MIKE O’LOUGHLIN: We've heard about it a lot through the news, of course, in Scotland. We thought we'd cross over there now and actually see how things are going. Federal Shadow Minister Assisting For Climate Change Pat Conroy joins me live on the line from Glasgow now. Pat, good morning. I do appreciate your time.
PAT CONROY, SHADOW MINISTER ASSISTING FOR CLIMATE CHANGE: No problem. How are you going?
O'LOUGHLIN: Alright, thank you. Nice clear line. It must be quite late there in Glasgow at the moment?
CONROY: Yes, quarter to 11 at night, so it's getting on, but it's a good chance to talk to people back home about what's going on.
O'LOUGHLIN: It is. So you attended the conference today or yesterday, our time? How'd it go?
CONROY: Well, people have described this conference as sort of halfway between the bad consequences of Copenhagen, and the great outcome of Paris. So people are cautiously optimistic that good things will come out of it. But obviously it won't be maybe the expectations some had before the conference and that's partly due to the actions of the Australian Government, sadly.
O'LOUGHLIN: Is achieving net zero realistic in the timeframe? I mean, without an emissions trading scheme, or a carbon tax to force emission cuts across all sectors of the economy, how difficult will it be?
CONROY: We can absolutely deliver on net zero emissions by 2050 and we can do it in such a way that our economy grows, and that we add more jobs and more industries. Lots of studies have shown that. Unfortunately, the Government has announced a commitment but not a plan. They don't have any details. They’ve got very weird and optimistic assumptions about how to get there. So you're right, if you don't have a plan, we won't get there. But every reputable study I've seen shows that if a government does the right things and puts in place good laws, provides the incentives for the investments that will add more jobs to the economy and places like Tasmania will be at the epicentre of that growth.
O'LOUGHLIN: Tasmania doesn't get a lot of credit for most of the things, which is a shame. We get left out of most conversations. But I mean, I couldn't believe when I saw the speech at the summit, Prime Minister Morrison compared the challenge of climate change to the development of COVID-19 vaccines, be that as it may. And his quote is "it'll be our scientists, technologists, our engineers, our entrepreneurs, our industrialists and their financiers that will actually chart the path to net zero." And my question is, it won't be politicians?
CONROY: Well, it was a disaster, to be quite frank. He was in a room with most of the leaders of the world. And he basically said to them, ‘you're not going to count for this issue, you can't do anything to affect this’, which is incredibly offensive and more importantly, flat out wrong. The only way we can combat climate change and keep global warming in check is by countries acting in concert, put in place domestic laws, and then delivering policies to drive that change. And the comparison to COVID is there, but not the way Mr. Morrison intends. Most pharmaceutical companies developed those vaccines because they had advance orders from most governments around the world except for Australia. They knew that there was going to be a market for their vaccines and they responded to the signal sent by governments around the world and that's exactly how we should be doing climate change. Governments should be passing rules, setting targets, and putting in place policies that will drive the scientists and businesses to come up with the solutions. But you can't have businesses without politicians leading and Mr. Morrison's speech yesterday was just a surrender document. It was the same "I've got nothing to add to this field and we shouldn't even bother trying".
O'LOUGHLIN: I must say the Morrison Government has set a goal of producing solar electricity at a third of today's costs under this updated technology plan that Energy Minister Angus Taylor released as the second of the Government's Lower Emissions Technology Statements at the COP 26 Summit. How was that received?
CONROY: Everyone in in the climate conference agreed that technology will be a key part of the solution but we've got to drive it. The announcement by Minister Taylor had no details about how they were going to drive that price reduction. The reason why we've got more solar panels on roofs than anywhere else in the world, the reason that solar power is so cheap in our country, is because the last Labor Government introduced the renewable energy targets that mandated 20% of all power coming from renewable energy. That drove the market. You can't just say we want to get technology prices down unless you encourage those technologies through mandating percentages or other policies and that's what's missing with the Government's policy. As I said before, Tasmania is in a great position to take advantage of this. Your electricity sector's basically carbon neutral already. You've got a great position to produce clean aluminium, to be a global leader in hydrogen production, you just need a federal government that's going to back you in. You've got a state government that's trying to do its best. They're not from my side of politics, but they understand the opportunities of these new industries and understand the potential of new jobs. They just need a federal government that will support Tasmania to embrace this clean energy future.
O'LOUGHLIN: I do agree with you the state government is doing a great job Pat, but it must be embarrassing to be sitting there and looking at promises. You've got, I was reading, the net zero by 2050 club they're calling it. New Zealand's upped its 2030 cuts target from 30 to 50% by 2030. South Korea announced a new 40% goal. Saudi Arabia and Russia both said they would get to net zero by 2060. I mean, these are the big polluters and then India comes along and says, 'Oh, look, we're not going to get a very first net zero goal till 2070'.
CONROY: The important thing is, they are listing their ambitions. They are listing their ambitions. Australia is the biggest polluter per head in the developed world and we're one of the very few countries that didn't lift our 2030 target, which is the key thing. That's what the UN, that's what Boris Johnson, as the host, said we needed to do. The United States lifted their target to 50% by 2030. The UK, you know, similar number. So that was what global leaders were asking Prime Minister Morrison to do and he squibbed it. And it's not just about who can get their back slapped by fellow international leaders, this is about economic opportunities for Australia. We're missing out on those because of these failures and we're potentially facing carbon border tariffs which will penalise Australian exporters, Australian farmers, Australian miners, Australian manufacturers, because the rest of the world will say, 'you're not taking enough action, you're free riding off the rest of the world so we're going to slap tariffs on your goods'. And that's being discussed right now in this conference. The European Union has just done a deal with the United States around carbon border tariffs on steel, something that Australia's steel produces. This conference will directly impact on the economic future of our country for good and worse so we need more leadership on it.
O'LOUGHLIN: And I think people probably need to realise it's not just, okay, we're polluters by just over one per cent, I don't think that's the issue. What people need to realise is the amount that we will suffer in regard to agriculture, etcetera, and in regard to sales. I don't think it has been explained fully and properly to the Australian public. It's not just about 'okay, we are not a big polluter, we're just a tiny over one per cent'. But it really is a lot more than that and it hasn't been explained well by this government.
CONROY: No, that's right. And we are at the forefront of the impacts. The horrible bushfires we had last year and the very bad ones that occurred in Tasmania slightly earlier than that. Those things will get worse with climate change. The science is very clear that things like bushfires, floods, cyclones, they will get worse and they will occur more often because of climate change. We are already on the harshest continent that humans inhabit in the world and we will be directly under attack because of climate change. So, it's in our direct interest to reduce it to one and a half degrees of global warming, to grab the job opportunities that go with it and for us to have a government that would explain this and take the Australian people with it, rather than try to divide it and just make people scared of change. Because change is going to happen no matter whether you hide under the dirt or not. I represent a coal region. I represent a region that's proudly built on coal mining, and coal fired electricity and the workers in those industries know change is coming. They just want a government with a plan so they know where the new jobs are going to come from and where their communities will prosper. And that's what's lacking at the moment sadly.
O'LOUGHLIN: It's got to be disappointing. Why didn't we sign up to say we'll reduce methane emissions? Almost 90 countries have signed that commitment. Why didn't Australia?
CONROY: It's not just that announcement. There's been three big announcements on specific areas. There's the methane one you talked about. President Biden announced an initiative to end deforestation by 2030. Australia went missing on that. Australia went missing on a similar initiative around clean energy. So, we just seem to be completely missing in action in all these policy areas, and I just don't understand why we're absent from the field. Australia used to be proud that we batted above our weight, that we were a middle power that had a response, whether it was under Prime Minister Chifley or Prime Minister Menzies. Even Prime Minister Fraser, on key issues, said we're a middle country, we've got good values and we're going to help, to be part of the vanguard of the world. We're seen as a laggard now and we're seen as giving cover for other countries not to take action. They say, 'why should we do a thing if rich countries like Australia aren't going to take action' So, that's a huge issue for us. And the slogan Mr Morrison came up, the Scotty from Marketing of a uniquely Australian way to cut emissions, it's met with derision over here because people think that a uniquely Australian way is just cheating and not doing anything.
O'LOUGHLIN: I think there would be a lot of people using the Australian way phrase and certainly in different connotations. We touched on it earlier, the Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor, he unveiled that new low emissions technology statement, it's only just hours ago really, which plans for Australia to deliver half of the emission cuts needed to hit net zero by 2050. I mean, overall, what are your thoughts on that? I mean, what will that say to those that are there?
CONROY: Well, at the moment it's just a piece of paper.
O'LOUGHLIN: Yes.
CONROY: At the moment they haven't announced a single new policy to advance to net zero emissions. Their documents, when they launched them last week, said this is based on purely existing policies. And to give you an idea of how they're free riding Australia's emissions have fallen by 20 per cent since 2005. 14 per cent occurred under the last Labor Government. Then five of the six remaining percentage points occurred because of Labor's Renewable Energy Target and state policies that the federal government has tried to repeal. The only per cent of emission reductions this government is responsible for is the COVID recession. So they've got no base to build on and they're just saying, 'look, we've got some technology over here that hopefully will deliver more cuts and we'll also buy carbon offsets from around the world’ which is something that Prime Minister Abbott when he was Prime Minister fiercely opposed, and said it was a waste of money. They have got no credibility and instead of trying to legislate stuff they're making a virtue out of a refusal to go to Parliament to pass any laws in this area, which, frankly, is the first job of politicians. I'm a legislator, it's my job to make laws that help drive this country. And they're saying we don't want laws that will actually force Australia to take action. So they have very little credibility and I'm sorry for rabbiting on but I'm really passionate about this area. Not because I'm some mad greenie, I just want good paying secure jobs for my kids and everyone else's kids and places like the Hunter and Northern Tasmania have been dudded by governments in the past. But we've got a real opportunity if we get a plan together and then back it up with concrete policies that drive it. I've been to Launnie quite often pre COVID and I want Launnie to be prospering. I want Bell Bay to be having a future and, sadly, it's been hurt by this government.
O'LOUGHLIN: Yeah, look, we all do. And that's part and parcel but I think it's the spin. And don't forget that you've got an election coming up. I don't think he'll be trying to pull the election anytime early, I think he will try and run to time. But I mean, it's way more than a serious issue especially when you've got US President Joe Biden, the US are going to aim for what is it? A 50-52 per cent cut by 2030?
CONROY: That's right.
O'LOUGHLIN: Canada and Britain updated their targets, but they haven't really stated, they also haven't really said how they will be doing that. Although I mean, you've got Japan and South Korea, they've actually signaled that they'll use less coal fired power, so they've at least signaled something. The others haven't said how they'll do it, they just put it down on paper. So it's not just Australia.
CONROY: The United States has got a comprehensive plan that Mr Biden's trying to get through Congress at the moment. And I suspect he won't get everything he wants through Congress, because it's a pretty conflict-ridden institution. But then he will use other powers to deliver those cuts. So, for example, President Obama couldn't get his laws through the US Congress so he made a regulation that set emission standards for these power stations and the Environment Protection Authority implemented it and he bypassed Congress. The UK Government, the Conservative Government, they're not my side of politics, they've released a very detailed plan about how to get better and they've got a lot of credibility. And you're right about Japan and South Korea. They've set goals around hydrogen cars and, for example, Korea has said they won't accept any more trucks using petrol or diesel from 2035 onwards. That's just one example of all their policies and they're desperate for Australian green hydrogen. They want our hydrogen. They just need us to produce it to fuel their vehicles and fuel their power industry.
O'LOUGHLIN: That's where we hope Bell Bay here will be a green hydrogen hub. Just to finish up, there's been concerns - and it happens every time you have one of these conferences - there have been, what, 400 private jets have been used to transport heads of state billionaires etc? And everyone's saying that's a bit counterproductive. They probably should have realised that. Even Biden with his what is it? 20 or 30 cars procession, they maybe could have done a little bit better than that. I'm not saying get an Uber or catch a train, but you know what I mean?
CONROY: Yeah, it's a bad look, I completely agree it's a bad look. But what I'll say is, if this conference can deliver, and it's a big if for this moment, the emissions reductions are worth it. Paris showed that getting the global leaders together is worth all those private jets because only they can hammer out a deal that will reduce our emissions and avoid catastrophic climate change, greenhouse gas warming. It's a bad look, and the optics are appalling, but I'd rather have 100 world leaders in the room trying to do something good for the world, than them using an excuse of 'I don't want to take private jet and therefore the security issues'. You're talking to someone who took a commercial flight over here and is catching the train every day to the conference so I'm not benefitting from this largesse, but it is important to get Biden and all those people in a room because that's the only way we're going to solve this problem.
O'LOUGHLIN: Look good call Pat. Appreciate your time and I know it's late. Pat Conroy's the Federal Shadow Minister Assisting for Climate Change in Glasgow. I thank you Pat and I look forward to maybe having a chat soon. Go and have some haggis.
CONROY: I will. I will have some black pudding and maybe talk about how the conference went.
O'LOUGHLIN: Thank you very much good to talk to you.