Forward - Green Metal Statecraft:Forging Australia’s Green Iron Industry
By Elizabeth Thurbon
Australia stands at a nation-defining crossroads with our country's security at stake.
In the next decade, we will see global demand for Australia's two largest exports – iron ore and coal – contract as Northeast Asia continues its ambitious clean energy shift, Europe's carbon border adjustment mechanism kicks in, and the nascent restructuring of global iron ore supply chains gains pace. This threatens our economic security.
At the same time, we will see continued volatility in global energy markets, especially those for oil, coal and gas. This threatens our energy security. And we will see the impacts of unchecked climate change intensify, creating chaos in our weather and fragile ecosystems. This threatens our environmental and social security, risking lives and livelihoods not just in Australia, but across our region and the globe.
We can choose to ignore these national security challenges and continue our business-as-usual trajectory, swimming against the Northeast Asian and European tide and taking the long term hit to our national prosperity. Or we can choose to confront these challenges head-on and to not just survive, but thrive in the global clean economy-in-the-making while reaping the large and connected national security-enhancing rewards on offer. This is the path laid out in this vital report.
This report is vital because it sets out a comprehensive national security-enhancing agenda centred on the embrace of an ambitious green iron and steel national development strategy. In short, it sets out an ambitious green metal statecraft. Executed swiftly and with discipline, this statecraft promises to boost our nation's economic, energy, environmental and social security and to significantly strengthen our crucial geostrategic relationships in an increasingly tumultuous world.
By embracing green metal statecraft, Australia can create the new technology-intensive, job-creating, high-value, export-oriented clean energy intensive industries of the future, boosting economic security. We can produce abundant and cheap energy, leveraging our world-class wind and solar
resources, boosting energy security. We can decarbonise some of the dirtiest industries in the world, boosting environmental security. And we can deepen and extend our economic collaborations with some of our most important geostrategic partners, creating a safer and more prosperous region.
This report outlines the urgent changes needed to advance this comprehensive security-enhancing agenda. The changes must start with the policymaking mindset. Australia’s political and policy leaders must start thinking about the development of a local clean metals industry as an unmissable opportunity to address our nation’s pressing economic, energy, and environmental security challenges, and to bolster our geostrategic positioning. And they must embrace the idea of a more ambitious and strategic role for the government in bringing this new industry to life - just as other governments around the world are doing.
This change in thinking will help drive and sustain the ambitious policy and regulatory changes required. This includes changes to economic policy - on both the demand and supply side - to induce and enable private sector investment, combined with complementary changes to foreign policy to lock in the capital, technology, and demand required, and social policy to ensure all Australians benefit from the riches on offer, not least our First Nations custodians.
These changes will require political will, sustained commitment from across the political spectrum, and a high degree of discipline and oversight to ensure that the precious dollars invested deliver true value for all Australians. As a nation, we cannot afford to replicate the existing model whereby generous government support is extended to industry without a commensurate long term return to Australian taxpayers.
The creation of a green metals industry in Australia is not a “nice to have”. It is absolutely essential to our national security, comprehensively conceived.
I am grateful to the Climate Energy Finance team for their vision. The responsibility to take it forward now lies with all of us.