Melbourne
PM: Can I thank Daniel Grollo for having us here today, and it's obviously a great pleasure for me to be here with Secretary of State Clinton and with our ambassadors, both the US Ambassador to Australia, Ambassador Bleich, and of course our very old friend and our Ambassador to the United States Kim Beazley.
And we are here today to talk about how we jointly are working on and facing up to the challenge of tackling climate change, and as Daniel has explained, there could be no better place to have this discussion than in this remarkable building, where the wind turbines up on the roof that we've just seen were invented here in Victoria, in fact they're from Bendigo. And the living roof features local grass species, and the information technology that runs throughout this building manages all of the systems, the carpet, the photo-voltaic roof arrangement which was manufactured in the United States.
So this building in and of itself is a partnership of Australian products and American products.
Of course as a Government we are strongly committed to investing in renewable energy and that's why we've set the renewable we've set the renewable energy target of 20 per cent by 2020. And the very setting of that target is expected to drive $19 billion in investment, and we've further allocated $5.1 billion to our clean energy initiative to drive further innovation.
We're also committed to deliver to the Australian people a number of new energy initiatives, including implementing standards for new coal fired power stations and extending the energy efficiency opportunities program to electricity generators.
We're going to set mandatory CO2 standards for light vehicles and we're going to implement tax breaks for green buildings. We are of course going to continue to pursue our efforts to put a price on carbon in our economy.
Australian and the United States have a long and productive history of working in partnership in areas that will shape the future including on clean energy. Recently we've enhanced our collaboration in the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute, and I want to acknowledge that we announced that new initiative when Ambassador Bleich and I had the opportunity to travel to Gorgon on Barrow Island in the far north west of our country.
We've earmarked a number of Fulbright scholarships for specific research in the field of climate and clean energy research and I'd acknowledge our friends that have joined up from Fulbright today.
And we've created a new joint committee on science and technology to identify new areas for collaborative research on clean energy, energy efficiency and climate research.
Today I'm very pleased, with Secretary of State Clinton, to be able to announce a further step, a major new initiative that builds on these joint efforts between our two nations.
Australia and the United States have agreed a new solar research collaboration initiative. Now I think we all know that solar power has significant potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide the clean energy we need for the future.
One of the greatest barriers to a broader commercial take-up of solar power is its cost, and that is specifically what this joint research initiative will address. The price of solar technology has come down in recent years but we need to accelerate that trend. The joint project, with the United States, is part of an aggressive effort to bring the sales price of solar technology down by two to four times, down to the point where the price of electricity from solar is comparable to electricity generated from conventional sources.
Now this is an ambitious goal, but anyone who has stood under the Australian sun, even here in Melbourne where sometimes we see and sometimes we don't, knows how much we stand to gain in we can do this.
So the Australian Government will commit new funding of up to $50 million for this initiative to be managed by the Australian Solar Institute. This builds on the work of the Australian Solar Institute which is already driving collaboration, focussed research and development that will have a major impact on the efficiency and cost effectiveness of solar technologies.
That will support research and development collaboration with the United States, including through a number of foundation projects. We will be concentrating on solar power technologies, the research is expected to look at advanced solar technologies, such as dual-junction photo-voltaic devices, hot-carrier solar cells and high-temperature receivers, all likely to be part of our future.
The United States also has a very strong solar energy research program and this new initiative will build on existing expertise from both of our countries. These joint efforts will ensure that we lead the way in development and supply of the most competitive solar technologies at the most reasonable price.
In conclusion can I take this opportunity to thank the US Government and Secretary Clinton for their continued commitment to investment in technology that is essential to a clean energy future.
Thank you very much.
SECRETARY OF STATE CLINTON: Well good afternoon. We just had a wonderful lunch and I think speaking for myself I'm still back relishing the break in the schedule and having fun in Melbourne.
Let me start by thanking the Prime Minister for her leadership on this really important issue, it's obviously important for Australia but it's important as a global commitment and we look forward to working with her on this and so many other matters.
Daniel Grollo thank you for having us at this amazing example of what can be done when contractors, developers, construction companies, owners, get together and decide to make the investments that will pay off in clean energy, in this case, zero carbon buildings.
I also want to acknowledge Lyndell Wilson, the acting Executive Director of the Australian Fulbright Commission, Nick Otter the CEO of Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute and Wayne Kemp, district General Manager of Honeywell.
I've had an extraordinary trip through Asia over the last two weeks, I don't think there is a more important event that I've participated in than this one. To speak about our efforts on climate change and clean technology at a building that represents the future. This building, thanks to Grocon's commitment, brought together your country's most creative minds to create a building with ingenious energy saving features. It puts energy back into the power grid from its wind turbines and its solar panels, it has a living roof that we just saw, that cuts cooling costs. It uses mainly rainwater and filters its own waste water through beds of reeds to reduce the run-off it sends into the sewers.
Now I am sure that many Australians and frankly Americans and others will be studying the Pixel building example. Certainly the State Department will want to send our experts to delve into greater specificity with you because we are committed to building environmentally sustainable embassies all over the world. So this sets an example, unfortunately it's unique and in the world we are trying to create we want it to be typical, standard, routine, that buildings do what this one does in terms of efficiency.
We really have very little time to make our buildings, which are massive users of inefficient greenhouse gas produced energy, more in line of what we are seeking. We need innovations like the ones we see here to generate renewable energy and manufacture goods without polluting our air and water, and these tools need to be affordable and available in every country.
So we need to start a global clean tech industry and that will help our economies grow by creating tens of thousands of new jobs and give us viable alternatives to fossil fuels and reduce our dependence of foreign sources of energy. I think that the United States and Australia working together can be pioneers of this movement and I'm excited that we are joining forces, taking our sophisticated research and energy abilities and putting them together for this purpose. We each have brilliant scientists working on problems like capturing carbon, increasing food production, developing more efficient technologies and I think both the people of Australia and America don't want to see more bickering about what should be done to reduce carbon emissions, they want to see action and the Prime Minister and I are here today to say we are committed to action.
I know that the Cancun conference is coming up soon to build on what happened at Copenhagen. I am one who believed strongly that we accomplished less than what we should have at Copenhagen but we did come out with an agreement and we're committed to working with our partners around the world, particularly the Government of Australia, to ensure that we make progress again at Cancun.
And so rather than just waiting for global agreements, we have decided between our two Governments to take steps on our own.
First we are launching, as the Prime Minister said, a new solar energy research collaboration. We have a common goal of making solar energy competitive with conventional sources by the middle of this decade, 2015. The good news is that the price of photo-voltaic modules has dropped about 50 per cent in the past three years, but to meet our goal we have to drive the price down even more.
I can remember when the first cell-phones came out, you know they weighed as much as a brick, they were very expensive and look at now where we have advanced to because we made it a goal that the result would be cell-phone technology available universally and we now have 4.6 billion cell-phones in the world. Well under this initiative our two Governments will share both the cost and the benefits of research and development, which will speed up innovation.
Second we are stepping up our joint efforts to make it commercially viable to capture and store greenhouse gasses. I'm pleased to announce that the State Department will provide a new $500,000 grant to the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute which is co-funded by the Australian Government.
This new funding will help promote carbon capture and storage in developing countries, it will pay for a global survey to identify the most promising technologies for reusing carbon dioxide. For instance by turning it into materials that can be used for roads or buildings, or into liquid fuel that can power cars or generate electricity, and our support for this Institute demonstrates we want to make sure that the best ideas get the funding they deserve.
Third we're expanding one of the world's best educational programs, the Fulbright Scholarships. We're creating a special focus on climate change. Over the next three years Australia and the United States will fund up to 15 additional scholars to work specifically on climate change and clean energy. We hope these clean tech Fulbright Scholars will do some of the work that advances our understanding of climate change and leads to new commercially viable solutions.
Fourth we are expanding our collaborations on science and technology across all the difference agencies of our Government, to make sure that our efforts dovetail together we will convene a science and technology joint commission meeting in Washington in February. We want to make sure that in both the United States and Australia, we're getting the best return on taxpayer's investments in these new technologies.
Now I think what you're seeing here this afternoon is a recognition by both of our Governments and the people of our two countries that in the 21st century no single country will be able to address these environmental challenges on its own. We need partnerships now more than ever, we need all the talent and the capital we can muster and I cannot imagine a better partner than Australia in building the kind of green clean and prosperous future that we want and deserve.
So Prime Minister thank you for leading this effort here in Australia and for all that you are doing. We look forward to working with you.
Now I think we're going to answer a couple of questions?
PM: We are going to answer a couple of questions.
JOURNALIST: Madame Secretary I have a question for you, it's Sabra Lane from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. President Obama's comments abandoning the emissions trading scheme, have been seized on by the Opposition here, they say that the Prime Minister should follow that lead and abandon it here. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on that. Many commentators believe that that decision will now have an impact right around the world, with other countries deciding to ditch emissions trading scheme as a means of bringing down carbon emissions. Is that your view and if so, is it government regulation or a carbon tax that will be the best way of reducing emissions?
CLINTON: First let me start by saying that I think what President Obama said the other day was a statement of the reality that we face politically in the United States Congress. As you may know the President was successful in passing a cap and trade system through the United States House of Representatives, we were not successful in getting that considered by the Senate.
Given the changes of the mid-term election and the fact that in our system if you don't have action on pending legislation by the end of the Congress with ends this coming January, then you have to start over, and so the President is still very committed to the United States addressing climate change, making investments in clean energy and we will be looking at a range of options to take, including as you point out the regulatory route, which we've already been doing in concert with the legislative route.
I don't think that President Obama's statement is meant to describe anything other than what is happening inside the United States. Obviously decisions in Australia are up to the Government of Australia and the people of Australia, but what we are absolutely clear eyed about is our commitment to addressing climate change and its affects. So we're going to keep moving forward, and we're going to come up with approaches that we think will work, some of them regulatory, some of them supporting the kind of clean building initiative that we see here, some of them through legislation.
PM: I think we are taking a question from our American friends, yes?
JOURNALIST: Hi, this is a question for both of you. I know that trade is on the agenda and you've been talking about it. I want to ask about that in light of the recent terror scare prompted by the packages that were mailed from Yemen. Do you think there should be tighter restrictions on international shipping by air or by sea, and if so how do you manage that and not put a crimp on economic growth?
PM: Well I'm happy to answer that for Australia's behalf. What we would say is that we are very committed to free trade, we have an open trading economy, we're very committed to seeing the world continue to make progress on trade liberalisation and at the forthcoming G20 the future and level of ambition of the Doha round will obviously be under discussion.
With the scare from Yemen, I believe the solution is not in turning our backs on trade, we've got to have free and open trade, we also need to have the adequate screening and security that makes sure that that trade is safe. For Australia we immediately moved to a new screening regime, we don't have direct carbon shipments from Yemen, so we were screening 100 per cent of cargo coming through ports like Dubai for the immediate days that follow. We have now instituted the kind of protocols that are being followed around the world for screening arrangements.
So yes it has changed levels of security, but that's the appropriate response. Turning our back on free trade is not the appropriate response.
CLINTON: I agree completely.