National Bird Proving Ones and for all that
birds really are just dinosaurs in cute clothing. If you
(36:47):
like this episode, please take a moment to rate and
review the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Share this
episode with a friend or with someone running for office.
This episode was produced by Oscar Boyd. Noomberg's head of
podcast is a Bauman and head of Talk is Brendan newnham.
Our theme music is composed by Wonderly Special Thanks to
Somersadi Mosses Andim and Sherwan Wagner. I'm Akshatrati back soon.
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