Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. What are the biggest challenges the GES project is working to solve?

   Efforts to accelerate the green energy transition face major policy, implementation, and political hurdles in increasingly polarised democracies like Australia. GES offers a new governance toolkit to help policymakers build the state capacity and social consensus needed for an effective and durable transition.

2. How does renewable energy strengthen national security?

   Comprehensively conceived, the green energy transition is a profound national security multiplier. It strengthens energy security by reducing fossil-fuel import dependence; enhances economic security by creating high-tech, high-wage, and high-skilled jobs; improves environmental security by rapidly cutting emissions and pollution; supports social security by promoting community ownership of renewable energy; and advances geostrategic security through new energy relationships with key partners in our Indo-Pacific region.

3. What benefits or outcomes can the average person expect to see from the GES framework?

   Everyday citizens can expect greater political and social consensus for an effective and durable energy transition, reduced energy dependence on polluting fossil fuels, and the growth of new job creating industries and large-scale projects.

4. How can the GES framework ensure a non-partisan, stable, and long-term energy strategy?

   In increasingly polarised democracies like Australia, GES provides a governance framework and political language that shows the benefits of the green transition outweigh the costs. It will help unite broad constituencies across government, business, and society behind a new and long-term strategic direction.

5. What is the role of government in the GES framework?

   The role of government can be conceived in two distinct ways. Policy capacity is the ability to mobilise investment to create public goods the private sector cannot deliver on its own, to set incentives and guidelines that catalyse new green industries, and to coordinate a sustainable fossil-fuel phase-out. Political capacity is the ability to build societal consensus and democratic coalitions that support an effective and durable energy transition.

6. What is the role of the private sector in the GES framework?

   The private sector plays a crucial role in mobilising capital and scaling emerging industries and large-scale projects in the green energy transition, often in partnership with government.

7. What is CCTI?

   Clean Commodities Trading Initiative (CCTI) is the idea of a government-backed initiative that supports early-stage market formation by contracting for supply, then selling, holding, or redistributing clean commodities and their associated environmental attributes as markets evolve (Thurbon & Yates, 2025, p. 13).

8. What is SFV?

   Scheme Finance Vehicle (SFV) is a new kind of public-private financing tool where, instead of offering cash subsidies or taking ownership stakes, government lends its balance-sheet credibility to clean energy projects by standing as a high-credit counterparty - buying power from renewable developers and selling it on to large industrial users under long-term, fixed-price contracts.