Federal climate change and energy minister Chris Bowen has sent a message to major institutional investors that Australia is now “under new management” ,and he wants them to seize a $130 billion opportunity for new clean technology investment.
In an address to the IGCC Climate Change Investment and Finance Summit in Sydney, Bowen will tell investors that the new Albanese wants to “unleash private investment” in new clean energy projects and that he sees cutting emissions as a good investment opportunity.
In prepared remarks seen by RenewEconomy, Bowen declares “Australia is open for business” in a growing global market for green investment.
“For too long, Australians had been led to believe that climate change posed a choice; the environment or the economy, the cities or the regions,” Bowen says.
“In fact, climate change threatens us all – and good climate action can benefit us all because the truth is that good energy policy is key to good economic policy.”
“In opposition, I said that the world’s climate emergency was Australia’s jobs opportunity. In government, I’ll work with you to make it so.”
“And so my message to the investment community – here at home, and particularly around our region – is simple: Australia is under new management – and Australia is open for business in the new global economy,” Bowen adds.
Bowen will address the summit of major institutional investors on Friday, just a day after prime minister Anthony Albanese formally committed Australia to a stronger 2030 emissions reduction target.
Members of the Investor Group on Climate Change (IGCC), which includes many of Australia’s largest superannuation and wealth management funds, have advocated for stronger federal climate policies warning of the risks posed by failing to act on global warming.
The IGCC has estimated that the adoption of stronger emissions reduction targets, including an “investment grade 2030 emissions target”, could unlock more than $130 billion in investment opportunities in “clean industries and new jobs” by 2030.
Labor says its 2030 target – to cut emissions by 43 per cent – would be achieved through growing Australia’s renewable energy market share to 82 per cent and cutting industrial emissions.
The IGCC argues climate change poses both a physical risk – created by the impacts of a warming planet – and a ‘transition’ risk as polluting fossil fuel industries are gradually phased out, creating the prospect of stranded assets.
The effects of the transition risk are currently evident in the Australian energy market, which is battling through a crisis of high fuel prices and coal plant outages.
Bowen will tell the summit that such crises can be avoided by a federal government that supports accelerated investment in a transition to cleaner energy sources.
“A country like Australia should be a renewable energy superpower, running our homes and businesses on cheaper and cleaner power and exporting it to the world,” Bowen says.
“But instead, we’re a decade behind on the energy transformation. Hostage to ageing coal-fired power plants. To flooded coal mines. To global gas prices.”
“A decade of denial and delay has left us dangerously exposed to these challenges.”
“These problems were a decade in the making. We won’t fix them quickly or easily. But we will fix them together,” Bowen adds.
The address to the summit will be Bowen’s first major speech to industry since being sworn in as the federal energy minister.
It also marks the extent to which the new Albanese government has pivoted the federal stance on energy and climate policy after ousting a Coalition government that embraced an expansion of gas production and sought to prop-up ageing coal generators.
Bowen hit out at the Dutton-led opposition’s renewed support for an Australian nuclear industry.
“Since the election, the Opposition has proposed a so-called “discussion” of nuclear energy,” Bowen says.
“Nuclear is the most expensive and slowest form of new energy. Its adoption in Australia would push up power prices and crowd out cheaper and cleaner technologies.”
“Firmed renewables are quicker to build and cheaper to operate.”
“Those who say otherwise are either dangerously ignorant, or simply seeking to perpetuate the climate wars.”
