Former climate minister Greg Combet on Australia's mission to reach net-zero

As climate minister in the former Labor government, Greg Combet has endured the rigours of the “climate wars”. He oversaw the highly contentious move to put a price on carbon, which ultimately came to grief under the Abbott government.

Fast forward a decade: now Combet has been appointed by Anthony Albanese to chair the government’s new Net-Zero Economy Agency. This agency, due later to become a statutory authority, is described on its website as:

responsible for promoting orderly and positive economic transformation across Australia as the world decarbonises, to ensure Australia, its regions and workers realise and share the benefits of the net zero economy.

Combet joins The Conversation to discuss the enormous challenges of Australia’s transition to renewable energy, its complications, and what is necessary to achieve our 2030 and 2050 commitments.

Combet has previously referred to Australia’s transition to renewable energy as “akin to post-war reconstruction”. He says:

It’s massive. […] So just for example, the total value of coal and liquefied natural gas exports in financial year ‘22 alone was almost $200 billion. And it’s not just a significance to the Australian economy and the many regions that depend upon that extraction and export and utilisation of fossil fuels.

Combet admits the government has “some pretty significant challenges” to achieve its 2030 target of having 82% of electricity generated by renewables:

It’s being limited by our capacity to deliver on the extensions of the transmission grid. There are social licence considerations, and that is basically taking the community along with this type of change.

We’re really going to have to, I think, collaborate and knuckle down in order to be able to achieve that 82% target and bring in the level of investment that’s necessary both in renewable generation and the poles and wires that are needed.

As Australia pursues its 2030 and 2050 commitments, Combet is very aware government policy is having an impact on job security.

He has advanced the idea of “special measures” for those losing jobs as a resuklt of the energy transition.

I think governments and the community more generally have a responsibility to workers impacted in that way, to ensure that their opportunity to find alternative employment or to retire with dignity, if that’s what an individual might prefer, or to gain the skills to do something new and different.

You rightly point out my trade union past, I was 25 years a trade union official, and I’ve dealt with many industry restructurings and I think I can figure what additional measures government might be able to bring to the table, to help people better than we’ve done in the past.

Read more: Grattan on Friday: Treasurer Jim Chalmers pumps up his role in energy transition