Comment

Thom Woodroofe and
John Grimes
Australia’s moment for climate leadership

The federal government is on the cusp of two significant moments regarding Australia’s climate ambition. If this nation is to chart a course to becoming a clean energy and green exports superpower over the coming decade and beyond, it must be prepared to seize both opportunities.

The first is Australia’s upcoming 2035 emissions reduction target under the Paris Agreement, which is due by the time the prime minister travels to New York at the end of the month. The second is next year’s COP31 United Nations climate conference, if this country’s bid to host it is approved. Both will test Australia’s ambition as a nation in tackling this profound existential challenge.

As Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen likes to say, the new emissions target needs to be both “ambitious and achievable”.

It also needs to be attractive enough to deliver the kind of investment we need as a renewable energy sector – a sector with about three-quarters of its investment in large-scale infrastructure flowing from overseas.

As things stand, renewables are essential to achieving Australia’s current 2030 target to reduce emissions by 43 per cent on 2005 levels. This next set of reductions will be much harder to achieve, coming as they must from hard-to-abate sectors and in an era of severe supply chain disruption and risk. The government’s new policy platforms, such as Future Made in Australia, aim to make these reductions possible while at the same time driving productivity gains, but renewables will be key and relying on gas is a gamble.

To become a renewable energy and green industrial export superpower, Australia will also need the kind of deals the prime minister’s trip to China in July helped to advance. Such deals could transform Australia’s economy from one based on exporting iron ore and fossil fuels to one based on producing green iron, green ammonia, with Australia becoming an exporter of clean energy to the Asia-Pacific.

Australia is competing for investment in renewables – and the green industries that stem from this – with every other country in the world that has a net zero target. In many cases, they have even greater ambition over the short term. Take the United Kingdom, which late last year set a target to reduce emissions by 81 per cent by 2035.

While Australia’s national interest is what matters most when it comes to setting targets, the international context also matters.

The Climate Council, in partnership with Climate Resource, suggests that for Australia to deliver a target in line with the global effort to keep average temperature increases within the Paris Agreement’s temperature limits – as the recent landmark opinion by the International Court of Justice implores – emissions must be cut by at least 75 per cent on 2005 levels by 2035. Business leaders have been galvanising around the same number, backed by a Deloitte study that says this is the lowest-cost pathway to reaching net zero by 2050. This is similar to what many of our Pacific Island neighbours have been calling for – leaders with whom Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will come face to face at the annual forum in Solomon Islands next week.

Australia’s 2035 target will also be the lens through which the rest of the global community judges Australian action – especially given the recent approval of the heavily polluting North West Shelf gas project extension.

The decision due by November on whether Australia or Türkiye will host COP31 in 2026 could change the course of Australian climate leadership well beyond 2035.

COPs have been derided as talkfests that ultimately do nothing for the planet. But hosting a COP would put Australia in the driver’s seat of global action on climate change and clean energy for at least a year. While the technical negotiations too often deliver incremental and sometimes ineffective outcomes, COPs are now much bigger than these negotiations. Ambitious hosts explore ways to go beyond the official negotiating mandates and framework of national targets to deliver landmark results.

So, what exactly could an ambitious agenda for COP31 look like?

First, Australia could build on its extraordinary record of solar panel innovation – it has the highest penetration of rooftop solar in the world and is progressing with household batteries – to spur the global uptake.

Australia could also build momentum towards a future landmark agreement to tackle methane emissions from oil and gas, agriculture and waste. This alone could wipe 0.3 degrees Celsius off global temperature increases and save US$6 trillion a year in climate-related damage in the process.

COP31 could also champion new packages and platforms to achieve 100 per cent renewable energy across the Pacific islands. This would help these small governments rid themselves of the huge cost of importing fossil fuels – sometimes up to a quarter of their GDP – freeing up revenues and easing their debt burden.

In Asia, there is clearly a big deal to be done with China on green iron if Australia can get the commercial realities and investment settings right. With about 8 per cent of the world’s emissions coming from steelmaking, this could be a game changer globally.

Turning to South-East Asia, Australia can help to advance a decades-long effort to improve the interconnectivity of electricity grids, especially in ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. This will increase demand for Australian renewable energy exports, including via subsea cables, as is being pioneered with Singapore.

It is Australia’s domestic commitments, however, that will be the true test of its worth as the host of COP31.

Already the international community and civil society are laser-focused on Australia’s fossil fuel exports and making COP31 a line in the sand. Just this week, the government approved the expansion of the Glencore Ulan thermal coalmine. In contrast, many Pacific nations have helped establish a new Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. Australia will need to find a way to match this with an equally profound response.

A moratorium on new exploration and expansion approvals could be a vital first step. It would halt further approvals of high-emissions projects, set a benchmark for staged reduction, and demonstrate to both domestic constituencies and international partners that Australia is serious about aligning its exports with a zero-carbon future – while helping channel more capital towards the development of our green-export industries.

The good news is Australia has a long history of making a difference on the world stage. The ban on mining in Antarctica is one example, as is the whole concept of nationally determined targets and the global temperature limit. We helped make these ideas a reality.

Which is why, even with a short runway to host, it would be a waste to deliver a path-of-least-resistance event. Minister Bowen has said next year’s must be “an implementation COP” – or better yet, an action COP.

If Australia is named COP31 host in the coming months, we may have only 12 months to pull off what will be the largest diplomatic event we have ever hosted, by a country mile, and the largest green trade fair anywhere in the world.

Australia will need a centrally managed whole-of-government and whole-of-society mobilisation to make it a success, including delivering for Pacific neighbours.

Thankfully, preparations are already under way. Cabinet has agreed on a number of overarching themes and priorities for the COP, and the government remains in talks with the Pacific about how its proposed partnership in hosting the event will work.

Criticisms about the cost of hosting are misplaced. A Smart Energy Council study from last year estimated the potential return on investment, based on the UK’s example of hosting COP26 in 2021, would be almost double the outlay. That’s due to a plethora of opportunities for new investment and exports that the host country will be in a position to leverage. The South Australian government says the immediate cash injection for the state alone would be in the order of half a billion dollars. The council will soon release a report outlining the priorities for an ambitious COP31 agenda globally, regionally and domestically, including those mentioned here.

According to the Lowy Institute, Australians already overwhelmingly support this country’s hosting of COP31. So, too, does the UN constituency that must decide on the host. The only questions now are can Australia secure this once-in-a-generation opportunity and then make the most of it? In the meantime, the nation needs a clear and ambitious domestic plan to reduce emissions dramatically over the course of the next decade.

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on September 6, 2025 as "The moment for climate leadership".

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