Recording: Fairness, science and fury

THE HON. VERITY FIRTH:  Hello, everyone.  Thank you again for joining us for today's event.  I'm just going to wait for 30 seconds or so to give people time to come into the virtual room.

 

Alright, we've hit the magic mark of 100, so I'll begin and hopefully more people can join us as we go along. So hello, everybody. Firstly, before we begin today, I want to acknowledge that wherever we are in Australia, we are on traditional lands of First Nations peoples.  This was land that was never ceded and I want to pay respect to Elders past and present, wherever you are joining us today.  In terms of where I am, I am at UTS so I'm on the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation and wanted to pay a special tribute to the Gadigal people as the original custodians of knowledge to the land upon which this university is built.  So I think they deserve a special respect for that.

 

My name is Verity Firth, the Executive Director of Social Justice here at UTS, and I also head up our Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion.  It's my pleasure today to be joined by some very distinguished guests: Zali Steggall, Ketan Joshi and Professor Robynne Quiggin, and I'll have the chance to introduce them properly shortly.  I'm just going to go through a few bits of housekeeping first.

 

So the first thing is that this event is being live captioned.  To view the captions, you click on the link that is in the chat and you can find the chat at the bottom of your screen in the Zoom control panel.  Once you've done that, the captions will open in a separate window.

 

If you have any questions during today's event, we do allow Q&A for our panellists, which is always fun.  What you can do is ‑ we don't use the chat for that, so don't go into the chat.  Go into the special Q&A box, which is also sitting there in the Zoom control panel.  You can then upvote questions that other people have asked, and that's good because what I tend to do is ask the most popular questions, as you can imagine.  We do ask people that they give relevant questions to the topic but hopefully your question will be one of the ones that others enjoy and upvote.

 

So the title for today's event comes from a quote by none other than Ketan Joshi, and he writes: "Every problem is insurmountable before it is surmounted.  Every change is slow before it is fast.  Every apocalypse is inevitable until it is cancelled.  This one can be cancelled and by the snowballing power of fairness, science and fury."  Cancelled by the snowballing power of fairness, science and fury ‑ we just love that; hence the title. And I am hoping it does seem like the tide is finally turning, after decades of denial, distraction and inaction on climate change. 

 

Internationally, commitments to net‑zero emissions are gaining traction.  Countries including the UK, New Zealand and France have enacted laws to achieve a net‑zero target by 2050 and many other countries, including South Korea, Japan, the EU and the United States are in the process of doing the same.  China too has promised to go net‑zero by 2060.

 

Tomorrow, to coincide with International Earth Day, US President Joe Biden is hosting a two‑day climate summit for 40 world leaders designed to underscore the urgency and the economic benefits of stronger climate action.  In his invitation, Biden urged leaders to use the summit as an opportunity to outline how their countries will contribute to stronger climate action.  Prime Minister Scott Morrison will be in attendance, but with Australia currently offering no more concrete commitment than that we will preferably get to net‑zero by 2050, we are rightly seen as lagging behind.

 

At the same time, Australia's contribution to the world's production of fossil fuels is growing. We're the third largest exporter and our economic recovery from COVID‑19 has been largely built around gas and other fossil fuels, a strategy that was widely criticised by the UN last year.  And Australians are really at the front line of climate change impact.  In the last two years, we have suffered through environmental catastrophes, including the bushfires of 2019/20, last month's devastating flooding and this month's cyclone in WA.

 

Local and international pressure is building.  People from all backgrounds and all corners of society are calling for action to be taken.  I'm proud to say ‑ and you can't get away without us doing a little bit of a plug for UTS here ‑ but UTS was one of the first five Australian universities to sign up to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and in September 2019, we signed the Climate Emergency Declaration, committing to climate‑orientated action with our resources, research and education.

 

The Institute for Sustainable Futures here at UTS has been conducting research and projects for Australian and international clients since 1997 and we've also just launched this year a new Bachelor of Sustainability and Environment in the FASS School of International Studies and Education.  The idea behind this degree is it will produce graduates equipped with the knowledge to understand the interconnections between environmental, economic, social and cultural sustainability and ultimately tackle the complexity of achieving a sustainable future. As I've mentioned, people from all backgrounds and sectors are adding their voice and expertise to the call for action.  So what arguments or actions are the most likely to lead to change?

 

To begin today's discussion it's my real pleasure to introduce Zali Steggall.  As I am sure you are all aware, Zali is the Independent Federal Member for the seat of Warringah in Sydney's north, which she has held since May 2019 when she won it from former Prime Minister Tony Abbott.  In November last year, Zali, much to the applause of all of us in the gallery, tabled the Climate Change Bill, proposing to enact net‑zero emissions by 2015 in Australia into law to ensure the long‑term safety, security and prosperity of Australia.  It's garnered support from Australian businesses, industry groups and community organisations and Zali has been a vocal champion and key driver of legislative action in Australia to address the issues and opportunities around climate change.

 

Welcome, Zali.  It's an honour to have you join us today and I'd like you to take the floor. 

 

ZALI STEGGALL:  Thank you so much, Verity, and thank you, everyone, for having me.  If I could start also by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which I stand and may we work together for a sustainable, prosperous future for all generations in the future.  I certainly think we al have a lot to learn from our First Nations people.

 

This is exciting.  Webinars like this are so important in building the consensus and the understanding of what needs to be done but also what can be done because if there's one thing that I've felt around climate, it's often that sense of anxiety over we have a steam train that has left the station and we don't have governments that are really doing anything to put the brakes on and turn it into a safer direction.  So people are really looking for guidance, looking for where is the optimisms and the things we can do.

 

I am a positive person.  I am a glass half full kind of person and I believe no matter how great the challenge, you just have to set the goal and then you can break it down into manageable bits.  I believed that in my sporting career, my legal career and certainly the start of my political career. 

 

So in terms of the Climate Change Bills, it was very much my goal in getting into Parliament to try and break the divisive politics around this issue, and my predecessor certainly contributed to that very adversarial and divisive approach to it. This is not ‑ I have built on the efforts of other countries, primarily the United Kingdom, who passed the Climate Change Act back in 2008, and it has assisted them to reduce their emission by some 29% of their emissions to date, but what it's also done is it's taken the politics out of their approach and it's allowed them to trust in the science and to take expert advice.

 

So when I introduced the Climate Change Bill in November last year, it was obviously, as a Private Members Bill, trying to very much represent the views that I had heard from scientific backgrounds, the business community.  The Bill was then put to inquiry, to the Environment and Energy Committee, and it has now had over 6,500 submissions and pretty much every sector of Australian society ‑ business ‑ probably apart from thermal coal mining, have come out in support of it because it sets that pathway.

 

So what the Bill tries to do really clearly is set a framework for our decarbonising action.  We need to balance our emissions budgets and it's something that for over a decade now our governments simply haven't been doing.  So what the Bills do is they provide a comprehensive framework.  It locks into law our ultimate goal of net‑zero by 2050.  Now, I know the science is also quite telling that we need to get there sooner than that, but we need to at least put an outer barrier so that we can drive investment and confidence so that technology comes on board.

 

What the Bill does is it sets a prerogative on government to set five‑year emission reduction budgets.  What that does is every five years there is a clear commitment that is science‑based, that is expert‑advised, to the Governments.  What it means is it takes it outside of the three‑year political cycle of elections.  It gives that longer term certainty and there are always two budgets at any one time in play.  So the sectors will always have visibility of the next 10 years to come.

 

It has been shown to be really effective in the UK.  I think the Centre for Policy Development described it as a 'north star', a way to guide climate effort because it would really identify each sector and we know each sector has different potential.  Agriculture can transition much differently to what our energy sector can, and I know Ketan will give us some more expertise on all that, but we need to make sure we have a plan and that each sector is integrated into that plan and that there is accountability.

 

The UK Climate Change Committee, which was established under their Climate Change Bill, made a submission to the inquiry on the Bill and they have said that having a clear Climate Change Committee provides clear signals to investors.  It helps build political consensus and navigate political challenges and encourages an evidence‑based approach to climate policy.  I think that is music to the ears of many Australians.

 

So I do strongly believe we need to lock net‑zero into law because we've seen the divisive politics in Australia.  I don't think it's good enough to have our current 'preferably by 2050' kind of approach because it doesn't create the accountability and make sure that every sector is locked into reaching the goals that need to be done.

 

We saw in the UK by having net‑zero into law, it's been a constant requirement on their governments throughout crises ‑ whether it be Brexit or whether it be COVID‑19 crisis ‑ and so under law, they've had to put out their carbon budgets, which means there can't be that distraction.  We have seen in the last two years with bushfires, with COVID, that this is too important an issue to have a government put off such an important thing as a five‑year budget because of current focus.  So I think it is very important.

 

We saw today the UK announce that it will aim for a 78% reduction on 1990 levels by 2035 and that's on top of their 68% by 2030. It has driven a lot of their COVID recovery spending, so they have backed that up with 12 billion pounds Green Industrial Revolution plan.

 

In contrast, in Australia we still are saying 'preferably by 2050 and as soon as possible'.  Now, that language has shifted.  When I was in Parliament first in 2019, the Prime Minister would talk of ‑ if I put net‑zero to him by 2050, he gave me a rhetoric of, "That will wreck the economy and will wreck the jobs", which, of course, is factually incorrect.  But obviously the language has shifted but they are still not willing to be pinned down to it and this is really a problem because they are not giving the certainty that industry and business need to attract international investment but to commit the funds that we need.

 

It's really been interesting, in fact, during the inquiry that areas like local governments, like building council, like architects, when you build a house, you plan for 30 years.  You need to know a long‑term plan of what you're building for, and they are calling for that clear pathway, just as industries, when they are investing in their infrastructure, they want to know what is infrastructure that will meet the market that they need to deliver to over the next 30 years, and at the moment that uncertainty does not make Australia a very attractive market, which is a real problem because we, on one hand, have great capacity, we have great potential, but we also have great risk because we are one of the most exposed continents to the impacts of climate change.  At the north, we have whole areas of the population that simply won't be insurable, may not be habitable.  The inquiry revealed that some $212 billion worth of public infrastructure on the east coast of Australia is at risk of coastal erosion and climate change impact, so the cost is very, very clear.  I think any Australian that ‑ we saw with the bushfires what that impact is going to be and it really is huge. So it's really important that we have that long‑term certainty by locking it into law.  We have the ability to accelerate with the science, with advice, by bringing it forward as we set each five‑year budget but, of course, we need to lock in the outer limit.

 

A major part of the Bill is also the risk assessment and adaptation planning because, sadly, we have a lot of warming already locked into the system.  I'm really concerned about how exposed the Australian population is to the transition to the disruption that is coming.  I'm concerned of the impacts when it comes to our environmental impacts, our social impacts, people's livelihoods and homes, their safety when it comes to are they are in areas that are going to be prone to floods, bushfires, coastal erosion, extended drought, heat waves, storms that simply the force of which will make certain areas just repeatedly hit by disaster and economically unsound, to the employment transition that needs to happen.  We have sectors that are at risk of disruption.  There's no point in denying that reality.  We will not set the path of international markets.  Markets will move on.  And we are an export nation and so that export market is going to be disrupted and we need a plan.  I don't think we're doing any service to the communities that are going to be impacted by downplaying the risk, by putting off when that disruption is due to happen, simply for political votes and I think expedient short‑term policy making, rather than long‑term policy making.  So that's what the Bill ‑ the Climate Change Bill is trying to achieve that long‑term planning beyond the political three‑year cycle to ensure we actually have a plan.

 

Now, at the moment, the Government is still focused on gas, and gas is really not where the future lies.  We know from AEMO, the Australian Energy Market Operators, that we simply don't need more gas at the moment.  So we need to be focussing on the technologies that can deliver the results very quickly and we have so much resource, which I know others will talk about.  Gas is still a leading cause of emissions so it is not the answer.

 

In terms of the technology, now we know we already have a lot of the answers to the problem and the Climate Change Bill embraces the technology roadmaps that the Government relies on because, of course, we need to keep assessing technology readiness.  It's not just limited to that but that's a key part to it.  Technology is one of the limbs of solving this problem. But, of course, we absolutely need to do more than what we're doing at the moment. At the moment, we are only committed to reducing 26% to 28% by 2030 and my understanding is we're only on track for about 22%.  During the inquiry, we have asked the Department of Energy whether they have calculated a pathway to net‑zero and their answer was no, they have not been instructed by the Government to plan that pathway.  The Climate Change Authority also acknowledged that they have not been asked by the Government to plan a pathway to net‑zero and the Department of Environment and Agriculture admitted that they have not been asked to cost the impact of the alternative.  So in the face of the Bureau of Meteorology telling us that we're on track to three degrees of warming globally, over four degrees in Australia, we have our Department in charge of our emergency and safety not even looking at the overall cost of consequence of the likely outcome, unless we change course.

 

So they are rather worrying and dire facts but it's very much why  I and so many are really putting forward the alternative.  Now, the Prime Minister's recent comment that we won't solve this in the wine bars and cafes and at dinner parties of the inner city I think is incredibly divisive, short‑sighted and, ironically, factually wrong because the UN has said two‑thirds of the global emissions are consumer driven.  So we all have choice.  We all have the power to make a difference ‑ I think primarily how we vote but also by our choices as customers.

 

I believe we absolutely can solve this.  We have the US Summit coming.  We have ambitious announcements coming from our trading partners.  Australia is more and more isolated.  The pressure is on in Canberra on the Prime Minister and internationally from our trading partners, so I am confident we can get there but we will only get there if we all apply maximum pressure.  Thank you.

 

THE HON. VERITY FIRTH:  Thanks for that, Zali.  There's a lot of food for thought in that so we'll get to you later when we come to the panel.  But I now will introduce our other panellists and it's a real joy to introduce Ketan Joshi and Professor Robynne Quiggin. 

 

Ketan Joshi has a decade of experience in the renewable energy industry, ranging from data analytics to communications.  He's worked in corporations, government and freelance for non‑government organisations and is an influential commentator on climate, clean tech and science communication.  He's also written for a range of media outlets, including The Guardian, The Monthly and Cosmos magazine.  His book 'Windfall: Unlocking A Fossil Free Future' was published in September 2020 and you can find a link in the chat now to that book if you're interested in it.  So welcome, Ketan.

 

Professor Robynne Quiggin is the Associate Dean of Indigenous Leadership and Engagement here at UTS.  She's a member of the Wiradjuri Nation of central western New South Wales and has lived and worked in Sydney, practising as a solicitor and consultant, for 15 years focussing on legal, compliance and policy areas of relevance to Indigenous Australians.  Prior to her appointment here at UTS, Robynne was Deputy Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission.  She has a longstanding commitment to a rights‑based framework as a way for individuals and communities to pursue their social, economic, cultural, linguistic and artistic priorities.  She's participated in a number of international human rights and biodiversity forums and has published on the role of rights in relation to economic, cultural, artistic and scientific work of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.  Welcome, Robynne.

 

So my first question ‑ as I was listening to Zali, I scribbled down a number of things she was saying and there was a wonderful quote about legislating, taking politics out of the approach, which I thought is interesting in and of itself.  But, essentially, what Zali is saying is that we need to enshrine in law and lock in net‑zero in law in order to achieve the climate change goals.  Robynne, I'm coming to you first.  With your background as a solicitor, do you feel that legal frameworks will do the job of embedding climate action and sustainability into the future of Australia? Or are there other ways of achieving this, or is it a bit of both?

 

PROFESSOR ROBYNNE QUIGGIN:  Thanks, Verity. I think you've kind of partly answered the question.  It's a bit of both.  You're absolutely right.  I think the legal framework and certainly the one that Zali has proposed looks absolutely wonderful to me.  I think legal frameworks are operationally important.  They do, we hope, stand the test of elections.  As an Aboriginal person, we know that we can have wonderful legislation introduced.  In the early 1990s we had the Mabo decision and then we had a fantastic, simple Native Title Act that was developed by Aboriginal people and politicians.  Come 1998, change of government, we had significant amendments and an enormous watering down.  So there is always the risk that what is passed in Parliament can be undone in Parliament.  However, that does not take away from the importance of legislation, not only as an operational and the foundation ‑ the laws that we have ‑ we elect our politicians.  We ask them to pass laws.  That is a really foundational, important part of our civil society and we hope that they will stand the test of time. So I think it's really important ‑ and really important to pass these laws. 

 

Our laws also reflect our values and I think that there are so many people who, while it may not be their biggest priority yet, do feel that climate change is important, do feel that we need to have representatives pass laws that give us these kinds of protections for country ‑ and I'm talking about land and waters there ‑ for people, for our economies and the way of life that we are very, very blessed to enjoy, largely courtesy of the generations and generations of care of this place that was given by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people over many, many years. 

 

So I think law is a really important building block ‑ legislation is a really important building block.  I think some of the litigation we've seen is also instructive and important for the assertion of rights.  It is influential, if only for the fact that when litigation is successful and companies or governments face consequences, it does get people's attention.  I think that is really important.  So litigation is another building block of the legal system.

 

Interestingly, ASIC has issued guidance to Directors as well for their role in companies, that they must be really careful to ensure that disclosure is clear, that there's compliance with climate change impact on the business of the company that they are Directors of, so that that is disclosed and that that there's also legal compliance. I think it's really instructive that someone like ASIC is issuing that kind of guidance and telling Directors how they have to behave and that there are penalties for it.  So I think those kinds of legal obligations are also important.

 

Also, internationally, we have our entire human rights system, and while classically ‑ the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights and the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights don't necessarily speak to climate change directly or, for example, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.  The impact of climate change, of course, as Zali has laid out for us and many of us know, just, bang, straight down on our security, our right to housing, our right to be able to eat, our right to safety, our right to employment.  If places are wiped out, food bowls are wiped out.  The very, very dramatic and frightening things that we have seen on the South Coast of New South Wales, where I'm located, that we just saw.  You know, the CSIRO tells us that cyclones are moving south.  We just saw that in Western Australia.  If we see the devastation of our infrastructure, of our homes, of the places that we grow food, the very fundamentals, our human rights are absolutely impacted on and we have the case now of the Torres Strait Islanders who have gone to the international human rights system, taking their case to the Human Rights Committee saying that a whole bundle of their human rights are being impacted by the rising sea levels and the loss of their home, the loss of safe water and the loss of their food sources. So all of those things are part of it but sending the message of legislation is incredibly important.  It states our values and it gives a brilliant framework, I think, in this Bill for compliance and standard setting. 

 

The other part that's really important is the finance sector.  Now, I am conscious, Verity, you might want me to pause and draw breath and I will talk about that next and give someone else a chance for a moment, but I do think that the finance sector is ‑ I went to university to study human rights and do criminal law at the time.  It was shortly after the Royal Commission was handed down.  It was quite a long time ago.  That's why I went.  I didn't want to hear about insurance.  I didn't really want to learn about mortgages. I didn't really want to learn about property law and I have swung around to understand that the finance sector, they know volatility.  They're always looking at that change, risk, assessing that, and no‑one was more surprised than me to sit in a conference that IGA was hosting, the biggest insurer, beginning the process for the development of the Australian Sustainable Finance Initiative and the roadmap that we now have, which is a brilliant document and really worth looking at ‑ no‑one was more surprised to learn than I was that insurance is not a viable industry if we don't pull up climate change, and they have been one of the biggest advocates.  So I have become someone who is really engaged from looking at the financial services sector from a consumer perspective for Aboriginal people, to looking at it as a real game changer for climate change for all of us.

 

The Australian Sustainable Finance Initiative is a really, really important roadmap for bringing the ‑ providing guidance for the finance sector from banks to credit unions to credit providers to investors to our superannuation funds, in how to direct those funds sustainably and how to ensure where our money is going and the huge, huge funds that we all have ‑ we are all consumers and we all have a ‑ you might think, "I'm not invested in anything."  If you have a superannuation account, you are an investor and your money is going somewhere and these kinds of initiatives are really pushing the investment of these large amounts of money into sustainable initiatives and saying to the people running the financial institutions, "Don't invest in things that will result in the kind of stranded assets ‑ looking at gas and coal ‑ that will result in harm, that do contribute and potentially bring individual liability one day to people who make those decisions because they have caused harm.  So there's a big push in the finance sector, a wonderful, wonderful movement out there amongst ‑ because, for example, the Australian Sustainable Finance Initiative roadmap ‑ in other countries ‑ and I was listening to Zali as well, really informed as well by the experience in the UK and the EU.  In those countries, it was done by government.  Here it was done by industry.  Here it was an amazing probably first time ‑ although I might be wrong about that ‑ but a quite unique collaboration of banks, insurers, super funds to come together to go, "How can we do this? How can we do this well and how do we bring our industry to this cause?".  So I think the law is a really important building block and it joins together I think very closely with the finance sector and, as I say, no‑one was more surprised than me.  A good news story.

 

THE HON. VERITY FIRTH:  The activist finance sector.  It's interesting, though, isn't it? It shows about the opportunities that are also created by taking climate change seriously, which brings me to my question for you, Ketan, which is: despite decades of disappointment and all of these things that make us feel like argh and the extremely challenging recent years, your book is ultimately really hopeful and you talk about the opportunities for a sustainable future for Australia.  So tell us a bit about that. 

 

KETAN JOSHI:  Yes, and thanks, Verity, and thank you, Zali and Robynne.  It's so, so wonderful to hear from both of you.  It's also ‑ you know, not many things fill me with optimism and joy, and hearing from both of you what you're describing is just so wonderful.

 

The book was really tough to write because I wrote it at the end of 2019 and the start of 2020, and that was over the duration of the black summer bushfires in Australia and I was not in Australia when that happened and I just kind of watched the political response from afar and there was this long‑running idea that all you needed to precipitate strong climate action was the manifestation of a disaster, a really serious disaster that breaks everyone out of their complacency.  And, unfortunately, power doesn't really work like that.  Power in the things that are causing the climate change problem is quite concentrated, so even though it would break a lot of people out of complacency, it doesn't break the right people out of complacency.  Unfortunately, after the black summer bushfires, not a long changed and, in fact, arguably things got a little bit worse because COVID‑19 happened and the gas‑fired recovery happened. 

 

So what a lot of people have been feeling is a sense of not just hopelessness but powerlessness.  They feel disconnected from being able to pull the levers that change this whole thing and I thought, OK, well, I need to ‑ my experience doesn't agree with that.  My experience in my reading and my writing all suggests that people have a bit more power than they think they do and so I wanted to flesh that out in the second half of the book.  The first half of the book is kind of a historical look at what happened and then the second half is what can we do, what actions can be taken, and that spans a bunch of different things.  There's the obvious things that people really sort of know about.  This is your carbon footprint stuff.  So it's day‑to‑day decisions like walking to the shops instead of driving to the shops, making decisions to reduce your use of plastic.  Plastic bags kind of get derided as a bit of green‑washing but plastic is quite an astonishing contributor directly to the climate problem, so if you're not using plastic bags, you should feel good about that.  I think that's a good thing.

 

But for a long time, that has taken centre stage when it comes to the things that individuals ‑ that people can do.  I think what I wanted to do was try and shift it towards a more collective and group sort of idea, the way that the actions of individuals when they're brought together can actually become greater than the sum of their parts, and so that leads into things like activism.  So the 2019 climate marches in Australia are a great example of where far, far more people turned out to those than was anticipated and I did some calculations in the book on ‑ Australia was actually quite over‑represented in terms of those climate marches, so people care about this stuff.  Then there's also things you can do like deciding where to put your money.  It's not just the people who burn fossil fuels.  There's actually the sort of web or network of contributors that ease the process of burning fossil fuels, so companies that dig up fossil fuels, companies that lend money to other companies that dig up fossil fuels, and public relations firms, investors, superannuation, things like that.  So what you can do is actually take your money away from those people and make a real point of telling them, "I actually don't want to be associated with the destruction of my future or the future of my children" and it's a very, very powerful thing to do.  Divestment has a lot of impact. 

 

So those things  ‑ the personal carbon footprint stuff and the activism stuff ‑ work really well but there's this third element as well which has been really, really successful in many different levels, which is essentially political activism.  So it's when you ‑ it works in many, many different scales.  So I live in Oslo in Norway and I don't drive my kid to child care.  I take her in this trailer on the back of my bike and the only reason I do that ‑ like, I'm not doing that because I'm like this amazing moral champion.  I am doing it because the bike lanes are fantastic and it's just cheaper and simpler for me to do it.  Those bike lanes are there because of this huge campaign three or four years ago here in Oslo to get them installed.  It was this massive fight.  So much blood, sweat and tears went into getting these bike lanes actually there and there's still fights going on to make them even safer. 

 

So when it comes down to the personal choice thing, underneath all of that there are all these massive political fights going on to let people make those choices.  So you can contribute not just by making the decision to choose a low‑emissions mode of transport, for instance, but to fight to make it available.  Of course, there are so many forces trying to oppose that and I am sure Zali is really familiar with all of these sorts of challenges that exist in trying to change the shape of a nation so that people have their freedom to decide not to be linked to the fossil fuel industry. 

 

So I sort of split it out into these three categories in the book and I wanted to make it really, really clear that all of those things ‑ when you do them, they have a really significant impact and I'll give you a really good example.  We're talking about the UK a lot.  Yesterday, the Government actually just agreed to a 78% by 2035 reduction, which was recommended by the Climate Change Committee that Zali mentioned.  I was just ‑ the reason I was yawning before is because I stayed up very late digging into all the numbers in the CCCs ‑ they call it the six carbon budget report that came out in December last year and it is just so amazing to see the proportion of emissions reductions in the UK that has come from demand reductions.  And so this is just people installing energy‑efficient light bulbs, making active decisions to choose more efficient appliances, and so electricity demand has gone way down in the UK's electricity grid and that is actually a really, really big chunk of those emissions reductions that Zali talked about.  I think if you look at the entire sector ‑ if you look across at the whole of the economy for the UK, they're actually almost at a 50% reduction compared to 1990 levels, which is just so ‑ which is just incredible.  Like, that's unthinkable from an Australian perspective.  So people taking actions, making decisions, played a big part in that. 

 

I won't go into it but community energy ‑ so this is people actually having the capability to invest and own parts of the energy infrastructure, so not just like solar farms and wind farms but also things like community batteries and retailers, like having community‑owned retailers for power, that is actually playing a surprisingly huge role in the UK as well and people just feel so empowered and energised when they actually start doing this stuff because not only are they becoming a participant in climate action; they're also fixing this long‑running feeling they've had in their gut for decades, which is like, "I'm just here for this ride.  I'm just a participant in this structure or society that doesn't really care about what I do or say."  So it's creating this much deeper shift as well and I think that's really important. Is that a good summary?

 

THE HON. VERITY FIRTH:  Yes.  That's great, Ketan.  As you were talking, I was thinking it's really interesting looking at the UK example because, of course, what's different about the UK compared to Australia is from the very beginning, the conservative side of politics accepted the science of climate change and, in some ways, it's just luck of history really.  It's because Margaret Thatcher was a scientist ‑ well, scientifically trained ‑ and accepted the logic.  And ever since then, it's not anti‑Tory to believe in climate change.  So you don't get those same shifts in government policy whenever Labour gets in or the Tories get in. They're all united on that, which brings me to my question for Zali, which is ‑ and Zali has brought this up already.  It's about the removing of the partisanship of climate change politics in Australia and trying to create a bipartisan consensus, which is what they've got in the UK.

 

So, Zali, your Climate Act has garnered support from all corners of society.  It's been a really good rallying point, but how do you, I suppose, firstly break down that partisanship, which is just killing us, and unite disparate and sometimes competing interests and backgrounds on this issue?

 

ZALI STEGGALL:  There are two parts to that.  The Climate Change Committee, why it is so important that we establish a clear, independent expert‑based body ‑ the best comparison I can give for people in an Australian context is think the Reserve Bank.  Having a statutory body that is independent of government that can really set the tone of where we need to go.  So if we've locked into law net‑zero, the committee, like the Reserve Bank, can then set the pathway of advising the Government where those five‑year budgets need to be.  So it's really important that we have that.

 

For example, the UK Climate Committee, they've said appointing members for their expertise, rather than their interests, has allowed the committee to be a credible arbiter and be seen to take judgment based on best evidence without partisanship or vested interest.  Now, that's really important because, unfortunately in Australia, we have leftovers from Labor's legislation.  We have the Climate Change Authority.  But it has been for one part gutted and not sufficiently funded but, B, it is loaded with vested interest.  It is not a science‑based body.  The members are there because they have expertise but they have expertise in very vested interest areas, generally gas and fossil fuel backgrounds.  So the Government is still not taking an approach of accepting independent evidence.

 

So how do we break that down? Unfortunately, it does come down to the individuals and their votes.  You have to be holding your members of Parliament to account.  You just can't wait and hope that this is going to solve itself.  If you continue to vote the same way, you will continue to have the same outcome is what I have to say to everybody.  Unfortunately, there is a complacency within the political parties, from what I have observed.  There is a sense ‑ and this has been said to me directly ‑ that they basically do not believe Australians ultimately ‑ they care and worry about climate but it is not the primary driver of their vote because they have not yet experienced it first‑hand.  I would hope that come next election, which is likely to be next year, that has changed because we have experienced it first‑hand.  We now have a phenomenal level of government ‑ of debt in Australia and we cannot afford the cost ‑ just for those that were not swayed from the environmental point of view, that need the economic argument to be swayed to transition to a low‑carbon world ‑ we simply cannot afford the cost of climate impacts.  The disaster cost alone will cripple future generations and that is just so clear on the evidence.

 

So we have to look for the middle ground, I think, but we also have to ‑ you know, a saying my husband has is "seek to understand before being understood", so you do have to understand where are people's fears? Why are people reluctant to accept the science but also to accept the solutions and the things that need to be done? So maybe it is about you have to embrace the opportunities that come with a transition to low‑carbon technologies but also I don't think the blame game helps of going back and ‑ I think the political parties have a pretty strong habit of trashing each other and blaming each other.  That doesn't get us ultimately to a safer future.  But we do need accountability and what we have in Australia is shifting sands of ideology and really neither major parties being strong on what really needs to be done.  I think political donations and media is a major problem in Australia and the irony is everyone will live with the consequences of our inaction and so I think there is a compelling case for everyone to really focus on this.  If you're not swayed from an environmental point of view, then from a safety point of view, a security point of view and an economic prosperity point of view.

 

So I guess it does, I think, now galvanise more of the population.  Some people still feel very I would say frozen in inaction because they think the problem is too big, that they simply can't make a difference.  I think that's where it is really important that we put solutions on the table, that they know how we can make a difference, especially when the rest of the world is moving.  One of the major arguments in Australia has always been, "We're only a small percentage.  If the rest of the world isn't acting, what difference can we make?".  Well, newsflash: the rest of the world is moving.  Our major trading partners are.  The US and China are moving.  The EU have just announced that they will lock into law their commitment to net zero and establish an expert‑based climate change committee.  So this is what good governance looks like.  We need to expect it of the Australian Government.

 

I think the research shows that 20% of the population will simply never move.  It doesn't accept the science of climate change.  We can't let that 20% hold everyone else to ransom.  That simply can't be allowed to happen.  This is a question that we can't wait until we are at the edge of the cliff.  We need to plan for this now.  We need to do it now.  We were able to do it on COVID and hear the science and hear the warnings and take the necessary steps.  We need to do that now when it comes to climate.

 

So I have been amazed by the outpouring of support from the inquiry for all sectors that have come to the table accepting what needs to be done, seeing the opportunities and understanding the risk.  We have so many people in regional communities, in urban communities, wanting change.  The key is, I think, offering what the change can look like and offering the alternatives and people really stepping up.  I don't see myself as a career politician.  I've come from sport and from law, but I felt there was a real responsibility from our generation that we cannot leave this problem the way it is for our children and their children.  So I hope many other professionals out there can ‑ Robynne and other people with expertise, we have to step up.  The private sector is doing its bit.  State Governments are progressing much further than Federal Governments but we need people to step up to create alternative options for people. We are building consensus but we need to keep going. 

 

THE HON. VERITY FIRTH:  Thanks, Zali.  I'm now going to move to the Q&A because we've got a whole lot of questions here.  If the panellists want to have a look, you can click on your Q&A but I'll curate them for you.  Toby has easily won with the most votes but it's sort of already been answered by Zali's last answer, so instead I'm going to move to the question from Deborah Cotton and I'm going to give you, Robynne, the first opportunity to respond.  Deborah Cotton talks about: so much of climate change net‑zero goals appear to be led by companies ‑ not all, but industry and companies are leading this rather than government.  When will government take on and understand what is needed or wanted by many leaders in Australia, even if it's just from a risk perspective for business? So this weird thing that's happened in Australia where our industries, as you were talking about, finance sector and stuff, seem to be further ahead on this than government, and when do you think that that will start to shift?

 

PROFESSOR ROBYNNE QUIGGIN:  Thank you, Verity, and hi, Deb.  Deb and I know each other.  It's a great question.  What is in my head is Ketan saying "power is concentrated" and I think on this issue, power is particularly concentrated in particular ways and I think the only thing you can do with that is what's been done by Indigenous people for a long time ‑ is you drive a wedge through it and I think that is what Zali is doing in the kind of leadership that Zali is providing in offering a solution.  I don't know ‑ is it when the Australian voters speak loudly, when the ballot box speaks to them? I think we are in a particularly difficult time, which is one of the reasons I think it's so fantastic to be talking about a solution in Parliament ‑ in government.  We are in a particularly difficult time where people have taken to the streets about the treatment of women, taken to the streets about the fact that David Dungay Junior died in a prison cell uttering the same words that were uttered by the man who died ‑ that George Floyd uttered, "I can't breathe", and people took to the streets here about that.  Australians ‑ in a pandemic, Australians got out and cared about that.  Women took to the streets about what's happening for the treatment of women, and still we manage to see our politicians move aside.  I think it is about transparency.  I think it is about accountability.  I think the issues that Zali has raised about that are really important and I don't know when this incredible deafness will finish.  But I also know that it will.  I do not doubt that it will. 

 

And Aboriginal people ‑ we have been here ‑ in the face of colonisation, in the face of enormous brutality and getting our hopes up about some laws and different kinds of things, and being dashed, we have made progress.  We have made incredible progress in looking after ourselves, in sustaining ourselves, in keeping our knowledge alive, our families alive, our cultures alive, our languages are being revitalised, and we stay and we keep going.  And I think this deafness ‑ we will outlast this deafness but I don't know when it will shift and I don't know what it will take because if it isn't the clear views, the heartfelt views of people taking to the streets, standing outside our institutions begging to be heard and for change, I don't know what will make them listen, but I do know that it will change because we're still here and we're not going to stop. 

 

THE HON. VERITY FIRTH:  I think it will change too.  It's just that it's frustrating, the process of getting there.  Does anyone want to add to that? Zali, do you want to add to that?

 

ZALI STEGGALL:  I would like to because, for example, I feel ‑ I, two years ago, was incredibly frustrated with the status quo of our politics in Australia, that we have lured ourselves into this sense of a duel by ‑ two party kind of politics is the only way we can govern and there are so many countries govern well with minority governments with a lot more choice.  I think we have lured ourselves into this sense that change is too difficult to achieve and so it all gets put in the too‑hard basket.  But it's not.  But people do have to be brave and want to step up and be prepared to put things on the line.

 

I know a lot of communities are looking for solutions.  We have voices of independent movements that are really mobilising around the country to try to give choice so people can speak up.  It's the personal choices that Ketan talked about in terms of as a consumer what you can do with your money, with your choices, what you buy, how you live your life.  It's not giving in to the trolls.  It's not letting the media be negative.  But my call‑out is for professionals, you need to think about at some point, if you have been successful in your career, can you give back to your community by coming into politics as an Independent because we need a change of politicians in Australia.  There are people in Canberra that are just too wedded to their ambition of what they hope to achieve for themselves in their political career, not for what they are seeking to achieve for their communities or what their legacy will be for the country, and that needs to change.  You need to look at entering politics as a community service, a way of giving back, of sharing your knowledge and expertise, and so there is that call for people all around Australia, we need alternatives because the only thing I have observed the political parties to take notice of in Canberra is the risk of losing their job, and their job depends on your votes.  So it is as simple as that.  You need to be able to step up and give people alternatives. 

 

These problems are solvable.  We solve problems all the time around health.  Look at the virus, with COVID.  Within 12 months, we went from phase 1, shut down to ensure we halt the spread; phase 2, increase our resilience and our health capacity.  We built our hospital and our response and frontline services.  And step 3, which is find a cure, and within 12 months we have a vaccine.  I know it has had some issues in Australia but that is an incredibly fast response to a global problem.  And yet on climate, we have not seen that same focus.  But it absolutely is possible but you have to be requiring ‑ you have to be pushing for it.  So that's my biggest call for everybody. 

 

PROFESSOR ROBYNNE QUIGGIN:  And just one more thing.  I think as the economy changes too, going back to that "power is concentrated", where that power is concentrated will shift as markets change and industry changes and where the money is, and I don't want to take away a moment from the call that Zali has just made, but I was just reflecting that the location of power will shift as economies shift as well to renewables and to other kinds of industry.  Thanks. 

 

THE HON. VERITY FIRTH:  Now, Ketan, I was going to ask you the question from Janine about infrastructure advisory panels in small communities, so basically those community‑led or community‑controlled electricity grids, and maybe you do want to answer that, but I thought also on Robynne's point, you may want to say something a little bit about where power resides in both the new economy and the new future.  It's three minutes to 5, so keep it short but that would be great. 

 

KETAN JOSHI:  I will keep it as short as I can.  I could talk for hours about small communities and power.  This is really ‑ it goes back to some really fundamental issues, particularly around how we understand land and space and the natural world in countries like Australia but here in Norway as well.  It's the same thing. There's this pre‑existing problem that predates the climate problem, which is that we see an empty space and we think that's great for a machine, and so what we've seen is even the deployment of renewable energy hasn't really been done in a sensitive and thoughtful way.  It's been done in a way that reflects the pre‑existing distribution of power.  So a company has way more power than a community and I think that really needs to change.  I think that's something that if we shift it, you could actually decelerate the power of carbonisation. That is a really great power plan by another Independent, Helen Haines, that is worth checking out if you want to learn a little bit more about that. 

 

But this is something that, of course, could be directed to pre‑existing injustices in Australia.  Of course, all of the issues that Robynne mentioned, they also predate the fossil fuel industry by many centuries, so this is something that there's a lot of potential and I actually hope that it goes the right way because if we don't get it right, if we kind of let the solutions to the climate crisis just kind of slot into these old problems, then it's just going to ‑ it could actually slow down decarbonisation, in addition, of course, to being morally wrong and an example of injustice.  So I hope that changes but the amount of potential there, the amount of positive change there, is really huge. 

 

THE HON. VERITY FIRTH:  Wonderful.  Thank you.  And thank you for being concise. It's 1 to 5.  I'm just going to do one last thing with each of you.  I'm going to start with you, Robynne, then you, Ketan and then Zali can have the last word.  I was just going to say: if suddenly you were given all of the power in the world tomorrow, what is it that you would do on day 1 in terms of climate change? Robynne?

 

PROFESSOR ROBYNNE QUIGGIN:  Go all out to invest in renewables and I would bring Aboriginal people into that conversation, in our place as First Peoples and as land‑holders.  That's what I would do. 

 

THE HON. VERITY FIRTH:  Love it.  Ketan?

 

KETAN JOSHI:  I would shut down the fossil fuel industry straightaway. I would, of course, take all of the money that's going into sustaining them and put it into figuring out how to deploy their replacement in the space of weeks and months, rather than years and decades. 

 

THE HON. VERITY FIRTH:  Good.  I'll vote for you.  Zali?

 

ZALI STEGGALL:  Well, I guess in Australia, I would pass it as law and I would get a strong independent Climate Change Committee with the power to probably do even more than what I've proposed but to make sure we drive our transition with things like making sure renewable energy and storage is the focus, and no more fossil fuels. 

 

THE HON. VERITY FIRTH:  Wonderful.  Thank you.  That's a nice upbeat way to end.  It's been a really encouraging talk to have because there's been a lot of optimism in this virtual room but also optimism amongst all our panellists that this is doable and we all just have to pull up our socks and be part of the process of getting it done.  So thank you again, everyone, for joining us.  Thank you especially to our panellists.  We really appreciate it.  This has all been recorded and links will be sent out to all people who registered if you want to watch it again or perhaps share it with your friends and neighbours.  So thanks again, everyone, and see you next time.  Bye.