Breaking the ice: hopes for more talks after Aust-China business roundtable

The Australia China Business Council is looking to convene more meetings with Chinese business leaders after this week’s breakthrough roundtable on climate change.

Julie Shuttleworth, CEO of Fortescue Future Industries. Collaboration between Australia and China would be a “key to saving our planet from its continuing global warming trajectory”, Ms Shuttleworth says.

The Australia China Business Council (ACBC) is looking to convene more meetings with Chinese business leaders after this week’s breakthrough roundtable on climate change, which has taken a small step to break the ice in Australia’s frosty relationship with Beijing.

ACBC president David Olsson, the Hong Kong-based international director of law firm King & Wood Mallesons, said on Tuesday that his organisation planned to continue its discussions with Chinese business leaders following the success of the discussions, which focused on collaboration on climate change.

The ACBC and the Business Council of Australia facilitated the talks on the Australian side, while the Chinese were co-ordinated by the Chinese Chamber of International Commerce (CCOIC).

Mr Olsson said the roundtable was “a welcome reminder of the long-term importance of our business relationship with China and that the global climate challenge may be the issue that allows us to find a new pathway ahead”.

“ACBC and CCOIC plan to continue their discussions around the topic (of climate change). We hope to be able to convene similar conversations in other sectors in the year ahead.”

The video talks were the first high-level meeting between Australia and China for almost two years, helping to break the ice at a time when Chinese officials will not return the phone calls of their Australian counterparts.

Political ties were put under further strain recently with the Morrison government’s announcement that Australia would join the diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics in Beijing in February. Mr Olsson said the selection of climate change as a shared issue facing businesses had proven “a successful area of common ground” for the talks.

The private meeting was attended by leaders from ANZ, BHP, Rio Tinto, Fortescue Future Industries, Woodside, LAVO and Dimer Technologies.

They were joined by Chinese business leaders from Chinalco, PetroChina, Shandong Energy and Sinosteel, with some invited guests attending as observers.

Mr Olsson said the meeting was a “sign of the importance of business ties between Australia and China”.

It follows a similar virtual meeting between Chinese and British business leaders this year.

Mr Olsson said speakers at the meeting “provided their perspectives on how businesses in Australia and China viewed the climate challenge, shared their own experiences and climate ambitions, and offered views on the most compelling opportunities for mutual collaboration, and pathways for those opportunities to be progressed”.

Speaking after the meeting, Julie Shuttleworth, the chief executive of Fortescue Future Industries, said collaboration between Australia and China would be a “key to saving our planet from its continuing global warming trajectory”.

“In line with Fortescue’s target to achieve net zero Scope 3 emissions by 2040, we are engaging closely with customers in the crude steel manufacturing industry in China who are strongly committed to decarbonising their operations.” she said.

Warwick Smith, chair of BCA’s global engagement committee, said the BCA and its key members were “pleased with the embrace of reality and constructive discussion on opportunities and the challenges faced in meeting climate change issues in various sectors and particularly in technology emerging issues”.

“All sides are looking at ways to embrace new technology and to discuss constructive ways of doing something about climate change,” he said.

ANZ chief executive Shayne Elliott told the meeting about the need for capital to finance the transition. He said there was an opportunity for Australian banks to draw upon their considerable experience in evaluating project, delivery and execution risk in complex projects, to support a green finance future.

“Five years ago, debt and equity providers spoke of climate change in terms of risk,” he said. “Today they talk of opportunity.”

Woodside Energy CEO Meg O’Neill said businesses in Australia and China had a “unique opportunity to leverage existing long-term relationships to work together to address the challenge of reducing emissions whilst enabling economic growth.”

She said the roundtable was “an important step in connecting companies”.