Keeping track of green transition

It is now clear that good intentions will only get you so far when it comes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in one of the world’s most carbon-intensive economies. In The List, the green issue 2023, published on Friday, we showcase the people who are at the leading edge of trying to make it happen.

The List reflects the increased focus on “the electrification of everything”, including electric vehicle sales which are starting to gather pace. The Tesla Model Y was the nation’s top-selling passenger vehicle in June, and second-best-selling overall, beaten only by the evergreen Toyota HiLux ute. We also look at how farmers are trialling feed supplements to cut methane emissions from their herds and using new methods of stock management to improve soils, sequester carbon and make money.

But we don’t shy away from some of the problems that are being experienced along the way. The cost of going green is a debate that is playing out around the world for politicians, businesses and households and it is only going to get more pointed.

For Australia, this is particularly so as government policy moves beyond power generation to other sectors of the economy, including agriculture and industry. At a time when billions of dollars in fresh capital is the major requirement, financial managers are being encouraged to make the environment a key feature of their decisions. Westpac has unsettled farmers with plans to become a “nature-positive bank”, something that is emerging as a widespread trend for fund managers. The danger is that, along the way, regulation might become divorced from what is achievable on the ground.

If ever there was a political truce on decarbonisation it has been broken. Nationals leader David Littleproud has accused government of starting a free-for-all on locking up productive farmland through the safeguard mechanism, which he says will see multinational companies buying up massive tracts of Australia’s productive farmland to lock up as carbon offsets. The Albanese government is working to further increase its carbon dioxide reduction ambitions but is already testing the economic and social licence limits. Big companies, like government, are discovering that meeting decarbonisation targets is not as easy as announcing them.

In recent weeks, Andrew Forrest’s Fortescue Metals Group has scrapped a plan to build a giant renewable energy hub near its Pilbara iron ore operations. As business editor Perry Williams writes in The List, mining giant Rio Tinto has conceded it may not reach 2025 targets without the use of carbon credits. Boral also has pulled back on targets as it tackles the reality of eliminating emissions from energy-intensive building products supplies. Meanwhile, the much-hyped rush to hydrogen energy has not been going as smoothly as many had hoped. And the offshore wind industry is facing heavy weather in other parts of the world.

It is also clear that the green economy is generating new businesses and jobs at a rapid pace. The List’s green rankings are shared among carbon-reduction brokers, seaweed farmers, battery developers, waste recyclers, solar specialists, lithium processors and software producers, to name a few. Supporters of nuclear energy can take heart from Joel Barre, the chief executive of France’s nuclear development, who is interviewed in The List, the green issue. Barre is overseeing construction of six new large-scale nuclear plants. French President Emmanuel Macron says France must bet on two pillars of renewables and nuclear as the “most relevant choice from an ecological point of view and the most expedient from an economic point of view, and finally the least costly from a financial point of view”.

This is something those leading Australia’s green transition have yet to digest.