The Mandarin, September 11 2024
Australia could be a world leader in green technology, according to the CSIRO’s Towards Net Zero mission lead Michael Battaglia.
Speaking at the Better Futures Forum in Canberra this week, Battaglia said that reaching net zero emissions demanded new technology.
He said the Climate Change Authority’s recent net zero emissions review showed that the path was uncertain without innovation
“Even that roadmap shows a large residual component of emissions is going to be hard to deal with it,” he said.
“If we’re going to make this challenge, we’re really going to have to deploy science in the service of society and embed science into collaborative structures.
“We’re going to have to science the shit out of this. We’re going to have to innovate the shit out of this.”
Battaglia said the National Science Statement shows the government is putting science in the engine room of Australia’s economy.
He said this presented social opportunities as well as possible economic gains.
“We can think of ourselves differently,” he said.
“We can go back to the concept of the smart nation … actually reimagine ourselves into that pathway as well as defining export industries for the future.”
Battaglia’s work with Towards Net Zero focuses on hard-to-decarbonise industries like agriculture, aviation and steel.
In tackling these problems, he has formed the view the innovation ecosystem is, like the public service, too siloed.
He said government could play a role in better coordinating science and industry for the energy transition.
“We’re not ever going to look like some of these countries that have research, industry and policy in lockstep,” he said.
“But I think Australia could be served well by some backbone research orientation organisations that help us coordinate these areas.
“What we have to do is capture those capacities we build into systems that deliver for all of us.”