Working Together to Achieve Net Zero - Speech to the Australia New Zealand Leadership Forum

Tēnā koutou katoa.

Thank you all for your warm welcome. 

The climate crisis is not just the greatest challenge of our time.

It is the greatest challenge of all time.

At no point in the history of the human species have we been confronted with a crisis that has an impact on the lives of every single member of that species.

It is a crisis that affects us separately and collectively.

And it affects us at every level we operate.

As individuals, households, businesses, cities… and countries.

The remarkable relationship between our two countries has, in the past, been defined by empire, trade, war, independence, sport, migration, and so on.

But in the future, our relationship will be defined increasingly by the state of our planet.

And the state of the planet will define every aspect of the relationship – trade, war, sport, migration and so on.

How we work together, across the Tasman, to reach our common net zero goals – in this critical decade – will define everything else we do together in the future.

So, with that in mind, I have three thoughts I’d like contribute to the conversation today:

• The opportunity
• How we best work together
• The future

The climate crisis may be the single greatest threat to our people, but like any disruptor, great change brings great opportunity.

We have seen before that times of crisis can often speed up certain necessary processes that are already taking place.

We have Governments that are aligned on climate change policy for the first time in years.

Just last month Australia and New Zealand brought our two Climate and Finance Ministers together in an historic first.

This brings us an unprecedented opportunity.

We agreed that the greatest risk to each of our transitions is if we find ourselves in competition with each other and with others.

We’re both buying offshore wind turbines from the same people. Same with solar panels. EVs. Infrastructure.

On the other hand, the greatest opportunity for both of our transitions is that increased cooperation will help both of us scale up for the global marketplace.

So, building on the forty-year history of Closer Economic Relations, we have signed up to exploring how we can work together on clean technology, access to global supply chains, EV production, and regulatory compatibility.

And, I should mention, we want these combined efforts to create a halo effect throughout the Pacific and a ripple effect out to the wider world beyond.

This brings me to my second point, which is about how we work together…

We have a long history of collaboration.

Eighty years of official trans-Tasman diplomatic representation and 40 years of CER.

We work together globally, in our region and we also work together to help accelerate our individual domestic transitions.

Globally, there are many examples of where we work well together, especially as active partners in the Pacific.

For example, New Zealand‘s support of Australia’s bid to host COP31 and the vision for a “Pacific COP”, in partnership with the Pacific.

This would serve three purposes:

• Amplify the Pacific voice
• Knowledge exchange
• Showcasing our green business potential

COP is world’s largest international event after the Olympics.

Think about that for a moment.

And we’re increasingly seeing a kind of trade fair dynamic, alongside the formal negotiations.

In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if, in the future, the trade fair became the main event, with the intergovernmental negotiations taking a back seat.

We want to be able to leverage the opportunity and work with Governments on shared problems like energy security, with renewable and clean tech solutions.

New Zealand is also a member of the High Ambition Coalition, and the Cartagena Dialogue.

In regional settings,  these fora we work closely with other international partners advocating for higher ambition from major emitters.

In terms of regional settings, a stable prosperous region supports security, economic opportunity, and resilience for our businesses.

This is why we are;

• Supporting climate finance in the Pacific, like the Kiwa biodiversity initiative, that aims to build resilience through Nature-based Solutions.
• And why we’re working on regional priority issues like the loss and damage fund.

This is the agreement to provide funding for vulnerable communities dealing with the devastating impacts of climate change, a defining achievement of COP27.

In Sharm El Sheik, New Zealand was one of first countries to commit a dedicated $20 million to loss and damage.

And Australia is now on The Loss and Damage Transitional Committee.

And thank you for that. You’re taking one for the team on that front!

The other thing is that working together can actually help each of us with our domestic transitions.

The Australia-New Zealand Climate & Finance Ministers meeting last month saw both governments committing to working together on:

• Aligning sustainable finance frameworks
• Developing clear metrics for risk, and the benefits of investing in resilience
• Supporting the development of internationally aligned Guarantee of Origin Schemes, including the potential adoption of Australia's GO Scheme in New Zealand.

For business this brings three benefits, namely:

• Seamlessness: providing cohesion and clarity across our two jurisdictions
• Staying Informed: helping businesses to make strategic decisions
• Integrity: Enabling businesses to make credible low-emissions claims. We need to make it easier for big investors to do the right thing and make good, informed choices.

Decarbonising at the scale and pace needed obviously requires both public and private sector to work together.

That’s – just as obviously – easier said than done, given the history of the public and private sectors working together.

But that history, spotty as it is, is no reason to stop trying.

In fact, we should redouble our efforts to make it work.

One recent example here is the co-investment partnership we announced with NZ Steel, known in Australia as Bluescope.

When that gets up and running, in about 2027, that’s 800,000 tonnes of pollution that will not be going into the atmosphere every single year.

That’s one percent of our total gross emissions.

Working with the private sector to reduce costs – and risks – for industry is key to both of our transitions.

At the same time, we know New Zealand's and Australia’s economies and emitting industries are intertwined.

Working with Australia on things like the scheduling and resourcing of large projects – like, say, massive offshore windfarms – will be crucial to our success.

Which brings me to my final point, which is about how we are placed for securing a common net zero future?

Closer Economic Relations is forty years old.

Thinking forward to the next 40 years, there is much to build on.

• Market demand aggregation in areas like the production of EVs, charging networks, batteries, solar panel manufacturing.
• Access to global supply chains – especially good for countries that are at the bottom of the world.
• Improved know how when it comes to how we finance the transformation through to, and beyond, net zero.
• Sharing ideas in areas like risk management, governance, science.
• First nations, indigenous engagement and regional support

As I said at the start of my comments, the climate crisis will increasingly affect every single aspect of the remarkable relationship between our two countries, whether that’s sport, trade, regional security and development, etcetera.

But how we work together to face the climate crisis can bring new worlds of opportunity to all of those aspects of our relationship.

In summary, our relationship is unique. We have a single market.  Together we can be bigger than the sum of our parts.

The more we use our joint might to innovate and get ahead of the curve, the better off everyone will be.

We are already learning a lot from each other. We must continue.

It is often said that the climate crisis is the omni-threat.

It is a force multiplier that makes every other threat we face, so much greater.

I would argue that by forging ‘even closer economic relations’ over the next forty years than we have in the past forty years, Australia and New Zealand can also be force multipliers in the response to that crisis.

And that gives us a shooting chance of defeating it.

Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.