MEInetwork23 Seminar #5: Fiscal policy to support future energy commodity exports
The Melbourne Energy Institute hosted the final installment of the MEInetwork23 Seminar Series on Thursday, September 7, 2023. Presented by Professor Ross Garnaut AC, the seminar focused on fiscal policy to support future energy commodity exports.
The transition to net zero emissions has unleashed a plethora of fiscal interventions to accelerate decarbonisation, in Australia and many other countries. The US Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 and the European countermeasures have accelerated the growth of zero carbon industries in those countries, and strengthened calls for Australia to do something similar.
Australia has a huge stake in successful global decarbonisation because it shares the damage from climate change. It also has a huge stake because it has exceptionally rich opportunities for being the locus of new zero carbon industries exporting to the world, and especially to the densely populated, high income, industrial economies of Northeast Asia and Europe with poor renewable energy opportunities of their own.
This lecture applied economic principles to assessment of whether various fiscal policy interventions would help or hinder the global decarbonisation effort and the growth of new Australian export industries. It also examined whether various suggested fiscal policies would enhance or damage Australian economic development.
RECORDING AND SLIDES
SPEAKER
Professor Ross Garnaut AC
Emeritus Professor of Economics, The University of Melbourne
Director, ZEN Energy
Director, Superpower Institute
Ross is an Emeritus Professor in Economics at The Australian National University and an Emeritus Professor in Business and Economics at the University of Melbourne. Over the past fifty years, he has had many senior roles in business and as a policy advisor and diplomat. Ross was the senior economic policy official in Papua New Guinea’s Department of Finance in the years straddling Independence in 1975, principal economic adviser to Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke from 1983 to1985, and Australian Ambassador to China from 1985 to 1988. He was awarded a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) in 2017 for work on climate change and energy, and an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 1993 for services to education and international relations.
He is the author of numerous publications in scholarly journals on international economics, public finance and economic development, particularly in relation to East Asia and the Southwest Pacific. His recent books include Superpower Transformation: Making Australia’s zero-carbon future, Black Inc (2022), Superpower: Australia’s low carbon opportunity, Black Inc. (2019) and RESET: Restoring Australia after the Pandemic Recession (2021).
Ross is a Distinguished Fellow of the Australian Economic Society, Distinguished Life Member of the Australian Agricultural and Resources Economics Society, Fellow of the Australia Academy of Social Sciences and Honorary Professor of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Ross is Director, ZEN Energy and Director, Superpower Institute.
MODERATOR
Professor Michael Brear
Director, Melbourne Energy Institute
The University of Melbourne
Michael Brear is a mechanical engineer and the Director of the Melbourne Energy Institute (MEI) at the University of Melbourne. MEI facilitates the University’s research on the technical, economic, environmental and social impacts of energy.
Michael is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering, the Combustion Institute, Engineers Australia and the Australian Institute of Energy. He previously established the University’s multi-disciplinary degree, the Master of Energy Systems. Prior to commencing at the University of Melbourne, Michael worked for ICI Australia (now Orica), and then undertook graduate studies at Cambridge University and post-doctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
MEInetwork23
To transform our energy system, we first need to understand how it works. The MEInetwork Seminar Series aims to give participants a sound understanding of the current technical and economic factors that underpin the Australian energy system. Knowledge of these market factors is critical in determining the changes required to move towards a clean energy system.
Each year, the Seminar Series takes a deep dive into the complete supply and value chain of one of our primary energy vectors. In 2023, the MEInetwork23 Seminar Series will be comprised of five seminars on the topic of energy commodities, investigating operation of crude oil and product supply chains, uranium mining and refining, energy commodity trading, new energy commodities and critical minerals, and fiscal policy to support future energy commodity exports.
Subscribe to the MEI newsletter to receive updates on seminar details and registration.