STEVE AUSTIN: Well by now you know the news, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has confirmed he'll take a 2050 target to the Glasgow Climate Change Conference, but the 2030 target will remain the same. Prime Minister Morrison has committed to investing in regional Australia to ensure it's protected during the transition period. The Government's plan, essentially net zero means the amount of carbon dioxide Australia is removing from the atmosphere will have to be the same as or more than the amount we admit. The plan is $20 billion of low emission technologies in the next 10 years, soil carbon sequestration, carbon capture and storage, and production of low emission steel. There's also a plan for using clean hydrogen. Angus Taylor is the Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction. Angus Taylor, thanks for coming on this afternoon. I know you're filling in for someone else, so I appreciate it.

ANGUS TAYLOR: It's a pleasure, Steve. Thanks for having me.

STEVE AUSTIN: So what will this plan do differently from the previously announced position that you took to Paris six years ago, the COP21 position? How is this in any way different?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, because it's over the long term. We're focussed on 2050 here. And this is an opportunity for us to think hard and get the policy settings right, and it has been for some time, to get the policy settings right for the long term. The focus traditionally has been just over the next decade. What we're doing here is saying no, we need to focus not just on the next decade, but over the next 30 years.

STEVE AUSTIN: Isn't that too slow? The critics are pointing out that this is in almost contradiction of the Paris Agreement because it requires countries to quote, represent your highest possible ambition, unquote. In other words, that's the concern that it's not enough.

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, we're doing both. I mean, we announced today that our projections are now telling us that we're going to get up to 35 per cent reduction on our 2005 levels by 2030. So we're improving all the time, our position on our 2030 targets, as we did with 2020, our Kyoto targets, which we met and beat very substantially and so we are for 2030, but we've got to think longer term as well because we have to invest now in the technologies that allow us to decarbonise those really critical industries, whether it's the aluminium industry, the steel industry, agriculture, which you mentioned in the introduction, transport. Those investments today will be decisive in determining whether our emissions come down to net zero by 2050. So the focus on both the shorter term and the longer term is appropriate. It's welcome. That’s the plan we've put out today is an Australian approach to not just meeting and beating our 2030 targets, which we will, but to laying out how we can bring down emissions over the coming three decades to achieve net zero.

STEVE AUSTIN: Ever since Kevin Rudd was Prime Minister, I've heard people say carbon capture and storage is going to do this, but I don't know of any project or engineer working on a project that says we've successfully done it yet.

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, that's not right. There are 60 projects around the world, 30 of which are now in operation.

STEVE AUSTIN: They're all trial projects, though aren't they?

ANGUS TAYLOR: No, no. That's not right. That's not right.

STEVE AUSTIN: Is there one single one in Australia?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Yes.

STEVE AUSTIN: Where?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Gorgon is a very significant project that's now sequestering close to four million tonnes a year of emissions. So we're seeing this ramp up at a rapid rate. Joe Biden in the United States has said he's going to double down on carbon capture and storage. Many of those 60 projects are happening in Texas and Louisiana, in the south east of the United States.

STEVE AUSTIN: Any in Queensland that you know of, Minister?

ANGUS TAYLOR: No. But there's many planned and we see great potential. Moomba, just outside of Queensland, obviously will be the first one onshore in Australia, and Santos is working on that now and we expect to see them in the Surat Basin is very well suited to it. The Latrobe Valley down in Victoria, there's projects, CarbonNet, which is which is moving forward now. So this is one of many. 

STEVE AUSTIN: Sure. But carbon capture and storage seems like the long shot, the long shot of all long shots.

ANGUS TAYLOR: It's not. It's not a long shot at all. I mean, it's happening.

STEVE AUSTIN: Okay.

ANGUS TAYLOR: There's a lot of mythology around this, and I hear it in some media circles. It's just not right. It's not factual.

STEVE AUSTIN: Alright, next question. Next question, is nuclear power part of your strategy?

ANGUS TAYLOR: It's not and you know, we've got a moratorium on nuclear right now. Now, look, it is true that around the world there is investment going into a new type of nuclear reactor called a small modular reactor. We're watching that very closely but right now there would need to be bipartisanship for technology like nuclear to be part of the solution and there isn't bipartisanship. So we're focussed on other technologies hydrogen, low emission, steel and aluminium I've mentioned, low cost storage. I mean, energy storage is going to be a huge part of the solution here, and we're investing in that heavily in Australia right now in projects like Snowy 2.

STEVE AUSTIN: Alright, now you're on hydrogen, your Government this year raised the luxury car threshold for fuel efficient vehicles. It now sits at just under $80,000. Will you remove it altogether for hydrogen and electric vehicles?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, that's not the way to get hydrogen electric vehicle uptake. 

STEVE AUSTIN: Making them cheaper is not a way to get uptake?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, no. The way that any of these technologies get cheaper is that they come down in costs through R&D investment over a long period of time. Let me give you an illustration of this. The cost of solar, where much of the R&D was driven out of Australia, particularly in the early years since the early 70s has come down 10 per cent a year every year and the result of that is, in the last decade, 90 per cent of the global solar installations happened in the last decade. The highest rate of uptake of household solar in the world has been in Australia. So what we see with these technologies is they come down in cost, and over time, they get to a point where they're cost-competitive and there's rapid uptake. Now we will see that with electric vehicles. We will see that with hydrogen vehicles. They're likely to serve different parts of the market. We're seeing it now with hybrid vehicles. Indeed, if you jump in an Uber, most of the Ubers now are hybrid vehicles, and they're much lower emissions than traditional vehicles, which is great news, but we'll see the same kind of pattern with electric vehicles.

STEVE AUSTIN: Scott Morrison has committed to investing in regional Australia to ensure that regional Australia is protected during the transition for the 2050 targets. Which regions? Which towns here in regional Queensland are likely to be adversely affected by your plan?

ANGUS TAYLOR: None.

STEVE AUSTIN: Well, the Prime Minister has already said that investing in regional Australia is part of the plan to protect it. So which ones is he talking about?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, the whole point is the plan will ensure that these places aren't worse off but it is true - and I think this is the point you're making - if I understand it correctly, is if we did nothing, there's no doubt that changing customer demand in places like Japan and Korea for our exports would have an impact on our regions. No question about that whatsoever. The whole point about this plan, though, is that we adapt what we're providing to our customers as their demands change. So we know, for instance, Japanese coal and gas-fired generators overtime want to take their emissions down. They've made that very clear and we can help them to do that with the production of hydrogen and ammonia. We're making the first shipment of liquid hydrogen up to Japan this year. It will happen very soon. We can produce clean ammonia in Queensland. In fact, it's very well suited to doing this and that will provide jobs. We know there's 62,000 jobs in mining and manufacturing, if we get this right, additional jobs and Queensland is extremely well-suited. Now, if you're in the Surat Basin, Toowoomba, if you're in Gladstone, or Mackay, or Townsville, all of these places have great potential because you've got natural resources. Very few countries have the breadth of natural resources we have, as well as the pre-existing relationships with those customers throughout Asia, the pre-existing supply chains that we've built. We know more about how to build those supply chains than any other country in the world. We've done in iron ore, in coal, in LNG and we can do it in hydrogen and ammonia. So that's the opportunity. Queensland is extremely well-positioned. That will bring down our emissions and bring down customer emissions and emissions throughout Asia. Remember, we need a global solution to this problem, and that's what our technology-led approach is seeking to do.

STEVE AUSTIN: Alright. Final question. Anywhere in your plan, where would I find a strategy to help those sort of regional places that were reliant on coal mining transition away over the sort of the next 25 years, in other words, sort of transitioning out of coal into new industries? Is there anywhere at all?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, I've just described exactly that. That's exactly what I was talking about. Now, we are not shutting our coal mines. We're not going to do that. We respect the choices customers make.

STEVE AUSTIN: So there is no transition away from coal?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, no, hang on. Hang on. Let's be very clear about this. The point I've made already is that customers' demands will change over time. The Japanese customers, Korean customers, we're not going to say to them we're going to stop selling your coal or gas.

STEVE AUSTIN: So, if demand falls, we'll be forced into it anyhow?

ANGUS TAYLOR: And demand will fall. There's no question. Their targets that they've set means that demand will fall over time. We're not going to pre-empt that. However, the point is that these regions can evolve. I mean, we're producing hydrogen now from gas in significant quantities in this country and from coal in the Latrobe Valley. We can do that. We can sequester the carbon dioxide in the right locations. We can produce hydrogen from renewables as well, and that technology is improving. It's still behind traditional hydrogen production, but it will come down in cost rapidly over the coming years. Queensland is extremely well suited to that. We've committed already over $1.1 billion to building our hydrogen industry, our hydrogen hubs, as well as sequestering carbon dioxide. Our agriculture sector has much to gain from this. So Queensland is extremely well positioned, but it needs a plan like this one that supports the evolution that will naturally happen as customers change their demand.

STEVE AUSTIN: I'm getting it. This is blowback saying that on carbon capture and storage, they want to see evidence of this. Can you give me the list, or send me the list afterwards?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Sure. I'm absolutely delighted to do that.

STEVE AUSTIN: Of where the successful programs of carbon capture and storage are in Australia?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is a global technology, but including in Australia, and Gorgon is the biggest in the world. We have the biggest carbon capture and storage project in the world here in Australia, but there are many projects around the world. And as I said, not on our side of politics, but Joe Biden over in the United States has said you'll  double down on it. So this is a technology that's part of the answer. It's only part of the answer, there's much more, but it's an important part.

STEVE AUSTIN: Thanks for coming on.

ANGUS TAYLOR: Good on you.

STEVE AUSTIN: Angus Taylor is the Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction.

ENDS