An edited excerpt from Anna Skarbek’s remarks on 17 October 2024, celebrating Climateworks Centre’s 15th anniversary at the State Library of Victoria. Photo credit Monash University: James Thomas Photo.
It takes a village to change a system, and that is why we have gathered everyone here tonight.
You are here because you and your organisations have supported Climateworks and worked with us over the last 15 years.
In this room are people who hold the pen on government policy, business leaders and financiers shaping our economy, climate scientists setting the bar, fellow sector experts in civil society and academia, not-for-profits amplifying the voices of solutions and those facing the impacts, and philanthropists championing the bold ideas for a better world and funding the layers of work involved in making those ideas real.
With all of your support – the shared ambition, collaboration and, importantly, funding – we have helped move the dial on climate action.
Because of how we were set up and how we operate, our work has been welcomed or commissioned – and implemented – by key players in the system, including:
- multiple state governments and big banks who adopted the first formal net zero targets after receiving our decarbonisation pathways advice
- the Australian Government, whose first submission of its national commitment to the Paris Agreement, cites our net zero pathways potential
- investment managers for whom we created the first ever forward-looking green equities index for the ASX300, and the first tracker of the corporate net zero alignment
And where there were not key players in the field gathering on net zero, we helped create them:
- doing the first Australia-wide assessment of electric vehicles led to the creation of the industry group that became the EV Council
- convening over a dozen of the biggest mining and resources companies and investors over four years to co-create the first ever Paris-aligned net zero pathways for Australia’s heavy industry sectors, which then informed legislation and billions of dollars of new budget programs
- advising on the mandate of the newly legislated Net Zero Economy Authority; and Australia’s first green investment bank (the CEFC), whose early strategy was informed by our economy-wide analysis of decarbonisation opportunities and barriers
- gathering all relevant state and territory government departments together on best practices for net zero
- convening six leading Indonesian expert groups to advise the G20 energy ministers on matters beyond their formal agenda.
Plus, broadening our analysis to reflect that nature and net zero are fundamentally linked:
- showing for the first time how much ocean-based mitigation actions in Indonesia can contribute to Indonesia’s climate target – analysis that is now shaping the next NDC
- creating a new land sector model for Australia that includes biodiversity so we can work towards net zero at the same time as food production and nature restoration
- developing the first natural capital measurement catalogue to make it easier to scale investment in nature repair.
I would love to go on but instead you can read more about these and other first-of-its-kind work in our story chronicling 15 years of Climateworks.
Climateworks is now, I am proud to say, a multiple award-winning organisation with around 100 employees working from offices in Melbourne, Canberra, Perth and Jakarta.
The scope of our work covers all sectors of the economy – here in Australia and in Southeast Asia.
Currently, we have teams working on transport; household energy upgrades; orderly gas phase-out options; defining credibility in corporate transition plans and in sustainable finance taxonomies and indices; Indonesia-Australia sustainable supply chains for low-carbon battery manufacturing and minerals extraction – just to name some of our programs, not all!
What has stayed the same since our launch is the need for solutions-oriented knowledge creation and translation – focused on those who hold the power to reduce emissions at scale.
Those decision-makers already have a day job – and we are adding net zero emissions to it.
The world needs them to get this right, but that doesn’t happen on its own.
And our focus very much includes Southeast Asia, because our shared safety and prosperity as a region depends on succeeding there as well as here.
Anytime my peers in Australia feel like it is hard to progress our transition here, I remind them that Indonesia alone has ten times as many people as Australia and shares our emissions-intensive economy – and our sustainable development goals.
We’ve had staff in Jakarta since 2019 with in-country experts delivering multiple programs and working with Monash Indonesia to build the capacity for achieving ambitious net zero targets in government and business.
In Vietnam we are helping the Chamber of Commerce establish a new Net Zero Hub, working with Ho Chi Minh City to embed net zero into their industrial zones framework – with our teams working on similar projects in Indonesia and Australia. The enabling conditions for green supply chains are interlinked in our region.
We know that Australia and Southeast Asia are stronger together in accelerating the transition. And we hope to have the opportunity to harness this, with world attention coming to our shores, through Australia’s bid to host COP31, the global climate meeting for the Paris Agreement, in two year’s time.
While we are here marking our 15th anniversary, our team is very focused on the next 15 years. There’s some uncanny maths that sticks with me on this 15-year focus.
In Australia, there are now 15 years left to reach net zero emissions, which is aligned with the global goal of limiting warming by 1.5C. That’s the evidence from our Climateworks scenarios modelling – which I’m proud to note was referenced multiple times in the recent pathways advice to Parliament by the Climate Change Authority. So that means bringing forward “net zero 2050” to before 2040.
In Indonesia, there’s an opportunity to bring forward their national net zero goal by 15 years to align with their centenary of independence in 2045.
High ambition is our north star.
We are still in a race against time on climate impacts. We know that every tenth of a degree of avoided warming matters, exponentially. And while the fear of those harms drives us, so too does the sense of opportunity – it is more clear than ever that this is a race we want to win.
So please continue with us on this journey and help us all win.
We need you as much in the next 15 years as we did in our first 15.
In celebrating this milestone, Climateworks would like to thank and acknowledge all our current and past supporters for being instrumental in the impact we have had over the past 15 years. A special mention to those who joined us on the night – the Myer Foundation, Ian Potter Foundation, Macdoch Foundation, Limb Family Foundation, Trawalla Foundation and Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation amongst other individual supporters. We welcome collaborations and support from business, not-for-profit, philanthropy and government and invite all to journey with us for the next 15 years.
Climateworks Centre: 15 years
