Apparently, there’s a fun meme that young people like to throw around from time to time as they face the cost of living crisis – it’s “Where’s the money, Lebowski?”. You can watch the relevant clip from this silly film and have a laugh. (Google it!)
But it’s not just young people who face material challenges as the material progress made over the past decades halts or goes into reverse.
It’s the majority. Ask the pollsters. Especially those who are now eyeing off the probability of a minority Labor government in Canberra by mid year or a change of government.
Gone is the steady rise of environmental issues to the top of political concerns we’ve seen in the past few years. The pendulum has thudded back from its dizzy heights of “peak respect” for others and climate, wiping out years – and in some cases centuries – of struggle.
Where the pendulum ends up is anyone’s guess. (Though many people right now hope compulsory voting will prevent that unpredictable pendulum from taking us out to the nether regions.)
Many are forecasting, hoping, and advising on preventative action.
Up on stage on Tuesday at the Committee for Sydney’s annual shindig to “set the agenda” for the year ahead was a cross section of wise heads to share their contribution to the debate.
Among them was Matt Kean, chair of the Climate Change Authority, and one of our favourite champions for climate and sustainability. We like Kean almost precisely because he’s one of the few pollies who’ve crossed the big political divides for the sake of our people and our planet.
He demonstrates the enormous power we can unleash to tackle our existential challenges if we work together. (This is just pure logic, right? And there’s evidence through history that it works.)
On Tuesday, Kean reminded us of the potential.
“Bipartisan support for clean energy is possible,” he told the nearly 500 people in the room.
When he was treasurer, NSW legislated the “biggest renewable energy policy in the nation’s history” with “multipartisan support”.
“We built a coalition with Labor, the independents, the Greens – everyone in parliament voted for the biggest economic driving policy in the state’s history – apart from Mark Latham and One Nation. Quite frankly, if they don’t like it, it shows how good our policies are.”
Kean is fearless about speaking his mind – calling out the failure of the federal opposition’s nuclear plan.
“Let me summarise the argument against nuclear energy. It’s too expensive. It takes too long. And it delivers too little electricity.
“It is going to hurt our investment that’s flowing into the country to build the new generation, storage and the capacity that we need to replace our coal fired power stations today. Not in 20 years time. TODAY.”
“We built a coalition with Labor, the independents, the Greens – everyone in parliament voted for the biggest economic driving policy in the state’s history – apart from Mark Latham and One Nation. Quite frankly, if they don’t like it, it shows how good our policies are.”
Policies are in place and renewable energy is accelerating
The pace of renewable energy is accelerating exponentially, he said, “with the policies that have been put in place at the various state levels and the national level, that will only accelerate further.
“There’s no alternative. We are racing against time – it’s time to install, to replace our aging coal fired power stations. You can extend these coal power stations [but] that doesn’t make them more reliable. That’s the reality.
“Anyone talking about other technologies is arguing for higher prices and an economically damaging policy.”
- Matt Kean will headline our first monthly Leaders Forums on 4 March at Greenhouse in Sydney (first Tuesday of the month) alongside another star in the green transition space, Martijn Wilder of Pollination. Moderator Rachel Alembakis of U ethical, will bring her expertise to dig deep into the impact and resilience of the US and global ructions under way, how they open new opportunities elsewhere and what they will mean for Australia. Will the positive climate policies in place now be resilient enough to withstand a new potential change in government?
Climate impacts
Moderator Sam Kernaghan, director of resilience at the Committee for Sydney, brought the conversation home to the built environment.
The devastating LA fires had made adaptation to climate change “increasingly on the table”.
It affected property owners and investors as well as infrastructure and service providers.
These are the people whose responsibility it is to avoid stranded assets and stranded communities.
But also, whose job it is to identify economic opportunity in the climate transition, Kernaghan said.
Density
Kiersten Fishburn, NSW Secretary, Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure, saidthe way to balance and mitigate climate risk was greater density.
“Undeniably, it is more challenging to build and mitigate in our greenfield areas just because of where they are. We’re in a great big basin with a lot of water and a lot of green that can burn.
“The more you focus on densifying areas you already have, the greater your ability to be able to mitigate against the risks because they’re areas that are already known, where local government or the state government have already made sure that those risks are built out.
“You are also protecting the environment because you’re not spreading out so far.”
At the same time, she and housing minister Paul Scully were keen to also protect choice in housing. Most valuable, however, was to provide for larger, family friendly apartments.
Kernaghan asked how the state’s net zero targets reflect the urgency to reduce global heating and maintain global economic competitiveness.
Fishburn said the state had approved just over a gigawatt of renewable energy and that the technical aspects of planning were improving.
The timeframe forrenewable energy assessments was now down to “well under 100 days” but it is well to understand that “the planning decisions you make can have decades or sometimes centuries worth of consequences.
“It’s a cautious balance between how you do those things.
“One of the things that we do reflect on in renewable energy is that, while we’re powering metropolitan Sydney, predominantly it is regional communities who are taking the majority of renewable projects, or who are transitioning out of coal.
There was a challenge “to balance out renewables and biodiversity”, she said.
Young people
Another big and increasingly important voice in the debate on our climate challenge is the critical demographic group of our young people.
Grace Vegesana, national director of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, said the mood in her patch was not good.
“I’ve definitely seen young people anxious about the state of the world, not just climate change, but the way it intersects and interacts with everything else in our world.
“Young people are increasingly frustrated and disenfranchised with the capacity for us to work together as a nation to accelerate the solution that we need, but also to stop fossil fuels, to stop and mitigate the problem at its root source.”
She noted that the notional deadline of 2030 was now less than five years away but that young people “hold and protect the right to have hope.
“We don’t have much of a choice; we want to believe that we can inherit the future where young people are leading and thriving and able to live the lives that they want to live.”
Show me the money!
For the broader audience though the more immediate concern of economics and cost was dominant.
Given the choice of questions, they preferred to be posed to the political panel later during the morning, tariffs dominated. Perhaps showing an alignment of the corporate world with the rising cost of living concerns of the young and that poor dude Lebowski.
On stage was former New South Wales premier Bob Carr, former US Ambassador Arthur Sinodinos and chair of SEC Newgate, pollster Brian Tyson.
“We don’t have much of a choice; we want to believe that we can inherit the future where young people are leading and thriving and able to live the lives that they want to live.”
Sinodinos, another (former) conservative pollie was, like Kean, plain speaking in discussing Donald Trump in the White House. We needed to “take him at his word”, Sinodinos said.
“I’ve been saying this for a while now, as have others with characters like this. They’ll throw this stuff out there. If they can do it. They will. So, I think people have just got to work on the basis that if he threatens to do X or Y, he will do it to get his way.
“Now you think I’m being hyperbolic, but he uses this language, and he thinks like this. Have you seen the way Trumpsters have taken on the federal government through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) I’ve never seen a more concerted and ruthless attempt to restructure “a public sector”.
(Opposition leader Peter Dutton has flagged in recent days that he also wants to introduce a DOGE if elected.)
And on the tariff retributions that might come from Canada or Mexico and already launched by China all Trump had to do was declare a win and his followers would see anything as a win, Sinodinos said.
Trump had flagged there might be “some pain out of this economic adjustment” but if he called it a win, this would be accepted.
“He once boasted that he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue, and his supporters would deny [it happened]. That’s essentially the mentality that we’re up against.”
These are mad days but the flip side of that is that surely, we now have a kind of implied “permission” or acceptance to ramp up our own brand of madness.
With any luck our “madness” can be the radical collaboration that speaks plainly, is fearless in the face of ideology that preys on the vulnerable forced to constantly ask where the money is, and gets stuff done.
Images: The Fifth Estate