Suits to Wilmot keynote speech
The Hon. Matt Kean
Chair - Climate Change Authority
Check against delivery.
May I begin by acknowledging the Gumbaynggirr (GUM-bane-gear) people as the traditional owners of the land where we meet today.
I'd like to pay my respects to elders, past, present and emerging, and extend that respect to any First Nations people here with us today.
It's great to be visiting this beautiful part of the planet - can I thank the teams at Impact Ag Australia and Wilmot Cattle Co for extending me an invitation, and accommodating my late changes.
I'd like to frame today's discussion, if I may, mostly in positive terms. Decarbonisation, handled well, can deliver lasting benefits to regional Australia in general, and to the agriculture sector, specifically.
Farm incomes can be boosted and diversified, ecology above and below the surface can be enhanced, and communities that have long contributed to the spirit and dynamism of Australia can be made more resilient.
I should add at this point that our hosts, Alasdair MacLeod and his Macdoch Ag Group, don't need any prodding from me.
Wilmot farm demonstrates that well-managed grazing makes great economic and environmental sense.
Innovation and tenacity often come with the territory when it comes to farming in Australia - I'm sure you'll have been impressed by seeing what your team, led by Kierin Wilson and Shane Curtis, has achieved.
Wilmot and Macdoch have recognised - as have scientists for some decades - that farmers are going to have to adapt to a changing climate faster than many other parts of our society.
Droughts and flooding rains are indeed a feature of this beautiful nation, as Dorothea Mackellar evoked in her famous "My country" poem, composed more than 120 years ago.
The issue for those who live off the land, however, is that those droughts and floods are intensifying and becoming more frequent.
After all, each degree of global warming enables the atmosphere to hold about 7% more moisture, so the potential for heavier downpours when they do happen is well-established in the science.
And in between those bouts of rainfalls, it's also possible that heatwaves may also become more severe.
In other words, depending on how weather patterns shift, those on the farm might have to build in resilience both ways - for both wetter AND drier times, as counter-intuitive as that combination might seem.
For Wilmot, one approach, I understand, is to reduce the relative share of exposed ground, compared with more conventional farming methods on nearby properties.
Improved soils and biodiversity are just 2 of the benefits, as Kierin and Shane may have talked you through the strategies already.
The exposure of weather-dependent industries - such as farming - to climate change was detailed at length in the National Climate Risk Assessment, released by the Government last year.
That Assessment, the first done for Australia, examined many of the perils facing the country, with climate risks for agriculture featuring prominently, especially around water security.
The report noted, though, the risks extend well beyond the farm gate. Of course, city dwellers are going to notice if supply disruptions result in higher prices for their food and fibre.
But rural communities reliant on nature-based businesses may well face more acute stresses, particularly where regions are reliant on only a few industries for economic activity.
That's just one reason why diversification of revenue sources is one way to bolster resilience in trying times.
As I'll detail shortly, Australia's decarbonisation efforts offer our regions additional ways to keep farms viable, whatever the weather headed their way.
As the Risk Assessment report noted, major disasters can trigger longer-term challenges. It noted, for instance, that the Millenium Drought caused 6,000 job losses at its peak, while the Black Summer bushfires cost about 7,000.
Retaining workers - or luring them back - after such events is not easy.
Again, building businesses and industries that have staying power can limit the exodus of skilled staff that can be hard to lure back even when conditions settle.
I should add that statistics don't always count what's important. Communities know, and authorities are getting better at recognising, there are often mental health impacts in the wake of disasters that need to be anticipated and addressed, as part of the recovery efforts.
It's something I came to understand in the aftermath of record floods in the Lismore region when I served as Treasurer of this state.
The courage, particularly of volunteers during these emergencies, gave me hope the foundations of those communities were strong. But they also steeled my determination to do what I could to reduce the risks of climate change.
As I noted in a recent opinion piece after the bad bushfires in Victoria in January, we in fact owe it to those selfless individuals, who put their own well-being and often their own properties on the line for others, to be upfront about the changes we need to make.
So, I return to the central theme of this discussion: building resilience is not only good for farm productivity, it's also good for the viability of our rural communities.
As I noted in a recent edition of the Farm Policy Journal - perhaps you had it on your summer reading list - farmers rightly have been proud of their long-standing roles in supplying vital services like food and fibre.
I argued that their services will increasingly be supplemented by new but also essential ones - from supporting our energy transition to aiding biodiversity and capturing carbon. And they should take pride in them too.
Together, this range of services, old and new, can combine to future-proof our regional communities for generations to come.
Curbing carbon emissions is in everybody's interest, especially farmers', given they already occupy the frontlines in a more volatile climate.
And there is a financial interest in sequestering carbon that is already being realised by many farmers and investors in this sector.
It's probably not well understood how much a role the land sector is already playing in helping Australia meet its greenhouse gas emissions targets.
Renewable energy's advance draws a lot of media attention - both well- and ill-informed - because the power sector is the largest source of carbon emissions in the economy.
But as the Government's latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory numbers(Opens in a new tab/window) reminded us just last week, emissions from land use, land use change, and forestry have decreased by the largest margin of any sector since June 2005 - shaving off more than 150 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (or CO2)-equivalent annually since then.
That drop is because of reductions in land clearing and native forest harvesting, increases in plantations and native vegetation, and improvements in land management including soil carbon on agricultural lands.
By contrast, emissions from the power sector have shrunk about a quarter since 2005, paring annual emissions by about 49 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent. That's about one-third as much as the land sector, as broadly defined.
In giving our advice to the Government for Australia's 2035 emissions targets last year, the Climate Change Authority provided illustrative examples of where carbon cuts can come from in the decade to come from 2026.
We do see the land sector becoming a slightly larger annual carbon sink than it has been over the past two decades.
The bulk of the expected additional cuts, though, will likely come from the electricity sector in the order of more than 100 million tonnes of CO2 reduced from annual pollution levels.
In other words, the reduction efforts secured through the land sector since 2005 will increasingly need to be taken up by other parts of the economy.
Incidentally, emissions from Australian agriculture itself - our livestock and cropping - have been broadly flat over the past couple of decades.
As the inventory report noted, these emissions are down about 5 million tonnes of CO2-e, or about 5.7%, since mid-2005. Most of that reduction is because of a decline in the sheep herd, partly offset by higher emissions from agricultural soils and fertiliser use.
Stacked side by side, agriculture and land-sector changes are of a similar magnitude in terms of emissions.
In the year to September, agriculture-sourced emissions amounted about 18.5% of Australia's total, while these so-called "Lulu-C-F" emissions were the equivalent of minus 16.6%.
It makes sense to reduce emissions directly as much as possible and as soon as possible. This approach minimises the need for carbon removals and the knock-on impacts on energy supply, water, and other land uses. However, the Climate Change Authority's analysis indicates Australia is likely to have residual emissions in 2050, which will need to be balanced with removals - this is the "net" in "net zero", after all.
And as I mentioned earlier, we anticipate such removals to continue to play a significant role in Australia's transition, perhaps growing to more than 100 million tonnes of CO2-e by 2050.
Still, given agriculture accounts for almost one-fifth of our nation's emissions, it is important to unlock further progress in cutting them.
We are not banking on major reductions in the near term from this sector - but the more Wilmot's practices get mimicked elsewhere, the better.
In this context, I'm thinking of better herd and pasture management, and planting improved pastures, among other measures.
As we noted in our 2035 targets advice, there are multiple research projects underway to examine opportunities and practices to sequester carbon on perennial pastures and cropping land.
We can expect, too, advances in technologies that address methane emissions from cattle and sheep, and reduced emissions from fertiliser, while we also recognise such efforts are in relatively early stages of deployment.
While there is scope to modify feed additives to curb those methane burps from livestock, you can imagine the delivery challenges facing relative free-range farms such as Wilmot.
Just how to get those methane-inhibiting supplements out to where the cows, sheep and even buffalo roam? (Assuming there's a market for bison varieties.)
Researchers and agricultural producers are working on that now - with government support - and the solutions they find could make a material contribution to emission reductions in the longer term.
Other technological advances are on the way.
Electric vehicles now available include electric utes, which will probably only improve in range, power and price.
Perhaps the relative silence of these vehicles will also appeal to hunters frustrated by the roar of a complaining diesel engine scaring-off potential game.
Farmers are famously self-reliant too, and what can be more DIY than powering your own appliances, even tractors, from the sun?
There's usually ample room to add solar panel arrays - and you can save a long round-trip into town or a visit from a diesel tanker.
Whatever it takes to win the bush over to clean energy - I'm for it!
Now, another source of emissions reduction involving the land is of course via the Australian Carbon Credit Unit Scheme.
This area is of interest to at least a few of the organisations attending today's sessions.
I believe at least 3 of you have made submissions to the ACCU review now being undertaken by the Climate Change Authority.
We welcome your contributions.
The Authority is mandated to conduct a review every 3-years - and this one is the first to occur since I became Chair about 18 months ago.
The Authority is presently working through the results of our public consultation period that closed on 8 December.
This review will take into account the context of recent developments, such as Australia's 2035 target.
We'll also consider the 2023 reforms to the Safeguard Mechanism, which have seen the main purchaser of ACCUs shift from the government to liable Safeguard entities.
As we have stated, the review will work to answer the question of whether the ACCU Scheme is correctly calibrated to deliver sufficient abatement to meet the needs of a decarbonising economy.
Our recommendations to the government may include how the scheme's operations can be improved, how public confidence in the scheme can be supported, and what more can be done to ensure it helps Australia achieve its emissions reduction goals.
So, we covered the reason why we need to cut our emissions, and explored some of the ways regional Australia is already benefitting from and assisting this necessary transition.
There's obviously a lot more work to do but also nearly boundless opportunity for those who act, particularly if they move quickly.
We do have agency when it comes to determining our futures - whether you make your living on the land or generate investment returns from it.
Let's make the most of these opportunities!
Thanks again for the invitation to address you. I'll be happy to entertain your questions here or later on.
