The Talbot Oration: Taking Climate to the World’s Highest Court

VOICE OVER

Good evening, everybody. We’d like to invite Uncle Allen Madden to the stage to deliver the Welcome to Country. (APPLAUSE)

UNCLE ALLEN MADDEN: Looking around, it makes me feel really good. I can see a lot of my mob here. Old grey-haired mob. (LAUGHTER) Born and bred in Redfern, the capital of Sydney. Aboriginal, Redfern, follow Manly! (LAUGHTER) Not true. Rabbitohs. Rabbitohs.

Married man. 10 children. 26 grandchildren, 17 great-great. (LAUGHTER) Yes, we did have TV! (LAUGHTER) Found out what caused it, and we stopped! (LAUGHTER)

Welcome to Country is always an honour and a pleasure. Just to give you a little bit of an insight of where you are and who we are. Welcome to Gadigal land. Welcome to Gadigal country. As with all Welcomes, firstly, I'd like to acknowledge our First Nations and Traditional Owners of the lands that you may have come from or work upon, and pay my respects to all our Aboriginal Elders, all Elders, past and present. I also pay my respects to all our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander brothers and sisters from whatever Aboriginal or island nation you may have come from. Welcome to Gadigal. And to all our non-Indigenous brothers and sisters here this evening, a very warm and sincere welcome to you, to Gadigal. No matter where you've come from, whether it be across the seas, across the state, or across town, once again, a very warm and sincere welcome to you, to Gadigal. And as I've mentioned many times before - was, is, and always will be Aboriginal land. Only three things surer than that: Coming, taxation, and going.

It's an honour and a pleasure to be here this evening to welcome one and all to Gadigal. Gadigal is one of 29 clans of the Eora Nation. The Eora Nation is bounded by nature's own - the Hawkesbury River to the north, Nepean to the west, and Georges River to the south. And in between those three mighty rivers is the Eora Nation. And in that nation, there are 29 clans. And the clan's land we're on today is Gadigal. On behalf of the Australian Museum and of the Gadigal mob, once again, a very warm and sincere welcome to you to Gadigal. There's an old Aboriginal saying out there, I think is very appropriate for you mob here this evening. They say, "Where there's a will, there's relatives." (LAUGHTER)

And as you travel across these traditional lands and waters, may the spirits of our ancestors guide, look over you, and keep you safe. So, once again, on behalf of the Australian Museum and of the Gadigal mob, welcome, welcome, welcome. Thank you. (APPLAUSE)

KIM MCKAY: Well, good evening, everyone, and a very special thankyou to Uncle Allen Madden, who is a regular visitor here at the Museum. It's great to have you at the Museum yet again. And I thank you for your ongoing commitment to this country. We've known each other for about a dozen years now, that I've almost been at the Museum, and you have been an incredible supporter. Thank you so much for everything you do every day. Thanks. (APPLAUSE)

I also want to acknowledge, of course, that we are meeting on Gadigal land, land that was never ceded, and pay my respects to Elders past and present. The Australian Museum is committed to caring for country, raising awareness of climate and other environmental changes, as well as prioritising First Nations truth-telling, cultural understanding, and knowledge-sharing. On the eve of World Environment Day, which is tomorrow, of course, we acknowledge the First Nations people were the first to establish scientific knowledge and understanding of the precious ecosystems we are privileged to be connected to in Australia, and we really appreciate them sharing that knowledge and understanding with us all.

So, hi, everyone from me. Welcome to the Fifth Annual Talbot Oration. I'm Kim

McKay and I'm very privileged to be the Director and CEO of this great institution. One that is about to turn 200 years in 2027, so starting to gear up for it now - I love a birthday party! So, we are grateful to all of you for your interest in this very special evening. Thank you for joining us on a wet night. It's quite cosy in here, though, tonight, isn't it? And we're gonna hear from the really wonderful Matt Kean, Chair of the Climate Commission, a former NSW Treasurer and Environment and Energy Minister, among many other roles he held in NSW politics and Parliament. And as he shares his bold vision for climate action with us all. I also want to acknowledge a few of the special guests tonight who have joined us. As well as Matt Kean, we have Dr Cathy Foley AO, the former Australian Chief Scientist, and among her many other commitments now, a Trustee of the Australian Museum. Welcome, Cathy. And Dr Chris Briggs, who is Research Director of UTS's Institute for Sustainable Futures. And you'll be hearing from Cathy and Chris, joining Matt on our panel discussion tonight.

I also want to welcome a dear friend, Lisa Davies, the CEO of Australian Associated Press, who I'll be introducing very soon, and importantly members of Frank Talbot's family. His sister, Helen and brother Jonathan Talbot, and other members of the family who have kindly joined us this evening to honour Frank.

Now, former Australian Museum's Trust president Robyn Williams AO is here along with David Armstrong, former Trust president, and a former director of the Australian Museum, Dr Des Griffin AM. There are a number of other Australian Museum's Trustees and Foundation Board members with us this evening, as well as our incredible donors and supporters, and I want to especially acknowledge Kate Hayward, the Chair of the Research Foundation, and also the former director of the Lizard Island Reef Research Foundation, who have now retired, but we celebrate them at the Australian Museum. Dr Anne Hoggett and Dr Lyle Vail, who have joined us tonight. Representing the NSW Government tonight we have the Honourable Ben Franklin MLC, President of the NSW Upper House. And he was our former Arts Minister, so we give him special front-row seating! And Trish Doyle MP, the Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change, Energy and the Environment - welcome, Trish.

We have the Chief Scientist of NSW with us tonight - Professor Hugh Durrant-Whyte, who's also on our Science Advisory Board. And the wonderful Monica Barone, the CEO of the City of Sydney - it's great to have you here in our ongoing support, Monica. And I do want to mention, and also a former president of the Australian Museum Foundation is here, whose work for us has been tireless over the decades. Thank you so much.

Importantly, we've got members of the Australian Museum's Climate Solutions Centre here tonight as well. We had a little meeting beforehand upstairs, led by Dr Jenny Newell, the Curator of Climate Change at the Museum. As well as colleagues from across the Australian Museum. It takes quite a lot of people to bring this group of people together, so thank you to everyone at the Australian Museum on the team who have put tonight together. And especially also my colleagues in the NSW Cultural Institutions who are here,

and I saw Annette Pittman, the Director of the Museum of History just down the road, is here tonight, and many others. So, thank you, all, for coming tonight as well.

So, the Talbot Oration was established to honour the late Professor Frank Talbot AM, a former Australian Museum Director, and celebrate his extraordinary commitment and achievements in marine research and environmental studies around the world, including as the Director of the California Academy and the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington, DC. And he's the only Australian who's ever been given that honour to lead the Smithsonian.

Frank very sadly passed away in October last year, and he attended here as an honoured guest in the four previous Talbot Orations, and we miss him dearly. I miss him. He wrote lots of letters to me about the things I was doing wrong, and he thought he would pull me up on it! It was great. I've kept them all. And I sometimes say in my office, when I don't know which way to turn, I say, "Give me an indication, Frank. What do you think I should be doing now?" His outstanding legacy to science and the environment lives on at the Australian Museum through this evening, the Talbot Oration, and we're so grateful to his family for joining us here tonight. It's just a wonderful tribute to an extraordinary Australian.

So, let's watch this video tribute to Frank Talbot. (VIDEO PLAYS)

FRANK TALBOT: The hugeness of the reef, the incredible variety of its life, have provided us with a program for years of continuing research.

Over my lifetime, what one felt was an open-ended world, there was masses of stuff to learn, has changed dramatically. Unless we realise that we are screwing up, we're going to have a very devastated planet to live on.

I'm Frank Talbot. I was born in South Africa and brought up in Cape Town. It was a lovely youth. My mother used to take me to the seaside. I became fascinated by the things that grew in the half-tide pools, the fish, particularly. I did reasonably well in school, got into the university and I did a master's degree there, and later a PhD. I plied for a job at the Australian Museum here. I got the job. After about six months, I thought, "Gee, I'm not gonna leave this country." We were so welcomed in Australia. I eventually became Director of the Australian Museum and we worked on a research project to start a research station on Lizard Island.

My name is Frank Talbot. I'm interested in the biological problems of coral reef. (MUSIC PLAYS) As a normal human being, I think there's no question we've got to reduce, reduce usage, be more cautious of our environment. Is one optimistic? I think, having lived a very lucky life, I'm probably a basic optimistic. But communication of science, getting across what science does, what it is, how it can help, that's vital. And the Museum plays an enormously good and important role in this - even perhaps more key than it was when I was young - in helping mankind.

(VIDEO ENDS) (APPLAUSE)

KIM MCKAY: So, the Australian Museum will continue to honour the life and work of Frank. Also, I should just mention his wife, Susannah, who passed away a few years before him, who was also a marine scientist. Something we all know is you can never do anything alone, and I know she played an extraordinary role with Frank in all the incredible adventures and the scientific work they did, but also at the different institutions where he worked around the world.

So, we will honour him, yes, as I said earlier, through this Oration, but also very much through the Lizard Island Research Station. The Australian Museum's Lizard Island Research Station, up at the top of the Great Barrier Reef, that was founded over 50 years ago by Frank and through the Climate Solutions Centre work, and also through the work of other marine scientists here at the Australian Museum Research Institute. So, he's gone from our lives day to day, but he will never be forgotten. As Dr Des Griffin, another former Australian Museum director of note knows, Frank advocated for action on climate change even on his last days on this Earth, when he penned a letter to the Prime Minister, just a few days before he died, urging all of his colleagues in the science world to sign it. You'll be pleased to know they did and it was sent to the Prime Minister. He never gave up.

It's a great lesson for us all. In the spirit of that, before we get under way with tonight's Oration, I wanted to share some important news about a significant partnership the Australian Museum has established with Australian Associated Press. Being a trusted source of truth, history, and scientific research is one of the most important elements of the Australian Museum. Now, we've long worked with AAP, a not-for-profit news organisation, as a trusted source of factual news and information. And I'm pleased to announce that the AM and AAP have now committed to a deeper relationship by partnering on a new initiative, which will help more visitors to the Australian Museum access free and factual environmental news stories and articles in real time.

On the digital screens throughout the Museum, like the ones at the back of the room there, I'm seeing the AAP logos up there now, visitors will be able to see a feed of verified AAP stories, which they are able to read in full via a simple QR code. We're also hosting the feed on the Australian Museum website, and we'll facilitate up to six months' free AAP membership for visitors to access more trusted news and information. And that's just completely a voluntary thing. You don't share your credit card details or anything like that. It is just basically free, and if you enjoy it after six months, you can sign up for longer. And this partnership is about making more information accessible to more people. Literally, millions of people, because our website alone has a million visitors, and here at the Museum on site, we have over 1.5 million visitors annually now.

AAP's well-researched and up-to-date information is more important than ever before, and we're proud of the benefits this partnership will bring. A huge thankyou to AAP for working with us to deliver trusted and factual information to our audiences. So, I'd now like to invite the CEO of AAP, Lisa Davies, to say a few words to you. Welcome, Lisa. (APPLAUSE)

LISA DAVIES: Thank you, Kim, and thank you, everyone. I'm one of the very lucky people, and there will be others in this room, who have received a call from Kim McKay saying, "I've got an idea!" That was about two years ago, and so I'm delighted that we finally see that idea come to life today. AAP actually is celebrating its 90th year operating this year. For 90 years, we have been mostly a wholesaler, delivering factual, impartial news to many hundreds of news outlets nationally, and also internationally through our partners.

We pride ourselves on impartial, factual journalism, the kind of public-interest journalism that this country and the world desperately needs, both now and long into the future. We don't take a side, we report the facts, and we deliver news to people so that they make up their own minds. I'm thrilled with this partnership and I'm very pleased that it's with Kim, my very good friend, and we have, as Kim mentioned, please go and scan the QR code and sign up, or through the website, and we hope you enjoy the work of our hardworking journalists. So, thank you so much. (APPLAUSE)

KIM MCKAY: A lot of people dread the day they get a call from me! (LAUGHTER) In fact, I go down Macquarie Street - Ben, you know this - to see people, and I see them cross to the other side of the road! (LAUGHTER) Never mind.

Look, Lisa, you've made such an impact on the Australian media landscape, not just with what you've done at AAP to secure its future, but also when you were editor of The Sydney Morning Herald, and we all wish you the very best for the future and look forward to continuing to work with you, naturally, in your next endeavours but also with all of your team. Thank you so much. This is gonna be a game-changer in terms of ensuring people get factual, trusted, good environmental, climate, scientific information.

So, as a cornerstone event of our Climate Solutions Centre, the Talbot Oration brings together you, the public, to hear from a range of voices on important environmental issues.

Tonight, the Honourable Matt Kean, Chair of the Climate Change Authority, and an adjunct professor at the UTS Institute for Sustainable Futures and the UTS Business School, will

deliver the Oration. That's wonderful. UTS is also my alma mater and I'm on the board today, so it's a wonderful university that we also partner with here. Matt's talk tonight is

titled: Climate Action in the National Interest. He has said it is incumbent upon our generation to take decisive and responsible action on climate change. It is the biggest challenge that will face our society and our economy in our lifetimes.

Tonight, he will tell us what this decisive and responsible action should look like, and what hopefully it could achieve for Australia. Matt is a long-time supporter and visitor to the Australian Museum, and now that he's just had his second child - thank you, Matt - it's gonna boost our audience even further. (LAUGHTER) I'm thrilled to welcome you to the Australian Museum tonight, Matt, to deliver the Fifth Annual Talbot Oration. (APPLAUSE)

MATT KEAN: Well, thank you so much, Kim. And good evening, ladies and gentlemen. May I join Uncle Allen in acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the land that we're gathered on tonight, the Gadigal people. I pay my respects to their leaders, past and

present, and note the vital role this Museum is playing to remind us that care for country matters now more than ever.

Can I join Kim in acknowledging the distinguished guests who are here tonight, particularly my very dear friend and mentor, the President of the Legislative Council in NSW, Ben Franklin, one of the most outstanding policy minds and scientific leaders in the country, and someone that was key to the environment policies that I championed as the Environment Minister in NSW. And that's my dear friend, Professor Hugh Durrant-Whyte. Thank you for everything you did for good policy in NSW. (APPLAUSE) Could I acknowledge someone that I have the utmost admiration for, and that is my former colleague on the Climate Change Authority, Dr Cathy Foley. Cathy blazed a trail as the Chief Scientist of Australia and made a huge impact when it came to climate policy on the Climate Change Authority, so thank you so much for your continuing leadership and work in this space, Cathy. (APPLAUSE)

To AAP, Lisa, congratulations on how you've built this organisation so well, and we wish you every success in your next endeavour. And Kim McKay is absolutely spot-on. I want to acknowledge her. I was one of those people that crossed the other side of the street when I saw her coming. The NSW Budget is still recovering from all those requests that she made! But you are an outstanding leader. I haven't come across a more effective advocate for such an important institution, and may your work continue for many years into the future. Thank you, Kim. (APPLAUSE) And finally, can I take an opportunity to acknowledge the Talbot family? Thank you so much for the honour of having me as the speaker here tonight, and I'll speak a bit more about Frank in a moment.

It is a tremendous honour to present this year's Talbot Oration. The first since Professor Talbot's passing last October. We just heard Kim's fine words and watched a video about Frank's many contributions to this great institution and to others. May I add another tribute, noting the large family contingent that's here tonight. Extending kindness and encouraging others don't always feature in a list of someone's achievements, but they should. I hear on good authority that Charlie Veron - a name many of you know as the Godfather of Corals - got his early start in science thanks to Frank's generosity. Charlie remembers meeting Frank as a 10-year-old. Frank gave him a letter, replete with his big signature scrawled across the page, and that letter literally opened the doors for Charlie, launching a career that would include identifying about one-fifth of the world's coral species. "I love the guy," was Charlie's warm memory of Frank this week. "He's a hero." Decades after that first meeting, Charlie was heading to London to address the Royal Society on the threat of climate change to the reefs and the world's oceans. Naturally, he made sure to check in with Frank. Frank reeled off lots of advice, laced with what Charlie remembers to be strongly derogatory names for the climate change deniers. It was music to my ears, and helped galvanise my actions, he said.Now, we best not speculate on what those terms were, nor who might deserve them today. Let's just say I've got a little list, and I suspect many of you in the audience do as well.

Like Frank, though, I do want to focus on climate change, and even galvanise a bit of action here tonight. Scientists have long warned us that, by pumping out more greenhouse gas, we will heat up the planet. We can expect a more erratic climate, with worsening weather extremes, until we stabilise the concentration of carbon dioxide, methane, and those other heat-trapping gases. And it's not like we haven't seen this problem coming. Scientists described the greenhouse gas effect in 1824 - two full centuries ago - and just three years

before this Museum's foundation. I'll argue tonight that it's definitely in our interest to take bold climate action, and not just because Australia is among the most vulnerable to wilder weather.

If we can rise to this necessary challenge of exiting fossil fuels, we can aid other nations' transition as well, and increase our prosperity in doing so. New engines of prosperity are up for grabs and we should be grabbing them with both hands. We cannot afford to wait. As climate scientist Joelle Gergis told us in her Quarterly Essay last year, "We are the last generation that will experience the world as we know it today." "The last to experience the tropical wonders of the Great Barrier Reef, summers uninterrupted by life-threatening

storms, and the awe of wild places before they succumb irrevocably to the ravages of fire and intolerable heat."

You may have heard that last month's record flooding around Taree on this state's Mid-North Coast was a 1-in-500-year event. Once statistically rare, these events are now occurring with concerning regularity. So far this year, we've also endured huge floods in northern and western Queensland, while Cyclone Alfred veered much further south than most tropical tempests, leaving big power outages and another burst of floods.

The Federal Treasury put the immediate cost to the economy of these four events at

$2.2 billion. Elsewhere, the driest start to any year in parts of South Australia and Victoria is adding to the ballooning disaster bill. Those tallies, however, doesn't count for the

devastating loss of human life, including the deaths and the lingering damage for people whose lives, and livelihoods, have been upended. Ask the occupants of the thousand-plus homes destroyed in the Mid-North Coast floods alone. Their road back to some normalcy won't be easy, and we wish them the best. The Insurance Council of Australia says member firms are already processing about 9,000 insurance claims for those most recent floods. The North Queensland flooding event added another 11,000 claims, while damage claims for Cyclone Alfred are heading for 130,000, at least. The insured damage bill from those two Queensland events alone will climb past $1.5 billion any day now. As Treasurer of NSW, I learnt only too well how disruptive these not-so-natural weather events can be. We had to scramble to provide the recovery funds after the record Lismore floods in 2022. Part of the

state's most expensive natural disaster.

Of course, Australia is hardly alone when it comes to a shifting climate. The world set a global annual heat record in 2023, only for 2024 to break it. This year won't be far off either. In decades to come, we'll probably look back at this trio of years at mercifully cool. In the past week, you may have seen the vision of the collapse of a Swiss alpine glacier, amid a record spring heatwave in Europe. Or the huge wildfires raging across Canada. On the Arctic Circle, we've had 30-degree days. In Siberia, minimum temperatures have smashed previous records by 10 degrees, all at the end of spring.

Frank Talbot would have recognised these mayday alerts for what they are - wake-up calls for action. Museums as old as this one help plot the past, while projecting our possible

futures. It's why this place fascinates my 5-year-old son, Tom, and so many other children. He's insisted on countless weekend visits. My daughter Zoe - all of a fortnight old today - will no doubt totter in Tom's footsteps before long. So many treasures, from the dinosaur gallery, and Sir Hercules and the Bone Ranger, to the Morning Star Pole that the Dhuwa Yolngu people deployed to align key cultural events with the movement of Planet Venus across the skies over Elcho Island. Consider night and light ceremonies many centuries before Vivid Sydney. But did you know some of this Museum's most important collections are not in the public eye?

Deep in this building, among the mammalian collection of 65,000 specimens are two standard, beige cupboards that staff have labelled the "extinction cabinets". These contain remains of more than two dozen of the 39 Australian mammal species wiped out since Europeans arrived. One of the cabinets is mainly devoted to the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger. Several drawers contain full pelts of these lost animals. Their rich brown and tawny markings, better preserved than the bleached specimens you may have spotted in public displays here or elsewhere. The other cabinet holds remains of the pig-footed bandicoot, among others. A sweet little creature, it sported hoof-like feet and a long tail with a crested tip.

There's a sad and poignant tale of Europeans' early ignorance of this land. Picture Gerald Krefft, a future curator of this Museum, who has joined a collection tour in 1857 to the northern region of newly minted colony Victoria. The party secures several live landwang - as the local Yeri Yeri Indigenous people knew the bandicoots to be. Before long, however, the Europeans' provisions began to run low. As Krefft admits in his own journal, "My appetite more than once overruled my love for science."

These turned out to be among the last landwang ever recorded before this marsupial was deemed to be extinct. At least those early expeditions were attempts to understand Australia. 17 decades on, with all our accumulated knowledge of ecology, what's our excuse going to be when more species succumb. These extinction cabinets also contain the Bramble Cay melomys, a more recent addition. A century ago, this Museum dispatched an exploration party to Bramble Cay, a small sand island off the Torres Strait. This group described the island's lagoon as a giant aquarium of gorgeous fishes with an infinite variety of marine life. That was then. In 2019, the Federal Government declared the Bramble Cay melomys extinct. Rising sea levels had diminished its breeding prospects almost before anybody had noticed. To quote from one conservationist, "The Bramble Cay melomys was a little brown rat, but it was our little brown rat, and it was our responsibility to make sure it persisted, and we failed." The melomys became the first recorded mammalian extinction due to anthropogenic climate change. With habitat loss and a heating planet, we must ask ourselves, "How much storage space will this Museum and others need to set aside for extinctions?"

Now, the Government may soon give us some pointers. It has commissioned Australia's first Natural Climate Risk Assessment to assess the impact already from rising temperatures, both on the natural world and on society and the economy. The report will also scope out some of the consequences of a 2- or 3-degree-warmer world, compared with pre-industrial times. We're fast approaching 1.5 degrees already.

Many species are already being forced to migrate to survive, while some will make it, others will become endangered or worse. Their ecological niches narrowing to nothing.

Higher temperatures and higher humidity in the tropics won't be much fun for humans either. First Nations Australians, with their deep attachment to country, may be in for a dispossession driven by the thermometer.

The Risk Assessment dropped hints of what the final report will look like in its first pass, made public last year. Perils already of high concern are riverine and flash flooding, and droughts and changes in aridity. Does that sound familiar? We have long understood the atmosphere holds 7% more moisture per degree of warming. What we now think of as historically wet events may be exceeded in the future if temperatures keep climbing. In 2022, the University of NSW scientists revealed that downpours - short-duration, high-intensity rainfall events, have increased by 40% in the Sydney region over the past 20 years. What does that heating look like? The University of Reading in the UK has produced climate

stripes, showing warming over time for hundreds of cities. Without needing an x- or y-axis, this iconic image combines science and art - something that museums excel at - to convey instant meaning.

Here is what Sydney's climate stripes look like. Are you seeing red yet? Because you should be. The World Meteorological Organization told us last month there is an

80 - 8-0 - percentage chance that at least one of the years from 2025 to 2029 will beat the record 2024 heat record. The WMO also estimates that there is a 70% chance the average temperature over the coming five years will exceed 1.5 degrees above the 1850-1900 baseline. A clear sign of persistent warming.

To be clear, the Paris climate agreement - that we and almost 200 nations signed up to - pledged to keep global warming to well below 2 degrees and under 1.5 degrees if possible. Those Paris markers refer to long-term warming levels, typically exceeding 20 years. That means we still have time to arrest this direction of travel to a hothouse destination that we do not want to reach. So, ladies and gentlemen, what are we going to do about it?

As the Dutch writer Rutger Bregman wrote in his new book, Moral Ambition, Martin Luther King Junior didn't rally Americans with "I have a nightmare". Rather, he laid out his dream, and so should we. First, we should ignore the doubters, whose main mission seems

to be to prolong the life of fossil fuel industries. Opponents of climate action don't give up, even when their political parties cop an electoral hammering. To those politicians who are still providing a cover for vested interests, I say, "Get out of the way. Stop holding our country back and stop holding your political parties back. Try acting in the national interest, or take the low road to political oblivion." (CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

We can expect climate action opponents to query the economics because they've lost the argument over physics and chemistry. It's not a scientific denial, Andre Correa do

Lago, the Brazilian diplomat who will head this year's climate summit in the Amazon, warned last week. "It's now an economic denial." He stressed that the measures needed to combat climate change can be good for the economy and for people, and it's a view that might run in his family. Correa do Lago, it turns out, is the youngest of five brothers, all of whom became economists. "My mother was horrified with our lack of originality," he joked in The Guardian. As you may know, Australia is in a two-horse race to follow Brazil and host next year's Climate Summit late next year. That will be COP31, or the 31st Conference of the Parties, as these gatherings are known. Wouldn't it be great if COP31 turned out to be the last one that we ever needed? That's probably getting a bit too dreamy. Let's secure the hosting rights for Adelaide first. Still, if we do become the COP hosts, along with our Pacific partners, we can expect climate matters to occupy an even more prominent place in our political discourse for the next year at least.

So, how might we make the most of this opportunity to accelerate action where it's already under way and to kick-start it where it's not? As a former Energy Minister in NSW, in a Liberal government, I saw an opening to reach out to political opponents, to help quell the climate wars in this state. It can be done. Even if some of those inclined against climate policy reside on your own side of the chamber. Hunt hard enough for common interests, though, and you can find it. It helps that the economics are also aligning with the science. As US energy investor Hal Harvey put it, "It's now cheaper to save the earth than to ruin

it." (LAUGHTER) Investors are lining up trillions of investment dollars to decarbonise economies. Even so, we must be realistic about the scale of the task that lies ahead. Some have likened the challenge to Franklin Roosevelt's transformation of the US economy to defeat Japan and Germany in World War II.

And I just want to note Australia didn't shirk its international obligations then either. Progress has not been fast enough. Global carbon emissions are still rising. The recent good news is that China - by far the world's largest polluter - may have peaked in the past few months. It's early days yet, but the slowdown in emissions appears to be caused by China's rapid advance of renewable sources of electricity, not an economic slowdown. Despite US President Donald Trump's embrace of coal in his first term, or his promise to "drill, baby, drill" in his second, fossil fuels are increasingly eclipsed by renewables globally when it comes to luring new investment. And we'll need a lot more.

Earlier this year, Michael Cembalest, a respected energy analyst for US bank J.P. Morgan, estimated the global spend on new wind, solar, batteries, EVs, and other clean tech over the past decade amounts to some US$9 trillion. That's $15 trillion Aussie. To be clear, some of that money would have gone on replacing clapped-out coal plants, or other equipment, whose use-by date has now passed. Even so, renewables share of final energy consumption has only been advancing between 0.3 and 0.6 percentage points per year. So, where should we look for optimism? Try upwards. Bell Labs in the US made the initial solar cell in 1954. It took a young Australian researcher, Martin Green, toiling away in the early 1970s at the University of NSW, to develop a solar cell capable of mass production. Since then, the cost of solar panels has dropped about 99%. That's partly because graduates supervised by Professor Green unleashed a huge expansion of solar production in China and elsewhere. Price per unit has steadily dropped by about a fifth every time output doubled. Martin Green should be a household name, particularly among the 4 million Australian households that have solar panels. That's a world-leading share. This Museum is doing its bit, including Martin's work in an exhibition that can be viewed as an virtual tour.

You can zoom in on his donation of an early prototype solar cell.

Solar and wind energy will be key to our success in halting climate action. As Bloomberg noted last month, "Renewable energy now makes up over 90% of annual new additions to the global power system each year." And there's more to be wrung out of these renewables. Costs may halve yet again by 2035 alone, Bloomberg estimates. And you can be sure that Martin will be among those extending the frontiers of knowledge. Nuclear, we can say, is playing a role globally. But note n2019, reactors produced five times the total amount of power as solar panels. Now the two sources are roughly equal, according to an energy think tank. One of those two technologies promises falling prices, while nuclear cost blow-outs remain the norm. Solar's emerging partner, of course, is storage. Whether made from lithium or an emerging raft of materials. Battery prices dropped by about a third last year and costs keep sinking as innovation combines with scale. Perhaps we should dub these twins "the charge of the light brigade".

Now, you may know that the Climate Change Authority, which I'm chairing, is the nation's source of independent climate advice. We are presently preparing to advise the Government on what Australia's 2035 obligations should be. I've said previously that I want the target to be ambitious, informed by the science, but also achievable. Part of our work is to understand what Trump's efforts to dismantle the Biden Administration's decarbonisation funding mean for our own pathway. Will they hamper us or will it help us? Some political or business leaders have suggested, if a target appears beyond reach, that we should throw in the towel. In fact, there are many ways we can do more, mostly by going with the electron flow. The pace of electrification will determine whether or not we succeed. Take electric vehicles. Globally, EVs will account for about a quarter of sales globally this year. Up from a fifth in 2024, according to the International Energy Agency. By 2030, EVs' share may rise to 40% or beyond. Australia has been a bit slow out of the blocks, but our pace should quicken along with the rollout of fast chargers. And last year, China had 3.2 million public charge points installed as at July. More Australian EV owners are recharging their cars off their own solar - free riders of a worthy kind.

In the future, many will also support the power centre by discharging power once vehicle-to-grid capability becomes more common. These so-called distributed energy sources of solar and batteries actually offer power to the people. An outcome the party of Robert Menzies has always believed in. Any fair-dinkum liberals and conservatives listening tonight should advocate for such policies today. (APPLAUSE) Indeed, giving more households more help to take up solar and batteries is not only good politics, it could pick up some of the slack if the larger grid overhaul takes longer than expected. Some of the handbrakes on large-scale renewables is easy. But challenges like clogged supply chains, labour shortages, slow approvals, and social licence issues still persist. Dr Gabrielle Kuiper, a distinguished expert on energy resources, distributed energy resources, sees opportunities for homes and smaller businesses to help the Government meet its 2030 goal of sourcing 82% of power from renewables as part of its legislated emissions reduction goal. Gabrielle estimates the grid is on track to fall shy of the target by an equivalent of 10 gigawatts' worth of large-scale solar farms. Given the need to add about six gigawatts a year of solar or wind farms to 2030, such a projected shortfall is sizeable. There's also a looming home and business storage gap of about four gigawatts versus the Integrated System Plan, modelled by the energy operator, according to Dylan McConnell, an energy expert at the University of NSW.

Fortunately, there are ways to respond, and some of them will soon ramp up. Well, the Government's new multi-year battery subsidy program will likely be very popular. Early indicators suggest the take-up may reach a million households versus the 75,000 batteries installed in homes in 2024. Likewise, gaze out the window next time you take off from a city airport. See how many factory, warehouse, or shopping centre rooftops appear ripe for solar. Bruce Mountain, head of the Victorian Energy Policy Centre, estimates his state's commercial and industrial rooftops could generate 56 terawatt hours of electricity a year.

Now, that's more than Victoria's total end-use power demand. But, so far, firms have tapped just 7% of the opportunity. We can unlock this potential by removing unnecessary charges or rules that still get in the way. Similarly, we can devise ways that owners and tenants can share the spoils. We should also encourage developers to build panel-ready new structures,

both for factories and for homes. Governments should also insist on better energy efficiency outcomes for newly built homes so we don't lumber their owners with decades of energy waste and bigger bills. The same goes for appliances. Why should Australians accept poorly performing devices, whether locally sourced or imported? Whilst we cherish free markets and the role of private capital, we have to be realistic. Decarbonisation is not just going to happen. We have to help make it happen. That means governments setting ambitious goals and targeting big-emitting industries with judiciously granted support to achieve them. Think steel, cement, and even farming. The Superpower Institute, led by eminent Australians Ross Garnaut and Rod Sims, have spelt out how green steel and iron, and other new minerals,

offer our workers and industries new avenues for exports and growth. Our fossil fuel exports, plus what we burn at home, make Australia a significant overall emitter, accounting for about 4.5% of the global total. By developing new, green industries, powered by our abundant sunshine and wind, we can help the world decarbonise perhaps twice that share, or around 9.6%.

So, we shouldn't shy away from this battle, especially when we can win. Imagine if the early abolitionists had given up their fight against slavery, or the suffragettes had accepted women didn't deserve the right to vote? Both groups took heart from small, initial wins, and regrouped after setbacks. They also sought allies in unlikely places to ensure their movements of change gathered momentum until they became irresistible. Bregman, who I mentioned before, noted support within the British Parliament for an end to slavery got its biggest boost by highlighting how British sailors on the slave ships were dying at a greater rate than the slaves. A parallel in today's battle might be that governments must ensure communities that will inevitably be weaned off fossil fuels are given every opportunity to share in the prosperity.

To conclude, great institutions like the Australian Museum have long fostered an awe for nature, but have also celebrated human endeavour and innovation. Their dedicated staff deserve all our appreciation. These places reveal how much science matters, and we're going to need a lot more of it, whether basic or applied, in the coming decades.

After all, our challenge is not just figuring out how to cut emissions but also how

we're gonna cope with the climate consequences that are already in train. So, we have our work cut out. But so did those trying to land somebody on the moon, or devise on the fly a vaccine for COVID. The advances in the technologies we need, like solar, wind, and batteries, are absolutely amazing. And other breakthroughs will no doubt emerge. Machines

that can learn, and quantum computing capabilities, could also be decisive allies. We should be optimistic but resolute and tireless too. A key message to leave you with tonight is that we can't afford to fail. Not if we want to have a Great Barrier Reef that is still great, with brilliant, iridescent corals, and those giant aquariums of gorgeous fish. Not if we want to live in safe,

comfortable homes, spared from the worst floods, cyclones, and bushfires. Not if we want to avoid filling our museum collections with extinct species that we could have, and should

have, saved. At stake, after all, is whether we really do leave our planet to our children, and their children, better than we found it, as Frank Talbot strived to do. That way, when my Tom and Zoe, and all the other children of this country, peer up in wonder into the cabinets continuing nature's gifts, they'll see species that are not extinct but, rather, remain wild and free. We will have succeeded because we knew the dangers and we acted. And in doing so, we leave our planet to our kids better than we found it, and our economy more prosperous in any generation of Australians has ever dreamed was possible. Thank you very much.

(APPLAUSE)

KIM MCKAY: Thank you so much, Matt Kean. What a guiding force you are for change in Australia's environmental policy, and an advocate for truth-telling in the climate change space. So, we're gonna strike this lectern now, and I'm going to invite our panellists up on stage. I'm pleased to welcome Dr Cathy Foley AO, former Australian Chief Scientist.

For the audience, if you do have a question of our panel tonight, you will be able to ask questions. You can address your questions then and I'll remind you at the time to keep it just to a question, not to a statement. Otherwise, I will come after you! Thanks so much,

Matt. It sounds from your talk as if the transition to a renewable energy economy is certainly now well under way in Australia. Some states are running faster than others, correct?

Tasmania, I think, hydro is about 100% on renewables? South Australia, about 100% on renewables now? By 2037, they say, and likely to be exporting to other states. But there's still this doubt out there - I had a discussion with quite a famous Australian the other day, who got in my ear and said, "Look, yes, all this solar is great, and wind, and so forth, but it doesn't work long term." And he was advocating that we should be also putting nuclear in the mix of energy. And we know that takes a very long time to kick in. He was saying that battery power doesn't deliver. How do we negate that discussion? Because from your perspective, what's your thinking around that?

MATT KEAN: As I said in the speech, I mean, people arguing for nuclear are kind of the equivalent of people arguing that we should build Blockbuster video chains when everyone is watching Netflix. The economics of renewables are coming down in costs dramatically, and nuclear is going the other way. So, the benefit of using new technology... Oh, sorry.

KIM MCKAY: Oh, your mic isn't working?

MATT KEAN: Can people hear me? Is that better? I was just saying that people arguing for

nuclear are arguing for older technologies that have been superseded. The advance in renewables and storage is dramatic, and it will continue to move in only one direction, and that is get more efficient, more effective, and cheaper. That's good for consumers, that's good for taxpayers. So, Australia is faced with a great opportunity here, and I think the Australian people have grabbed that opportunity as we saw at the last election. And that is get on with the job of modernising our electricity system in a way that not only benefits the planet but benefits consumers. I mean, today, the cheapest form of energy is renewables, backed up by firming, storage and transmission. So, people arguing for nuclear were kind of arguing for higher electricity bills, more pollution, and a less reliable grid. So, it didn't make sense, and the Australian people saw right through it. So, as I said, those politicians that want to act for vested interests, they should get out of the way. But those who want to act in the national interest have a great opportunity to do so. The Australian people have given them a big mandate. (APPLAUSE)

KIM MCKAY: Cathy, I know you also have some thoughts because you spent quite a bit of time as Chief Scientist, looking at this issue and looking at battery storage and how the

stability of renewables in our economy could be?

CATHY FOLEY: Well, batteries work. I mean, I think that's the first thing. The second is it's a huge economic opportunity for Australia. At the moment, we have the periodic table here to dig up and use in ways that are going to be hopefully not too onerous on the environment, which is that challenge, because our wealth comes from the land, as does our food. And, actually, so, well, renewables actually take up some of the land as well. So, there's going to be a tension there and getting that balance right is not insignificant. Those of you who know the National Science Research Priorities, that's actually one of the priorities that we're looking at, is how do we get that balance right. The other is, though, we've got a track record of digging up stuff here and then shipping it off overseas, so that we're not getting the full value of it. But we are able to - and working towards - being able to process particularly the critical minerals that are important for batteries, but also we've got a whole range of different battery capabilities, particularly the stationary batteries, with the capabilities too, and we're seeing investment in building, manufacturing here of those sorts of batteries. So, that's a

great opportunity for the country as well, and being able to then export them so that we're able to take them and be a new export for Australia. Because as we transition away from dependency on fossil fuels, that's probably... It's between $150 billion to $300 billion of exports we have to replace with new industries. And so batteries and AI, all those sorts of things which we are really good at in Australia,... And then replacing it with other things.

KIM MCKAY: The other thing about this, though, is we've got a lot of advocates out there in the community trying to ensure... To encourage advocates in the community. Like, what can people in the audience do in that regard? Whether it's local councils or media or teachers in our schools, to understand the detail of this?

CATHY FOLEY: Well, I guess the first thing is, if everyone had open access to research literature so that they could get the true information, it's great that AAP is going to be some of that for us, so, yay! But I think that's, first of all, access to trusted information is the

number-one thing. And I haven't given that up yet, I'm still plugging away, hoping that we can get to a point where we can have a new approach for the way we engage with the academic publishers so that everyone can read research literature if they've got an Australian IP

address.

But the other is also, we talk ourselves down as a country. We often don't trust that we can do it. We heard from Matt tonight, saying, "We can do this. We actually have all the ingredients." We've got all the capability to do it, we just need to have the will and the trust in ourselves to not be faint-hearted and to push through and deliver. And to some extent, that's going to require us, as a community, to back each other so that we actually stand up and call out misinformation and things which aren't based on evidence. And I suppose that requires us to make sure that our schools are giving information to our young people so they grow up knowing the realities and the evidence and be able to understand and have that critical thinking, so that they're able to respond in a way which is seeing where the opportunities

are, rather than being caught up in a maelstrom of things which are not gonna lead us where we want to be as a nation.

KIM MCKAY: That sounds good to me. Because in all the trust indexes, museums, natural history museums rank at the very top of that - that we're the most trusted institutions in our society. So, we take our responsibility and role in that pretty seriously.

CATHY FOLEY: In fact, it's an extraordinarily important interface between research and the community because most - the research community is mostly in universities and

public-funded agencies, and there's a little bit of outreach in that, but nowhere near the level that you do in museums and Questacon, and all those places.

KIM MCKAY: Chris, I've got a question for you. You have been very involved in the Institute for Sustainable Futures in looking at fairness and equity across the society, and access to be able to participate in the renewable energy economy. Could you perhaps tell us a little bit about that work? And I know also you've done some work with First Nations communities

there too?

CHRIS BRIGGS: Yeah. Actually, just quickly to revert back to your first question, we've got around 2,000 megawatts of batteries currently built in the grid. There's 8,000 currently under construction. We're about to find out how well battery storage works very quickly. That might not be around for too much longer. I think the goal we should be aiming for is a fast but fair transition. It needs to be rapid for all the reasons Matt outlined. But big, rapid transitions

often create winners and losers that fall differentially on the less vulnerable. There's tests for the energy transition. Will low-income households get access to clean energy, or will it just be people with solar and resources? Will coal regions get a reasonable transition to an

alternative economy? Will the inland regions, the renewable energy where much of the infrastructure is being built, experience a construction, fly-in, fly-out boom, and experience benefits? Will First Nations people see this an improvement to their lives or will this wash past them? We have been working with land councils, looking at opportunities for them to own and store renewable energy. We have been working with the First Nations Clean Energy Network to look at employment. If you take employment, one in two First Nations people has a job currently compared to two in three Australians. That hasn't changed in three decades. Which is quite astonishing when you think about all the ways of mining and resource development has happened in that time. And a real warning, I think, for the clean energy transition, that the same could happen without proactive policies and programs.

So, if you're looking at the opportunities for First Nations people, you're looking at

firstly improving cost and access to electricity. Land councils, we speak to on the edge of the grid in NSW, are primarily interested in solar battery microgrids because they don't have a reliable supply of power. They live in poor-quality housing which is expensive to run on

energy. Secondly, there's a whole range of opportunities around employment that we're not currently taking up generally. So, when you're retro fitting Indigenous housing, you could be training people to be energy auditors, electricians. There's the occasional solar farm that does a great job. Avonlea, south-west of NSW, employ First Nations people that are unemployed. The community said it transformed that community. That's just 30 jobs. There's a whole range of other opportunities around wind farms looking for - say they would love to employ First Nations people as technicians but not sure what to do.

So, there's a real role for government, community and industry to actually collaborate because there's a range of ways in which you can create employment. Thirdly, very quickly, we've also been working with land councils around opportunities for ownership. So, they have significant landholdings, so at a local level. Some of it is culturally significant land but a lot of it has sort of ended up with them because no-one else really wanted it and it's a bit of a burden, but it's perfect to put little bits of solar around the place. And Canada has shown - Canada has 20% ownership of renewables by First Nations people. Which creates revenue streams that then First Nations communities can use to reinvest in health, social infrastructure, and all those sorts of things. So, it's a really big opportunity but it will take a big strategy. (APPLAUSE)

KIM MCKAY: That's fantastic. Thank you. We hear a lot about people who are working in the fossil fuel industry, in the coal industry, in particular, and about their jobs going. And what will happen to those people. I did see a stat the other day that claimed that there are fewer people working in the coal industry than are employed nationally by McDonald's. So, but there will be a lot of people who need extra support through this transition. So, you

know - and this is for all of you to comment on - what are governments and communities doing, or can do, to support those fossil fuel workers in that transition?

CATHY FOLEY: Do you want to go first?

CHRIS BRIGGS: I could start. I guess, firstly, you're right, it's about 40,000 or 50,000... So, it is much smaller than many people realise. It's around 40,000 to 50,000 people roughly.

The coal-fired power stations, a lot of them are contractors who can actually be re-employed quite easily, electricians. The ones that can't are the actual power station operators, and so there's a bit of a transition job there, but it's mostly an ageing workforce. The bigger challenge is the mining sector, which currently, you know, sits on - obviously makes a lot of money and so forth - but around half that workforce is semi-skilled machine operators, so some challenges in redeploying them. There will be lots of jobs in mining. They just won't be in coal, and they'll be in different regions. There's a challenge to transition them. I guess the opportunity is probably gonna be in other industries that develop within the region, or it will be redeploying them probably to other types of mining. Miners have shown before that they can be quite a mobile workforce.

MATT KEAN: Well, I just add to that and say that the best way to replace a lost job is to create a new one. And that's why governments, working with industry, need to be building the jobs and the businesses of the future in areas that will be impacted by this transition. I mean, it doesn't matter how much Barnaby Joyce says that we've got to scrap net zero, the rest of the world is moving on this, OK? It's not gonna stop jobs being lost in the Hunter or Illawarra. These are global mega-trends. And what we need to do as Australians, or as Australian governments, is to put in place the policy settings that will create new industries and opportunities in those areas which could be affected. Let me give you the perfect example. Take in the Hunter, 1,500 direct jobs, and about 2,500 indirect jobs. So, that is, if

you lost that smelter up there, or that aluminium facility up there, you're basically wiping out, or having a huge impact, on the whole Hunter region. So, we need to be focusing on supporting Tomago to transition to provide green aluminium in that area, to keep those jobs in those industries and all the spin-off workers that come with it. So, targeted, judicious government support, helping bridge green premiums is what's going to be required in some industries. But also industry development, creating new opportunities. So, hydrogen is

something that's talked about a lot, and I know it's off into the future, but it genuinely is a major export opportunity that could displace export revenues from coal, for example, which is going to diminish in sales overseas, regardless of whether or not some people in the political class think that it won't.