Hello and welcome to 100 Climate Conversations at the Powerhouse museum. These conversations are happening every Friday at the museum. We’re broadcasting today in the hall of the Powerhouse museum. Before it was home to the museum, it was the Ultimo Power Station. Built in 1899, it supplied coal powered electricity to Sydney’s tram system right up until the 1960s. If you look around the hall, its unique industrial features are still here, including the imposing chimneys you entered between.

I’d like to acknowledge that we’re meeting on the traditional lands of the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation and pay my respects to their Elders past, present and future. My name is Marian Wilkinson and as a journalist, I’ve written and broadcast many stories about climate change. My latest book, The Carbon Club, describes the political battles over our climate policy that helped end the careers of three prime ministers. So I know all too well that the climate and energy job in government is a very fraught one for any politician. That’s why I’m excited to bring you a conversation today on climate change with Matt Kean, the New South Wales Energy Minister and Treasurer.

Back in December 2019, when the summer blackfire bushfires were raging, Matt publicly linked the extreme conditions that helped create the intense fires to climate change. For a Liberal Party Energy Minister, this was extraordinary. At the time his own party in Canberra was tearing itself apart over climate and energy policy. Matt confessed when he took the energy portfolio, he was excited but full of trepidation. He promised from the start he would change the state energy’s mix and as he put it, ‘What is exciting is not what we’ve done, but what we’re going to do.’ Since then, Matt Kean has continued to make headlines, in October, he also became the state’s Treasurer on top of his energy job. He’s been described as precocious, fearless and an evangelist in his party on climate change. So Matt Kean, how did you get this label of being an evangelist on climate change?

Well, I’m not quite sure how I got it, but I’m very happy to have it. I hope my supporters see that I have an evangelical zeal for not only protecting our environment, but also grabbing the biggest economic opportunity that our nation’s ever seen. I mean, the policies that we need to put in place to reduce our emissions to net zero are not only the right thing to do for our planet, they’re also the right thing to do for our economy. There’s no place on the planet better placed to take advantage of this emerging global mega-trend, and that is the path to a low carbon economy. We’ve got an abundance of wind, we’ve got an abundance of solar, we’ve got some of the best pumped hydro resources anywhere in the world, and with that we can produce some of the cheapest, most reliable and cleanest energy on the planet and also make the materials with those inputs that the rest of the world is going to need if they’re going to continue to power their economies as well.

Well, if you are an evangelist on climate change, you were a relatively late convert before you became Environment and Energy Minister, you didn’t say very much publicly about climate change, but what made you personally change your thinking about it and who was most influential with you?

I think a couple of things, so I became the Minister for Energy and Environment and in that period of becoming a new minister, you read all the briefs, you get access to the best science. And once I got across the brief, understood the issues and saw the enormous opportunities, I just had to make sure that we’re putting in place the policies that our kids, and their kids, and their kids, would benefit from, and that’s what we’ve tried to do. So there was no one thing in particular, there was a series of things. But I think also I had an opportunity to go to Europe very early on in my term as the Environment Minister and I saw firsthand the revolution that was occurring and the penny dropped for me about how far behind we were as a nation and the risk to our prosperity if we didn’t act soon when it came to – we would lose the opportunity to create new jobs, see capital coming into our country and see our living standards grow if we ignored where the rest of the world was moving.

Well, what was very interesting in May, just after you got the job, was when you said, ‘We had to act quickly.’ Why did you decide to act so quickly, almost just as soon as you got your feet under the desk, did you feel you wouldn’t have that much time?

I certainly did. I think in public life you’re only on the stage for a short time and I don’t want to be one of those people that waste the opportunity. I want to make a difference, I want to make my state better and I want to make my country better. And again, I didn’t want to die wondering. We’ve got an enormous opportunity to do the right thing for our environment, reducing our emissions. Australia faces some of the most severe threats of the world not taking action on climate change. That’s a really compelling reason to take action. But also, we’ve got an opportunity to create new industries, to create new jobs and to see prosperity coming into our country in a way that no generation before us has seen. As I said, half the world’s wealth today is being generated in jurisdictions that have committed to net zero emissions. So those international markets that have underwritten our prosperity as a nation, for generations, they’re changing the kinds of products that they’re going to want from countries like Australia and we’re really well placed to provide them. And in doing so, grow the overall size of our economy, lift living standards in this country and set us up for an even more prosperous future, so why wouldn’t we act?

Well, in September 2019, I think it was, you announced for the first time that New South Wales would go for net zero emissions by 2050. Back then, you didn’t have the support of your Canberra colleagues. How did you convince your then Premier, Gladys Berejiklian, that we could do this and you could do it in the face of possible federal resistance?

Well, Marian, the first thing I’d say, actually, I’d love to claim credit for adopting the net zero policy here in New South Wales, but it wasn’t actually me. In fact, the New South Wales Government had committed to net zero by 2050, in 2016, it was actually under Minister Speakman, who was the Environment Minister at the time. At that stage, New South Wales was one of the first jurisdictions anywhere in the world to commit to net zero. What I did was put in place the policies that would help us get there. So, for example, the electricity infrastructure roadmap, which would transition our electricity system from older technology to newer technology. So I think my achievement was more convincing the Premier, that here’s the policies that we need to hit the government’s objective of net zero by 2050 and being able to shepherd that through the Coalition Party Room and then the parliament itself, building a coalition of conservatives, progressives, independents to legislate the biggest energy reforms in our state’s history.

And they certainly did make history when you announced that. There was a lot of blowback, and at some stage you actually said not only was this the right policy, but you thought some of your federal colleagues also wanted Canberra to go for this policy at the time. The Prime Minister of the day, Scott Morrison, still the Prime Minister, reacted by saying, ‘Matt Kean doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He doesn’t know what’s going on in federal cabinet, and most of the federal cabinet wouldn’t even know who Matt Kean was.’ Why had you upset the Prime Minister so much that he hit back like that?

I’m not entirely sure why I upset the Prime Minister saying those things. However, I’m very grateful for the Prime Minister because no one’s done more to raise my profile than Scott Morrison. But what I will say is that there were then, and there are now, a number of people in the Coalition Party Room in Canberra that want to see decisive and responsible action when it comes to climate change. They’ve moved some way, but there’s a lot further that they have to go and I’m certainly going to continue to be a strong voice on the centre-right side of politics, encouraging us as a nation to take further action when it comes to tackling climate change. Again, because it’s not just in our environmental interests to do so, but it’s in the nation’s economic interest to do so.

Well, obviously, one big event that happened around this time was the Black Summer bushfires, and I’m wondering how much you think those bushfires sped up the thinking on climate change, in Australia but in your party, and also the speed with which we had to make the transition?

I think the bushfires were transformative when it came to the climate change agenda, largely because it really did shift community sentiment about climate change dramatically. I think for the first time, the community saw a very tangible example of what the scientists have been telling us would happen for decades, and that is that we would be seeing more frequent and more extreme weather events that would impact communities, families, the entire country. And we lost over a billion native animals, we saw people taking shelter on beaches to escape the fires, we saw the nation’s most iconic city shrouded in smog for weeks. You couldn’t not see that and understand that climate change was having a real and tangible impact on our country.

There was another momentous event for you that happened at that time, your child was born, I think your first child?

That’s right. Yes.

Tell us about that, and what was that like, for it to happen at such a momentous time for the country and also for the very portfolio you were in?

Well, I think it really did have an impact on my thinking as a public figure. Again, he was born in the January of the Black Summer bushfires and I remember leaving the maternity ward only to see my community up in Hornsby, shrouded in smoke. And it wasn’t normal, I mean, that’s not the childhood I had, and I didn’t want him and all the other kids of his generation, let alone their kids, knowing in Australia, where every summer you’d struggle to breathe because of the impact of these horrendous bushfires or every wet season, you’d see these horrendous floods and huge communities displaced. That’s not the type of country I want to leave behind to my kids, nor the type of planet I want to leave behind to the next generation. I think that we have a responsibility, today’s generation, has a responsibility to hand our planet to our kids better than we found it. And there is no question that unless we take action on climate change, we won’t meet that contract to the next generation.

I want to sort of shift to the actual energy policy and I don’t want to get too nerdy, so I’m going to rely on you to keep this conversation in English. But you do have an energy plan for New South Wales and it’s based on something called Renewable Energy Zones. I wonder if you could just tell us in a simple way, why Renewable Energy Zones, what are they and will they actually produce the power we need?

Renewable Energy Zones are effectively modern-day power stations. Our plan in New South Wales is to shift our energy system from older technology like thermal coal, to newer technology like wind, solar, pumped hydro, batteries and the Renewable Energy Zones will give effect to that. What we will do is create areas where our best renewable resources are located, like in the New England, like on the Hunter Central Coast, like out in the Dubbo region, where we will use those renewable resources, turn them into electricity and bring down electricity into the market. So the zone itself coordinates the build of generation, with transmission, that will be delivered in time to replace our existing coal-fired stations, which are coming to the end of their technical lives. So I hope that’s not too nerdy an explanation for you.

So basically, you’re going to link up big solar resources and wind resources with transmission lines.

Yeah, we’re going to bring wind, solar and firm it up with things like pumped hydro and batteries, so there’s the creation of electrons, and we’re going to get those electrons to households and businesses by building big transmission lines. So it’s about coordinating new technologies to make sure that we keep the lights on and we bring power prices down in a way that ensures that it’s a seamless transition from older technology to these newer technologies. Think of it like an orchestra, you’ve got different ways of generating the electricity, but combined they work exactly the same way as the older technology.

Now we know from the latest IPCC report, the major scientific report supported by the United Nations, that all of us around the planet, but here in Australia too, we only have a small window of opportunity to do this, to get it right and to do it quickly. So one of the things about your plan is it is trying to speed up this transition. When you first unveiled it, you got a lot of pushback from your federal colleagues. Did you ever fear you would get sacked as Energy Minister during that period?

No, I didn’t. I think the beauty of our energy policy is that we look to find common ground. Firstly, within the New South Wales Liberal Party amongst conservatives and progressives and then we looked to bring the National Party on board. So I looked to understand what their concerns were about the transition to renewable energy for example and sought to design a policy that would overcome those concerns. Then I reached out to the Labor Party, to the Greens, to the Independents and built a policy based on that common ground. And I think largely our political class in New South Wales, they are committed to ensuring that we solve this challenge in a way that benefits our economy and that was what the policy did. Certainly the Premier at the time, Gladys Berejiklian, who is someone that I admire greatly, she was hugely supportive and she always had my back, notwithstanding attacks that were coming from other quarters of the political environment. So no, I wasn’t concerned and if I was taken out, then I wouldn’t have regretted anything because I was standing up for what was right and what I believed in.

And strangely, I think in what was one of those deal of the century moments, you did manage to get the Federal Energy Minister, Angus Taylor, to stump up quite a bit of money for your plan. This surprised a lot of people. But how did those negotiations go?

Well, they were quite complex, and I should say we haven’t seen a lot of the money that was meant to be coming into New South Wales yet, notwithstanding that, obviously politics is about the art of the compromise and notwithstanding that I have some different views around energy policy than my federal counterpart, I look to find those opportunities to compromise and work together and I think we landed something pretty impressive. We managed to extract billions of dollars of commitment out of the Commonwealth to help us realise our ambition to transition our grid to renewable energy. That work is well underway and we look forward to the Commonwealth coming to the party and helping to fund those things.

Well, let’s look at how fast people are saying we have to go because I think this is where the rubber hits the road in your energy policy. If Australia is going to play its part to get to net zero by 2050, the modelling, according to the Australian Energy Market Regulator, says that we need to get the energy system to about 80 per cent renewables by 2030. That’s just eight years’ time. That’s on one of the models. Do you think that’s too fast? Can we do that?

We can absolutely do that. I mean this AEMO, the engineers who run the system, they’re best placed to make recommendations on energy policy, not politicians. What we’ve done in New South Wales is listen to that advice from AEMO, work with the best engineers and scientists to design a policy that will give effect to their vision. Here in New South Wales, we know that four of our five coal fire power stations will come to the end of their technical lives over the next 15 years, I think it will be much faster than that. We’ve got a plan to be able to deliver more than 80 per cent of our electricity load in New South Wales from renewable sources. In fact, it’s a legislated plan which will see 12 gigawatts of renewables built in New South Wales by 2030 and two gigawatts of long duration storage built in that timeframe as well, which is effectively enough capacity to replace our existing coal fire power stations.

That will be an extraordinary transition if we can see it. I wonder if you could maybe explain for people because there’s a lot of misunderstanding about this out in the community, what we always hear, a lot from politicians and certainly from a lot of people in the fossil fuel industry is, ‘Renewables fail when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow, so you need firming power and for the moment that has to be coal and gas.’ Is that right?

Well, it could be coal and gas, but it’s a pretty expensive way of firming up renewables. AEMO, the Australian Energy Market Operator, the engineers that run the system, they say that the cheapest way to deliver electricity today is not coal, it’s not gas, it’s certainly not nuclear, it’s wind, solar backed up by pumped hydro and batteries. I think we should make decisions based on engineering and economics, I know that’s controversial in some quarters.

That’s what we’ve done here in New South Wales, and to those people saying that we should be moving towards more coal or moving towards gas, that’ll work, of course, but it will be a very expensive way of providing electricity to households. And could I put this in context, today AEMO say that wind, solar, pumped hydro can deliver electricity prices between $45 and $50 wholesale into the New South Wales electricity system, today, we’re paying about $75 for coal-fired electricity. If you’re using gas, you’re looking at about $120 per megawatt hour for electricity and then those people talking about nuclear, it’s out at about $180 per megawatt hour. So if you care about cheap energy and reliable energy, then you’re looking at wind, solar and pumped hydro.

Well, as you mentioned before, Matt, there are going to be quite a number of power stations, coal-fired power stations closed down in this state, especially in places like the Hunter Valley. The companies themselves, the big companies like Origin and AGL, they’re struggling with their timetables and with the profitability or lack of profitability of these plants. How soon do you think we could actually see these plants close? You mentioned a timeframe of 15 years, you said it’s possibly going to be earlier than that. How soon do you think we will see almost none of these big coal-fired plants surviving in New South Wales?

Well, the first point I’d make is that the owners of these power stations are not closing them because they’re woke greenies. They’re closing them because they’re economically rational. These power stations are old technology and they’re losing millions and millions and millions of dollars for those shareholders. And they’re very old technology, so they can’t compete with newer technologies that is far cheaper and just as reliable to provide electricity from. So I think it will be sooner rather than later that these coal stations start falling out of the system, we’ve already seen Eraring has brought forward their closure by seven years. That will obviously have an impact on the grid if it’s not properly planned for. We’ve got a plan in place to replace those older power stations with newer forms of electricity generation and I’m confident that we’ll be able to build enough replacement capacity to ensure the public doesn’t notice the early closure of these coal-fired power stations.

The other big question that always comes up is what is going to happen to the workers in these areas, especially in places like the Hunter Valley. If you have big power stations close, that means a lot of job losses and also job losses in the coal mines that fed these power stations. What is happening in New South Wales for those workers?

Well, the best way to replace existing jobs is to create new jobs. And what we as a government need to be doing is focussing on building new industries and opportunities in those areas that are currently under threat from climate risk or carbon risk to ensure that as older industries come to the end of their life, newer industries are located in those areas that provide those high-paying jobs for those workers.

I mean, a lot of our workers in the coal industry are highly skilled labour. Those skills are very transferable to other industrial activities and we need to make sure that we’re making the investments in the training, the education of those workers and also in those industry opportunities to create those jobs close to where the existing ones are. We’ve got a plan in place to do that here in New South Wales, but there’s a lot more that we need to do. Those communities in the Hunter, in the Illawarra, in Gippsland down in Victoria, et cetera, their jobs are under threat, not because of the decisions of domestic policy makers, their jobs are under threat because of decisions being made in boardrooms internationally and by foreign governments.

So we need to prepare for that reality, not ignore that it’s happening. That’s what we’re trying to do here in New South Wales. And as I said, the future for those coal workers is bright, provided we move now, act now and invest in creating new opportunities, new industries to take advantage of these shifts in global markets.

I wanted to ask you about one big project, one big renewable energy project that is very controversial and that’s Snowy 2.0. It’s an amazing feat of engineering design and it’s about a massive pumped hydro project. But its critics say it’s very environmentally destructive of the Snowy Mountains National Park and also it’s potentially a white elephant whose costs are blowing out. Like to know what you think of Snowy 2.0 and whether you think the price tag, environmentally and economically, is worth it?

Well, the biggest risk to our environment is us not taking action on climate change and the biggest contributor to carbon emissions in New South Wales, indeed in Australia, is our electricity system. So the faster we can decarbonise our electricity system, the more likely we are to be able to protect our environment for generations.

So Snowy 2.0 is absolutely critical in achieving that objective. It provides 2000 megawatts, so the equivalent of the Eraring coal fire power station up in the Hunter, of dispatchable, reliable energy. So when the sun’s not shining and the wind’s not blowing, that’s when Snowy Hydro comes in and ensures that we keep the lights on across the electricity system. So it’s absolutely critical, and in fact, it’s probably the most important project if we are to reduce our carbon emissions in the electricity network.

So I think, yes, it will have an impact on the National Park and some of the biodiversity in that National Park. But I think the benefits of Snowy 2.0 and the impact it will have on reducing our carbon emissions, far outweigh the damage that will be done because we’re building some of those transmission lines to get that electricity into the market. So I think it’s a – you consider the costs and you look at the advantages of doing it and let me tell you, the benefits of Snowy 2.0 for our environment far, far and away exceed the cost that they will have.

I want to look at a local initiative in your area because sometimes it is important to go back to community when we’re talking about these things. Your local Hornsby Council, I gather, is part of an initiative by a group of local governments to have their electricity needs all renewable and you’re hoping to do this with the help of three big solar farms. Can you tell us about that project and how it works for the local councils?

Well, local councils like Hornsby Council, see that they too can make a contribution to reducing carbon emissions for our nation, so they’re looking to transition their electricity providers from dirtier fuels to cleaner fuels, and that’s exciting. What that means is that the producers of renewable energy can have confidence to invest in that technology because they know they’ve got someone, a willing buyer, to be able to pay for that investment over the long period of time.

So I’m really pleased that Council of Hornsby – City of Sydney, led by Clover Moore, they’re similarly leading the charge when it comes to ensuring that they’re able to access cheaper, cleaner, reliable energy for their ratepayers, and that’s something that we want to encourage. I think the market has spoken, consumers actually want to do their bit for our planet and it also makes sense for their hip pockets. I mean, Hornsby Council’s actually saving money because they’re now sourcing their electricity from renewables. So that’s a great thing for the environment and it’s a great thing for Hornsby ratepayers and I’d encourage more councils to follow the lead of people like Philip Ruddock and Clover Moore, who are leading the way in this space.

Well, on this issue of electricity at a local level, I know a lot of people like me, probably a lot of mums and dads of the kids in the audience here have solar panels on their roofs. But what people are talking about now is, ‘I think I want that home battery. I want to back up what I’ve got at home. I might want to use it for my electric vehicle and maybe I’ll go off the grid.’ But are we thinking the wrong way about this in the cities? Is there a difference between the city and the country when we talk about, ‘I want my home battery and I want to be self-sufficient’?

Well, I think distributed energy, so individuals producing the energy that they are going to use, is a great thing and people are doing their bit and making their contribution to reducing the impact of carbon in our electricity system. But what I can say to New South Wales households is we’ve got a plan to ensure that all the electricity, whether it’s generated on people’s homes or it’s generated through our electricity system, is going to be clean and renewable. So batteries will come down the cost curve and that will make it, the price point, more affordable for families and make the economics of having a home battery to capture that solar for times of the day when it’s needed. But people don’t need to rush out and do that because we are actually transitioning our entire electricity system to have renewables and clean sources of energy, and that’s an exciting thing and it will also lower household bills again.

Now, the other big technology that’s talked about is hydrogen and there’s a big difference between green hydrogen and blue hydrogen, as we know, one’s clean, one’s made from fossil fuels. But now there’s some talk that hydrogen is being really overhyped and maybe it’s not as important as going with a renewable energy system backed up by batteries that can do a lot of the heavy lifting in things like transport and in things like industry. What’s your view? Is hydrogen being overhyped, do you think?

No, I don’t think so. I think hydrogen is one of the most exciting emerging technologies that we have. We know that probably the cheapest way to produce electrons is through renewables and for those processes that can be electrified, that makes the most economic sense. But what we don’t know how to do is how to replace molecules, so things like gas, that’s where hydrogen comes in.

So there are a number of processes in our economy that require molecules to be able to operate, so hydrogen is the only way we can do that in a net zero world. So, there are huge opportunities emerging from that, I’ve been speaking to the South Korean Government, the Japanese Government, and they’ve made it very clear to me that hydrogen is going to be the key to decarbonising their economies. Now they will struggle to produce hydrogen at scale, largely because they don’t have the renewable resources and they don’t have the land to be able to host that renewable energy infrastructure at scale.

That’s different to Australia, we’ve got very cheap, unusable land, particularly in the western parts of our state or in central Australia. So you can host renewable energy infrastructure and produce electricity prices at very, very low cost, which means that then you can produce products like hydrogen in a more competitive way than anywhere else in the world. So it’s a huge emerging industry.

I think we can be the Saudi Arabia of solar in the hydrogen world, so we can produce an abundance of hydrogen, which the world is going to need to decarbonise. And that will be a huge industry if we get the opportunity, it’ll create thousands and thousands of jobs, they will be well-paying jobs and it will create an export industry that’s bigger than our LNG industry, bigger than our existing coal industry, which is sustainable for generations to come. We would be absolutely mad to ignore this opportunity because if we miss out, then let me tell you, there is a global arms race on to develop this technology and provide for the rest of the world. If we miss that capital investment, then you can kiss goodbye to those opportunities forever.

Well, that’s a watch this space one, I think. Very quickly, I must ask you about electric vehicles. You, I think, signed the COP26 pledge to boost electric vehicle sales to make 50 per cent of all new vehicles sold in the state electric by 2030. That’s just eight years away. The big complaints are at the moment, not enough charging stations, not enough certainty over charging, not enough certainty over whether the electricity we charge with will be renewable. Have we got a long way to go in this country and in this state before electric vehicle take up will become a reality on a big scale?

We do have a long way to go, but I think that it will move pretty quickly. All the big car manufacturers are shifting away from combustion engine vehicles to electric. You think about Ford, Holden, General Motors, Toyota, they’re all moving to solely electric and that’s before you look at the European car manufacturers. So soon, you won’t be able to buy anything other than an electric vehicle, and the responsibility for government is to make sure that we can facilitate the entry of those – that new technology into our market at a price point that’s affordable for families across this state.

Now that’s what we have done in New South Wales, we’ve put in place policies that will start rolling out the infrastructure to support electric vehicles, we’ve put in place policies that will lower the price point for people to purchase an electric vehicle. So we think that we will be on track to hit that 50 per cent target for all new cars sold in this state being electric by 2030.

But let me say this, if you are serious about hitting net zero emissions, you need to be removing carbon out of the transport system by 2035. And the reason I say that is because the average life of a vehicle on the road is about 15 years, so you can’t be selling new vehicles that are combustion engine from 2035.

So the car manufacturers realise that, the New South Wales government realises that, that’s our target to be able to facilitate an orderly transition, to be able to accept that new technology into the marketplace by 2035, and it’s going to happen, whether people like it or not. If we don’t get these policies right, then New South Wales, indeed Australia, will just become the dumping ground for the vehicles the rest of the world doesn’t want. They’ll be more expensive vehicles, they’ll be high polluting vehicles. That’s not the future of this country, we should embrace the change, we should grab this new technology, it’s better for consumers and they’re great cars to drive Marian.

Well, you are indeed, I think, an evangelist for your clean energy policies here in New South Wales, but your critics say the state government here is still allowing coal and gas companies to massively expand their developments in this state, despite all the warnings that no new fossil fuel projects should be getting underway. Do you think that you risk increasing political conflict, especially with young people in this State, over this contradiction?

No, I don’t think so. I think that global markets are going to determine the shelf life of coal and right now those markets are still demanding coal. But what we do know is those markets are rapidly changing. So I think that capital has made up its mind, they’re moving towards renewables, they’re moving towards cleaner technologies, and we should be putting in place the policies that will allow us to grab those opportunities that are emerging.

If people want to bet on older technologies, then we shouldn’t stand in their way, but I think that there soon won’t be the markets for those products. So these people defending coal or gas, investing in those technologies, it’s kind of the equivalent of people owning a Blockbuster video store when we’re all in the Netflix world. I’m not going to tell people where they should and should not invest their money. I’m just saying the world is moving in a different direction, we should be embracing those opportunities, and if people want to take risks with their capital, good luck to them.

But it is a point of contention at the moment, and the New South Wales parliament, backed by both the government and the Labor Party, have just recently decided to crack down on climate change protesters. This will impact some of the young activists who are most passionate about this issue. What do you say to those kids who think I am going to go out and protest on top of a coal train or at a coal port because I’m worried about my future? What do you say to them?

I’d say to them, keep standing up and keep speaking out. We need young people, we need all people, to be standing up for a better planet and a more prosperous economy, and that’s what taking action on climate change means. But you can do that in a way that doesn’t disrupt the lives of other people going about their business. You can do that without blockading traffic and industry from operating because that has an impact on other people’s jobs, other people’s livelihoods.

So we want people speaking out, we want people engaged in peaceful, respectful protest, absolutely, we believe in free speech, that’s what – at the heart of a robust, thriving democracy. I’ve been so inspired by the young people that I know, that have been participating in climate protests and things like that. In fact, the Domain was filled of young, passionate students that were willing to stand up for our country and its interests. That’s great, we want to see more of that, you can stand up, you can protest, just don’t do it in a way that harms other people.

Maybe going to the big picture for a moment now, we had the latest IPCC report this week on how we – on the challenge basically of how we avoid dangerous climate change and the amount of work we have to do to get that done.

I think one of the most sobering messages of that report for many people who followed this issue is that we probably lost the opportunity to hit a target of 1.5 degrees, to manage, to be able to hold the temperature rise to 1.5. That’s pretty much gone, so we’re now looking at trying to hold the temperature rise below two degrees. But I’m wondering for you, because you’re quite a young minister, you’ll probably be in office for some years yet, what do you think it will mean for people in government when we do cross that 1.5 threshold? What does it mean that you will have to do to look at the costs of adapting to that climate change, we now know will be in the system?

Well, what I do know is that the cost of not taking action on climate change is far greater than the cost of taking action on climate change. And that’s why I think that we need to be investing heavily in the mitigation strategies to reduce our carbon emissions and to try and keep it below that 1.5 degrees, and that’s my focus as a minister in the New South Wales Government, I’m going to continue to argue that Australia does its bit to help the world keep global warming below 1.5 degrees. And if we can hit 50 per cent by 2030, which is our target here in this state, then we’re well on track to meet that objective.

We need the rest of the world to be just as ambitious as we are here in New South Wales, and I’m going to continue to campaign for that. But adaptation, there is a strong possibility that we won’t hit those climate targets, and we’re going to have to invest heavily in adaptation. Look at what’s happened in Lismore recently, one in 100 year flood events now becoming one in five year flood events, and in the recent case, one in three week flood events. That’s the reality of climate change and we need to be investing in the technologies and the solutions that will protect communities from dangerous climate change that is happening on the current trajectory we’re on.

Well, obviously you’ve mentioned the devastating floods we’ve seen in New South Wales, and they have left thousands of people homeless. You yourself experienced the chaos from the bushfires. We’ve had a Royal Commission into the fallout from this and how we should be responding. But we’ve learnt, I think, that the response to adapting to these extreme weather events, it’s often chaotic, it’s very, very difficult for governments. Do you think, in Australia, we’re still underestimating the money and the resources we’re going to need to adapt to these extreme weather events?

I think that’s certainly a fair claim, that we are underestimating how much it’s going to cost to take action on climate change. But I think that what we’re also underestimating is the cost of not taking action on climate change, and that’s the reality. And you know, we’ve seen that cost recently with the floods up in Lismore, we’ve seen that cost in recent years with the bushfires. The New South Wales Government alone spent 5.8 billion dollars in helping communities recover from the bushfires, and these floods will cost multiple times more than the bushfires.

If you want to talk about the cost of taking action on climate change, then let me tell you, it pales into insignificance compared to the cost of not taking action on climate change. We need to take strong, decisive and responsible action on climate change now, to make sure that the costs that we’re going to have to pay later if we don’t do it, are actually manageable.

Well, you’re also Treasurer now as well as Energy Minister. Would you possibly after this election, federal election, we’re about to head into, whoever’s in power, would you like to see a unique body set up state and federal with the, maybe the State Treasurer, Treasurers and the Federal Treasurers to look at these costs of adapting to climate change, so the states who really have to do the work on the ground don’t have to always go with the begging bowl to Canberra on these things?

Well, I think that one of the best things that came out of the pandemic was the way that the different states and territories represented by different political parties put aside their differences and worked in the national interest. And I think we should be taking the same approach when it comes to tackling climate change or mitigating or adapting to the risks that climate change is presenting.

So, absolutely, I want to work with anyone regardless of their political colour, regardless of the level of government, to not only do our bit to protect our planet, but to grab these enormous economic opportunities that are presenting themselves, I mean, we’d be mad to pass this up. So, Marian, to your point, yes, absolutely. We need to find common ground in our body politic and across our community if we’re going to meet the greatest challenge that we as a country have ever faced and that is climate change.

As a minister who is right in the thick of this, how much personal responsibility do you feel for what happens about taking on this planetary emergency? And I’m wondering sometimes how do you keep your optimism, do you not get overwhelmed when you read some of these reports about what’s coming down the line?

No, I don’t. I believe in the ingenuity of human beings. We’ve solved so many great challenges before and I’m confident we’ll be able to do the same with this one. I mean, every generation has risen to meet the challenges of their time, my grandparents’ generation, for example, went off to war to stand up against tyranny and fascism, and they did so. My parents’ generation, they fought for greater civil rights in our community, greater women’s rights, greater Indigenous rights, great challenges of their times.

There was a generation that stared down the discrimination of the HIV and AIDS epidemic and created a society where we were able to find the medicines and design the science to be able to address that. So generations before me have risen to the occasion and met the challenges they faced and I think that our generation is more than capable of rising to the occasion and the challenge that we face.

I think the greatest challenge is the threat of climate change, it’s going to have a huge impact on our way of life, on our environment, our economy, our prosperity, our wellbeing, and we’ve got some of the best scientists in the world right here in Australia. We’ve got the will in the community to be able to meet this challenge and I think we need our political class to step up as well, and I certainly want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Well, your son born during the Black Summer bushfires, when he gets to the age of some of these students in the audience here today, are you confident you’ll be able to give him your sense of optimism about his future in a warming world?

Yeah, I am. I’m excited about the future, I’m excited about what’s possible because of the ingenuity of human beings. I mean, we’ve just faced one of the great challenges that – the greatest challenge we’ve seen from a health perspective in over a century with the coronavirus pandemic and within a matter of months, human beings develop vaccines to keep us all safe and to enable us to come to an event like this in public and stay safe and well. And I have every confidence we’ll be able to do the same when it comes to tackling climate change and benefit from tackling climate change.

I mean, how exciting is it that there are now technologies that can deliver the power we need for our economies, but also will leave our atmosphere cleaner, the air we breathe better, have an impact on weather patterns and cycles for the better. And in doing so, create new jobs and create new industries and underwrite a new era of prosperity.

So I’m hugely optimistic about the future for my son and every other kid in the generations that will follow. But it requires us to stand up now and take action, we can’t ignore these problems, we can’t just wish them away or pray them away or whatever. We should be listening to the best science, making decisions based on the evidence, and I’m confident we’ll be able to tackle this challenge and leave our planet, leave our country to the next generation better than we found it.

Well, thank you, Matt Kean. I think he deserves a big round of applause.

Thank you. I think you do.

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