Remarks by Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, the Hon Angus Taylor MP

Thank you to the IEA for convening this important and timely summit.

Australia welcomes the IEA’s focus on practical solutions.

It’s clear that international collaboration to accelerate the development of low emissions technologies is vital if we are to achieve net zero emissions globally.

The Australian Government is firmly committed to getting to net zero as soon as possible and preferably by 2050.

But ambition is one thing – action and achievements are what matter.

That’s why our focus is very much on the “how”.

Australia is deploying renewable energy at ten times the global per person average.

We now have the most solar per person of any country in the world, and the most wind and solar per person of any country outside of Europe.

That investment isn’t driven by subsidies or deployment targets – it is being driven by rapid cost reductions in renewable energy.

We now need to repeat that success across the next round of new and emerging technologies, like storage, carbon capture, green steel and green aluminium.

Australia’s Technology Investment Roadmap, developed last year, is a plan to get these and other technologies, like hydrogen, to cost parity with existing approaches.

The Australian Government will invest more than $18 billion in low emissions technologies over the decade to 2030, and our leadership is expected to drive at least $50 billion in new co-investment by the private sector and other levels of government.

The goals we've set for each technology are very specific.

Take hydrogen, for example. We're targeting getting the cost of clean hydrogen under AUD$2 per kilogram. 

We know at that level, it will be competitive as an energy source for industry, power, heat generation, and so on.

Australia is a trusted energy supplier across the Indo-Pacific, and achieving our hydrogen goal will enable us to support our partners’ efforts to decarbonise while growing their economies.

We’re also collaborating on low emissions technologies with other key partners including Singapore, the US, Germany, Korea and the UK.

We particularly welcome the Biden Administration’s commitment to advancing new technologies that will reduce emissions and create economic prosperity.

The race to develop effective vaccines against COVID-19 shows what can be achieved when the world works together towards a common goal.

In the lead up to COP26, it is vital that countries work together to get low emissions technologies to parity.

Removing the green premium – the price difference between current technologies and low or zero carbon solutions – is the key to widespread global adoption.

This will make reducing emissions practically achievable for all countries.

Finally, it’s my pleasure to announce that Australia will be contributing AUD$1 million to the Clean Energy Transitions Program.

Australia is proud to support this program – and the IEA – as a forum to discuss and invest in the development of practical solutions to the world’s great policy challenges.

Thank you.