Tonight I want to speak to you about the Government's approach to sustainability and in particular, climate change.
I want to discuss the need for leadership from the international community in responding to the long-term sustainability and security challenges of energy, food and water resources.
Second, I want to discuss the importance of business leadership in Australia's response to the challenges of climate change and sustainability.
Third, I want to outline the leadership that the Government is taking on sustainability and a long-term strategy to address climate change, including how we plan to advance the climate change and sustainability policy agenda.
Global leadership to tackle sustainability challenges and global security threats: Energy, food, water and climate change
Since the Government came to office almost six months ago, we have set out a long term vision of building a modern, competitive Australia capable of meeting the challenges of the 21st century - to secure the nation's future and the future for working families.
It is a vision cast within the context of a rapidly changing global economy and a fast-evolving global security environment.
Not too long ago, the argument that the next major threats to global security might come from shortages of food and water, competition for energy resources and the impacts of climate change, would probably have been considered well outside of the mainstream.
That has now changed.
The pace of growth in the developing world has created a resources crunch. Energy prices have soared as demand has outstripped supply.
The age of cheap oil and gas is over, and energy security is now recognised as a key factor in geopolitics and a major driver of long-term national security strategies.
At the same time we have witnessed food shortages and extraordinary inflation in food prices, resulting from rising costs of fertilisers, irrigation and transport, combined with poor harvests in many countries.
Experts are warning of the risk of future conflict in many regions over access to fresh water, with 500 million people living in countries facing chronic water shortages.
And as each year and even each month passes, we're presented with more sobering analyses of the scale of the climate crisis.
Last week we saw reports of a major scientific research project, conducted by eleven institutions around the world including the University of Melbourne and published in the current edition of the journal Nature.
This project has for the first time formally linked global warming caused by human activity to many recorded changes occurring in habitats and wildlife around the world.
After reviewing forty years of scientific research, the study concluded that climate change is already having a major impact on biological and natural systems - and at least 90 per cent of environmental damage and disruption can be attributed to global warming caused by human activity.
These impacts are being recorded after a rise in temperature of only 0.6 degrees.
Climate modelling clearly suggests we are facing a much greater temperature rise in the future.
In the years ahead, the trends that are driving these challenges - finite resources, economic development and climate change - will become more pronounced, and will have a greater impact on global security.
It is critically important therefore that the international community addresses the challenges of climate change, energy security, food security and water security with urgency.
These are humanitarian challenges; they are environmental challenges, and they are security challenges.
The security threat is highlighted in the food riots reported in recent weeks in more than a dozen countries including Bangladesh, Haiti, Indonesia and several African nations.
Climate change also presents a long term threat to global security.
The international community must also develop practical strategies for climate change adaptation.
There are hundreds of millions of people in the heavily populated mega delta regions in South, East and Southeast Asia who will be at great risk as climate change accelerates, and the international community must work to address these dangers.
Without making a specific connection between climate change and Cyclone Nargis, the current human calamity in Burma demonstrates the vulnerability of developing nations to the impact of increasingly frequent extreme weather events.
If I may digress for one moment on the matter of Burma: I know there are widespread concerns about whether aid contributions are in fact getting through to those who need it, but I am assured that donations are making it through.
I want to pass on the message from Tim Costello and other leaders of Australian aid efforts that our donations have succeeded in providing essential food and water to over 300,000 victims, saving many thousands of lives. No Australian should hold back from donating, because those donations are making a great difference on the ground.
Australia is seeking to play a constructive role internationally in addressing the long-term sustainability and security challenges.
We have already at Bali played a significant role in the negotiations on the new global climate change deal. In addition, we are one of the first donor countries to integrate climate change adaptation into our international development assistance programs.
Australia is active too across the range of global sustainability challenges.
We have recently taken practical steps to help address the food crisis, with a total contribution of $90 million to the World Food Program.
In addition to a contribution of over $60 million provided earlier in the financial year, we recently announced a donation of $30 million to the World Food Program's emergency appeal - to help address critical gaps in its food aid operations as a result of rising food and fuel prices.
Australia has also stepped up its calls for international trade policy reform. The Doha Round of trade talks provides a critical opportunity for achieving trade liberalisation in international agricultural markets, to the benefit of developing nations.
Australian Government agencies are also working on long-term food security and water supply initiatives in developing nations.
Australia will participate in the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation high-level conference on World Food Security in early June, to help coordinate international responses to the food security crisis.
Australia will strongly support such international efforts to provide leadership in addressing the sustainability and security challenges of food security, water shortages, energy security, climate change and resources sustainability in general. These constitute a new and critical agenda for global action.
The role of business leadership in addressing sustainability challenges
Leadership from the business community is critically important to our ability to meet the nation's future challenges - particularly the challenge of climate change.
The National Business Leadership Forum on Sustainability has been encouraging corporate social responsibility and sustainability reporting for over a decade.
It has helped move sustainability and corporate responsibility from the margins to the mainstream of corporate Australia.
In advance of the Corporate Responsibility Index awards announcements in a few minutes, I would like to congratulate all of tonight's winners and nominees.
I would also like to announce a new initiative relating to the Government's own support for business leadership.
Tonight I am pleased to announce that the Government has committed $2 million for the St James Ethics Centre to work with Australian businesses to develop their capacity to identify and adopt more responsible business practices.
This new project is about working cooperatively with businesses to promote corporate social responsibility - not because they are forced to do so, but because they choose to.
Many of the businesses represented here tonight have led the way.
This new funding will allow the St James Ethics Centre to engage many more Australian businesses in identifying and adopting more responsible business practices - particularly small and medium sized companies, whose resources are often more limited.
Business leadership on climate change
Turning specifically to Australia's strategy to address climate change, I want to make it clear that the Government regards the leadership of businesses as critical in determining the effectiveness of that strategy.
Climate change is the great economic, environmental and moral challenge of our time.
Yet Australian government policies have for too long been stuck in a bygone era, neglecting and downplaying the gravity of the climate crisis.
That is now changing.
I applaud the way that during those years, leaders in the business community, research centres and community organisations stepped into the policy vacuum and worked hard to inform public debate and help develop practical solutions to climate change.
The new Australian Government recognises climate change as an urgent yet long-term priority.
But this does not mean the need for business leadership is any less than in recent years.
In fact now that the Government has a comprehensive plan of action, the need for business leadership on sustainability challenges is greater than ever.
Governments must create the right frameworks and incentives, but business leadership is needed in adopting efficiency measures, mobilising capital, creating new markets, developing new technologies, driving innovation, deepening our skills base and developing partnerships across the whole community.
Government, the business community, scientific experts and community organisations must work together if we are to tackle the challenges of climate change and seize the long-term opportunities opening up for Australia in low carbon energy technologies and environmental services.
That's why, from Opposition last year, we convened a Climate Change Summit.
The Summit did not just help inform the Government's policy approach - it also helped in developing common ground between different sides of the policy debate who had not been talking to each other.
Last month's 2020 Summit showed the debate is well and truly alive - and the Summit presented many constructive ideas that we are now reviewing.
Government leadership on the challenges of sustainability and climate change
The Government accepts its own responsibility to provide practical leadership in our response to climate change - with practical measures to reduce our own environmental footprint and measures to harness savings from more efficient use of energy and water.
In March this year, I established an internal Government Taskforce to examine a range of options to improve the sustainability of government operations - reducing energy and water use and increasing the recycling of waste.
I have received a draft report from the Taskforce in recent days. It shows that government agencies have a long way to go in implementing sustainability practices.
The report notes National Audit Office data stating that only 21 per cent of government offices had energy efficient lighting installed.
The Audit Office has also estimated that the Government could save $10 million annually if agencies were more proactive in energy and water efficiency measures.
The draft report highlights the fact that government agencies face many of the same barriers that business organisations face - competing priorities, capacity constraints, institutional resistance, a lack of access to capital and conflicting incentives.
My hope is that in meeting these challenges within Government, we can also help other businesses overcome these barriers.
We need to look at new and innovative ways of financing sustainable practices, and ensuring the right incentives are in place to reduce our environmental footprint across government.
The Taskforce will be undertaking additional analysis before it presents its final report to me mid year - with an implementation plan to roll out across Government.
This will include action to:
* improve the energy efficiency of our buildings - both those we own and those we lease
* use water more wisely in the face of the current water crisis
* use government purchasing power for more efficient office equipment
* reduce emissions from the government car fleet and look at alternatives to travel like greater use of video conferencing.
I will be taking an active interest in ensuring that we roll out an ambitious sustainability agenda across Government.
This practical action on our own sustainability challenges complements the Government's broader and long-term strategy to tackle climate change.
There are three pillars of the Government's long-term response to climate change.
The first is to help shape an effective global solution
We began this within minutes of being sworn into Government, when at Government House I signed the instruments for the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol.
That step sent an important message to the global community that Australia now wants to be part of the global solution.
We made an important contribution at the Bali conference a few days later, with Penny Wong co-chairing one of the final sessions that helped to forge the Bali Roadmap - even though she had been in the job for just a few days.
Ahead of Copenhagen, we are continuing to work towards a global agreement.
We must reach a global agreement on substantial cuts in the emission of dangerous greenhouse gases.
This is why it's especially critical that the United States, India and China approach these negotiations with a determination to reach a deal.
Achieving substantial reductions will take time even after we've begun to take action. So we can't afford to have these negotiations drag out year after year. We certainly can't afford to repeat the saga of the Doha trade round, where government officials have been dragging their feet to negotiations for almost seven years.
The second pillar of our climate change strategy is to reduce Australia's emissions along the lowest cost path.
Emissions trading is particularly important to achieving this goal, because it will generate market incentives, mobilise investor capital and accelerate innovations that will help drive emissions down.
Accelerating the takeup of renewable energy is also critical to reducing our emissions. The Government is introducing an expanded national renewable energy target to source 20 per cent of electricity from renewable sources by 2020.
Australia has abundant renewable energy resources - from solar and wind, to wave energy and geothermal “hot rocks” - and this will help to drive innovation and investment in these technologies.
The third pillar of our strategy is adaptation - the changes we make to adapt to the impacts we cannot avoid.
As the interim Garnaut Report noted, Australia is the driest inhabited continent on earth and is more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change than any other industrialised nation.
For different reasons, that exposure is shared by many developing nations in the Pacific region, and our adaptation strategies must take into account regional neighbours who will need assistance in coping with a changing climate.
2008-09 Budget Initiatives
Last week's Budget delivered on the Government's initial climate change commitments.
The Budget contained measures totalling $2.3 billion over five years to help reduce Australia's greenhouse emissions, adapt to climate change, and ensure we show global leadership in the transition to a low emissions economy.
We now have a Department of Climate Change that is leading the Government's efforts to tackle climate change, including the implementation of emissions trading.
We are investing in clean energy technology - clean coal, renewables and new R&D initiatives.
We are investing in $500 million to a National Clean Coal Initiative, $500 million dollars in a Renewable Energy Fund, and $150 million in an Energy Innovation Fund to accelerate clean energy research and development.
We are investing $240 million in Clean Business Australia including measures for green building, manufacturers and the development of environmentally-friendly products.
We are investing $500 million in a Green Car Innovation Fund to encourage the Australian car industry to develop and manufacture low emission cars.
We are also investing in household and community based measures to respond to climate change - including $300 million in Green Loans through which 200,000 Australian households invest in clean energy technologies, and $150 million in solar power rebates of up to $8,000 for up to 6,000 homes in 2008-09.
To ensure that rebates get to the lower and middle income households that need them most, the Government will introduce a means test for this plan. The total investment in this program will be $150 million over three years - as we promised at the election.
We are also investing $481 million in supporting more than 9,000 schools to go solar.
Australia is also investing in adaptation to climate change in our region. We are providing $150 million over three years to meet high-priority climate change adaptation needs, particularly in East Timor and the island states of the Pacific who are at greatest risk from the impacts of climate change.
The next stage of the Government's Climate Change Response: Emissions Trading
Domestically, our next major challenge now is to complete the design of Australia's emissions trading scheme.
Emissions trading is a central element in creating the market incentives to drive the low carbon energy revolution.
As Sir Nicholas Stern has said, climate change is the greatest market failure the world has ever seen.
Emissions trading aims to address that market failure. It is a major economic reform.
A carbon cap and trade system will mobilise capital and channel research efforts into the most important economic challenge for our generation - the low carbon energy revolution.
In the long run, clean energy worldwide will generate jobs, trade and business successes on an even greater scale than the global information technology revolution of recent decades.
But what's needed is a market mechanism to start to level the playing field for clean energy technologies.
As the President of the United States' Environmental Defense Fund, Fred Krupps, has documented in a book released in the US in recent weeks, there is an astonishing array of technologies emerging from research in the clean energy sector:
“Securing our planet against calamity will require a second industrial revolution... We will need to harness energy from the sun, the waves, living organisms and the heat embedded in the planet. We will need to reinvent automobiles, clean up emissions from the immense and rapidly growing coal infrastructure, use the energy we have far more efficiently and put an end to tropical deforestation... No single technology will stop global warming but there is a silver bullet: A cap on carbon that will launch all these solutions into the mainstream.”
(Earth: The Sequel, chapter 1)
It is critically important that Australia is an early starter in the global clean energy revolution.
Having an emissions trading scheme is crucial because it will allow investors to price carbon and make rational investment decisions that will drive research, innovation and energy efficiency measures that will allow us start turning the corner on carbon emissions and climate change.
It will have substantial long term consequences on the effectiveness of Australia's response to climate change.
That is why the Government is committed to introducing emissions trading in 2010.
The consultation processes that we are now undertaking are very important.
We recognise the long-term implications of the design of emissions trading for our economy and for many industries.
Emissions trading is important to securing Australia's future economic prosperity and we will continue to work with affected industries, in particular those in trade exposed sectors and strongly affected domestic sectors.
The emission trading scheme will have maximal coverage of greenhouse gases and sectors to the extent that it is practical. The broader the scheme's coverage, the lower the cost of reducing carbon emissions. This spreads the burden of reducing emissions across the community more fairly.
We recognise this will involve some hard decisions, but if we're serious about preparing Australia for the long-term climate change challenge we must make difficult decisions now.
Energy efficiency and equity measures
Beyond establishing the emissions trading scheme to put a price on carbon, energy efficiency is will be a major priority in our efforts to tackle climate change.
Energy efficiency delivers a double dividend - reducing emissions immediately, bringing down the overall cost of meeting targets and increasing energy productivity across the economy.
Australia's past record in improving energy efficiency in most sectors is poor when compared to our OECD partners. For example, research by the Australian Bureau of Statistics has estimated that around 40 per cent of Australian homes have no insulation, making them more expensive to heat and more expensive to cool.
The National Framework for Energy Efficiency identified potential energy savings of between 20 and 35 percent based on an average 4-year payback period.
Improving energy efficiency will require greater information provision, greater investment in research and development, and ensuring that there are adequate incentives to embrace efficiency measures. Business leadership is especially important in this area.
The third item on the Government's list of next priorities is to address the equity and distributional consequences of acting on climate change.
We can't hide from the fact that there is a cost associated with acting on climate change.
We know that energy costs will rise. As the former Prime Minister said last year:
"I think everybody should accept that, over time, things like electricity will become more expensive, as, over time, water will become more expensive, and there's not much point anybody saying otherwise..."
(Lateline 5 February 2007)
While acting on climate change will increase some prices, the costs of acting responsibly now are far less than the costs of continued neglect.
We will therefore ensure there are measures to help families adjust to rising costs.
That is why we have already begun investing in programs that help families take practical action at home to reduce their energy bills.
Australia's response to climate change requires the participation of the whole community. Our capacity to respond effectively will be diminished unless we respond as a nation.
Public sector, private and community sectors.
Households and industry.
State and Territory and Federal governments.
All governments, all sectors of the economy.
And across the political divide as well.
When we held the Climate Change Summit just over a year ago here in Parliament House, I quoted Californian Governor Schwarzenegger's description of climate change as the first great ‘post-partisan political issue'.
As Senator John McCain confirmed in a major speech in the past week, all three presidential candidates in the United States have ambitious targets for reducing emissions. Similarly, both sides of the political debate in the United Kingdom strongly support tough action on climate change.
Just as I said this to the Liberal Party in government, I now say the same to the Liberal Party in opposition: Climate change should not be another political football.
We must avoid the temptations of short-term politics and the usual scare campaigns.
Climate change requires serious debate - and a serious resolve to act before the cost to those who follow us becomes too great.
We should make every effort to work in a spirit of bipartisanship to forge a long-term consensus on Australia's response to climate change so that the investor community can make long-term investments in low carbon energy infrastructure with confidence.
Of course there will be differing, competing and sometimes conflicting views on some aspects of policy, but the policy debate should be conducted within a joint commitment to Australia's long-term national interests, and framed within the economic cost of action versus inaction.
The Australian community is much more interested in those of us who serve in this Parliament working together to find solutions.
They also expect businesses to provide leadership on climate change - in their own power consumption, their investment policies and across all of their business activities.
I appreciate the work that the Forum is doing to promote that kind of long-term thinking.
The Government shares the belief that rising to the challenge of climate change is among our greatest obligations to future generations.
I wish you the very best as the Forum continues tomorrow, and I look forward to working together on the challenges ahead.