Big business goes green at Glasgow COP26 talks
A host of big Australian business players across green energy have held high level talks with Scott Morrison at the COP26 meeting.
The chief executives of some of Australia’s biggest energy players – including Macquarie, Fortescue Future Industries, Rio Tinto and Santos – held a high-level meeting with Prime Minister Scott Morrison in Glasgow as he seeks to build support among big business leaders for the nation’s net-zero goal by 2050.
Several companies have used the pivotal COP26 meeting to spruik their own green or low-carbon projects, including a double whammy from major oil and gas producer Santos for its Moomba carbon capture and storage scheme and a hydrogen feasibility study with major plastics producer Qenos.
While a model of the Moomba project at the Australian government’s Glasgow pavilion sparked criticism, given Santos role as a major gas producer, Mr Morrison also held talks with pure play renewable developers, including the Mike Cannon Brookes-backed Sun Cable project and a giant offshore wind farm called Star of the South.
Macquarie chief executive Shemara Wikramanayake, a major global green investor, was among the many business leaders at the meeting.
The Star of the South, is nearly at the point of obtaining federal government approval to obtain an exploration licence.
Mr Morrison has unveiled a “middle path” for Australia to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, which promises dramatic carbon reductions across the electricity and transport sectors and a massive investment of up to $120bn for emerging technologies to help achieve the Glasgow target.
He told the high-level group of Australian business leaders at the breakfast that he was “far more optimistic’’ about global warming than the ‘’depressing tone’’ at the Glasgow COP 26.
The Prime Minister said that “it is not all doom, that is not my view” after scores of global leaders including British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had 24 hours previously warned the world it was ‘’one minute to midnight to save the planet”.
But Mr Morrison said the solutions to deal with climate change were enveloped in technology and industry, of which Australia has a “tremendous opportunity” to assist, and he optimistically predicted “we will crack the things that need to be cracked’’.
He said the world had shown its ability to solve problems, likening global warming to the coronavirus pandemic.
“The world is looking for solutions (and) I am far more optimistic when I come to these things and sometimes they can have a bit of a depressing tone about doom, about gloom. That’s not my view. It’s not our government’s view.
“Eighteen months ago, we were facing the abyss of a pandemic with no vaccine, and here we are – a vaccine has now been administered to billions around the world and the world is coming out, admittedly with still some distance to travel, but a vaccine that exists. I see this challenge as quite similar.’’
Some of Australia’s biggest carbon emitters were also among the corporate heavyweights rubbing shoulders with world leaders at the Glasgow summit this week.
Worley boss Chris Ashton was also due to attend, along with Worley director Andrew Liveris, former boss of Dow Chemical.
While the contracting giant is not a major carbon emitter from its own operations, its board came under fire at Wednesday’s annual shareholder meeting over its new-found environmental credentials, given the majority of its business has traditionally come from oil and gas projects.
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