Transcript Zero Episode 5: Australia’s New Climate Politics

Oscar Boyd and Akshat Rathi
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(Bloomberg) -- For episode 5 of the Zero podcast, Bloomberg Green’s Akshat Rathi interviews Adam Bandt, leader of the Australian Greens, and David Pocock, a recently elected independent senator (and former rugby captain), about Australia’s new emissions-reductions target and why so many candidates campaigning on climate action succeeded in this year’s elections. Listen to the full episode below, and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Google or Stitcher to stay on top of new episodes.

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Our transcripts are generated by a combination of software and human editors, and may contain slight differences between the text and audio. Please check against audio before quoting.

Akshat Rathi 0:00 Welcome to Zero, I’m Akshat Rathi. This week: old rocks, new politicians, and another new climate bill.

Akshat Rathi 0:18

There's a famous clip from the Australian Parliament back in 2017.

Archive Clip of Scott Morrison 0:22 This is coal. Don't be afraid. Don’t be scared, it won’t hurt you. It's coal.

Akshat Rathi 0:29 Scott Morrison, then the Treasurer, and soon to be Prime Minister, brings a lump of coal into the room and taunts the opposition with it.

Archive Clip of Scott Morrison 0:36 There's no word for coal-o-phobia officially, Mr. Speaker, but that's the malady that afflicts those opposite.

Akshat Rathi 0:43 Over the next few years, even while forest fires, drought and floods devastated the country, Morrison was accused of ignoring the threat of climate change. But the electorate could not ignore the impacts. Fast forward to elections in May 2022, and there was a seismic shift in Australian politics. Morrison’s Liberal party took a drubbing at the polls, and he was replaced by Labor’s Anthony Albanese. Even more surprising was the success of the Australian Greens and a group of independent candidates known as the teals, who promised strong climate action. And now the Labor government has done what was not long ago, unimaginable. It has passed a law that binds the country to a 43% emissions reduction by 2030.

Newscaster 1:27 Anthony Albanese’s climate change bill is expected to pass through Parliament after teal Independents and the Greens reportedly secured concessions to support Labor's 43% emissions reduction target.

Akshat Rathi 1:40 Although the bill is a historic first, many have criticized it for not aligning with what the country must do to help the world reach its climate goals. And Australia’s ongoing love affair with fossil fuels raises questions about how it will meet the 43% target: The country is one of the top two exporters of coal and has the third highest CO2 emissions per capita of any G20 country after Saudi Arabia and Canada.This week on Zero we're joined by two politicians who were key to the passing of the emissions reduction target and are committed to strengthening the goal. Later, we'll hear from international rugby captain turned Senator David Pocock. But my first guest is Adam Bandt, the leader of the Australian Greens. He sits in the House of Representatives, and his party holds the balance of power in the country's Senate. We discuss Australia's new political landscape, his fight for better climate legislation, and the opportunities for a decarbonized Australia.

Akshat Rathi 2:41 Adam, welcome to the show.

Adam Bandt 2:42 Thanks for having me.

Akshat Rathi 2:43 After the May 2022 elections, Australia has what some are calling the climate supermajority, with greens getting their biggest haul, and a group of independents known as the teals voted in on a climate mandate. What's changed in the Australian political discourse that means these candidates succeeded?

Adam Bandt 3:02 There's always been an appetite in Australia to take action on climate because people see it playing out. We've just been lacking the federal leadership to do it, especially over the last decade. But we've just come off the back of three years of drought and bushfires that gained international attention, and also then floods. And there was a real understanding that the federal government was not only unwilling to act but was actually actively expanding coal and gas. And in fact, in response to the Covid pandemic, the Prime Minister Scott Morrison led what he called a gas-led recovery to take public money to invest in opening up new gas fields, as if that would somehow be a solution to the economic and social woes facing us after the pandemic. There was this growing sense that the climate crisis was hitting us at home, but also we were seeing international movement even from conservative governments from the United Kingdom, for example, but also, the government in the United States, post-Trump, starting to act. There was a real sense that enough was enough and it was time for Australia to act on climate. And what we saw at the election was not only a change of government, but a really interesting result where the then government — Scott Morrison's government — and the now government — Anthony Albanese’s Labor — both saw their votes go backwards. They both promoted more coal and gas, and both saw their votes go backwards. And the parties and the people whose votes went up, which was the Greens — getting our biggest ever representation in Parliament and our highest ever vote — and a number of independents on strong climate platforms, all tackled the question of climate and coal and gas. And said it's time to get out of coal and gas and stop opening up coal and gas. That's what the people rewarded.

Akshat Rathi 5:02 As a result of the election, there is now a bill that enshrines an emissions reductions target in law. And that's a 43% reduction over 2005 levels by 2030. Is that what the science says we need to keep global warming below 1.5C?

Adam Bandt 5:18 It's definitely not. And the science says that Australia, for it to do its fair share to limit global warming to 1.5C, would have to cut pollution by 74% by 2030, which is, of course, close to the UK’s 68% target. The independent analysis done in Australia of Australia's fair share also says that even if one were to give up on 1.5 degrees, and still aim for the well below 2-degree target of the Paris Agreement, Australia's domestic contribution would need to be 50%. So to be Paris Agreement compliant, Australia would need to be doing between 50 and 74%, and it's not. The 43% that the government wouldn't budge from that was in the bill is based on no coal fired power stations closing earlier than anticipated. And they made that a big election promise. But what we were able to do as the Greens was secure some changes to the bill that would allow it to be ratcheted up quickly without obstacle. We ensured that the target couldn't be reduced if there was a change of government. And for the first time also, we're going to see it harder for government agencies to fund new coal and gas projects because climate goals and temperature limits are now going to be included in the governing legislation for a lot of Australia's agencies. Like the Export Finance agency that in the past has been used to promote fossil fuels and to fund fossil fuel expansion. Now, that is going to be a bit harder. So we as the Greens pushed for some changes, secured some changes to a weak bill, to the point where we were prepared to pass it. But does it do what the science requires? No. And I suspect not even the government says that it's a science based target.

Akshat Rathi 7:10 But the bill does not give any new funding, or really, beyond the points you made, any concrete policy to be able to get to even the 43% target. So is the current law anything more than symbolic?

Adam Bandt 7:24 Well, you're right, that apart from some of the things that I mentioned, it doesn't really have a lot of teeth. And the government was upfront about that. They said they wanted targets enshrined in law to give certainty to the country that there would be emissions reductions, but the government is still yet to detail how it's going to meet even this weak target. And that work will be done over coming months, as the government lays out its mechanism for requiring existing polluters to start cutting their pollution. And also, critically how we'll deal with the question of proposed new coal and gas projects. That mechanism is going to need the support of the Senate, where the government does not have the majority and where the Greens are sitting in balance of power. So over the coming months, we'll be pushing very hard to say, having passed this legislation, now we need to give it some teeth, and the government needs to put some meat on the bones of its policy. The country will be looking very, very closely at that, not only because there is a very big question about how the government is going to meet even its weak targets. But also because there are some big new coal and gas projects that are in the pipeline that the government is backing, and the expert analysis locally is that there's no way that the government can approve those projects and still expect to meet even its weak 43% target. Some of these projects are so big that if even just one of them goes ahead, it would blow that 43% target out of the water. So all eyes are now turning to what the government is actually going to do to cut pollution.

Akshat Rathi 9:09 So that's the science and we need a lot more emissions reduction. But how much support is there from the public, from business and from major polluters to go beyond the 43% target?

Adam Bandt 9:19 Oh there's a lot of support from the public and indeed from businesses. Interestingly, in the lead up to the election, business was saying that a target even closer to 50% would be acceptable in Australia. So in many respects, the government was undercutting what some even in the business community are saying. There's a lot of support from the public, as I've said, for more ambitious action, because we now have this situation where less than a third of the country voted for the party that is in government, the Labor Party. And as I referenced before, the parties whose votes went up were the ones who said do more than this 43% target. The push on the business front where there's going to be a real issue is: how much work is government going to ask existing businesses to do to cut pollution? And how much harder is it going to be for existing business to cut pollution if the government builds in space to open up new projects. So to take one of them, for example, the Beetaloo Basin in the Northern Territory. That project alone, if it goes ahead, would lift Australia's domestic emissions by up to 13%. And it's not included in the 43% modeling. That would in turn impose a lot more obligations on existing business to make way for these big climate busting projects. And that's why I think you'll see over coming months, a greater community push, including with business, side-by-side to say, ‘We can't keep addressing this problem at the same time as making the problem worse, you can't put the fire out while you're pouring petrol on it.’ And I think one of the things that needs to be understood is just how central coal and gas are to the Australian political economy. Australia is the world's third largest exporter of fossil fuel pollution, and on track to be, if not already, the largest exporter of gas, primarily in the form of LNG. And so all of this raises real questions as to how Australia is going to contribute to the climate challenge. And these big coal and gas corporations have a lot of sway over the government. We'll be pushing really, really hard as the government writes these new laws and regulations to actually now start cutting pollution to say, ‘Look, we'll have the debate about how quickly to get out of coal and gas. But we've got to draw a line under existing projects and say, no more new projects. And that's going to be one of the big battles over the coming months.

Akshat Rathi 12:00 Now, how politically feasible is it anyway? Let's consider Norway, which is an oil-exporting country that has both its major political parties completely in agreement that oil continues to be the source of revenue and that they will continue to support oil extraction. And yet it's done domestically pretty green things. It's blessed with hydropower, it's been electrifying its transport very quickly, but it still hasn't been able to get rid of the addiction to oil. Why do you think Australia can do it?

Adam Bandt 12:32 Because our big trading partners have all set themselves net zero targets. So the countries that are responsible for 75% of our coal exports, our thermal coal exports, have all set themselves net zero by 2050 or 2060 targets. If you work backwards from that, that means they're going to have to decarbonize the electricity sector sometime around the 2030s if they're going to make a 2050 net zero target across the economy. So in other words, they've already given Australia a deadline about getting out of coal. Similarly with gas, the growing demand from trading partners in Asia in particular, is for hydrogen. And that's going to be one of the key ways that those economies are going to be able to meet their own climate goals and their own net-zero emissions goals. So the outlook for these exports at the moment is bleak. But Australia itself, actually when it comes to gas, for example, does not get a lot. It's primarily the big multinationals that are extracting, and often paying no tax and in many instances, not even paying royalties on the gas itself. In Australia, 27 big gas corporations in one year brought in 77 billion AUD of revenue in one year, and paid $0 tax on it. So unlike Norway, where they at least have a tax system that enables them to gain some wealth from the fossil fuels that they're exporting to help drive a domestic transformation, Australia is not even getting that. There's enormous, enormous state capture of the political parties in Australia by these big gas and coal corporations. But it actually doesn't deliver back to the economy what a lot of people might think it does. And so there's enormous opportunities economically for Australia to get off it. And also, that's the way it's going because that's where our trading partners are going.

Akshat Rathi 14:41 But look at what has happened to commodity prices because of the war that Russia is fighting in Ukraine. Isn't that going to be the exact argument for more digging of coal and more LNG projects and perhaps even more mining of metals?

Adam Bandt 14:58 Well, I don't think that building an economy off the back of a dictator invading another country and hoping that somehow that will continue is a good model either for foreign affairs or for your domestic economic security. Like we have to diversify with Australia, the economy absolutely has to diversify. And I think if there's one lesson that can be taken from this is that it is not a good idea to be reliant on fossil fuel imports from another country. That is the object lesson that comes out of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And this is where for Australia in particular, we have an enormous opportunity to be energy independent and to be selling the rest of the world our sun and our winds. The prospect of direct undersea cables, across to places like Singapore or Indonesia, for example, where you generate the electricity from on the mainland Australia, are actively being discussed and funded at the moment. There is growing investment in green hydrogen, I mean, we are pretty blessed here in this country, with sun and wind and an advanced manufacturing capacity and intellectual capacity. We can sell things to other countries other than coal and gas and we know the sun and the wind will always be free.

Akshat Rathi 16:18 Multiple Labor politicians used the phrase, ‘as long as people want to buy our coal, we'll sell it to them,’ during the election. That is starkly different from your view. How can those two views meet up? Do you anticipate lengthy, fierce battles on climate ahead? What is your red line?

Adam Bandt 16:37 Well there's something that our former Prime Minister used to say, which is that Australia has got to sell its coal to other countries and can't stop selling it because otherwise they'll buy it from somewhere else, and it won't be as good. And the new prime minister from the different side of politics has started saying exactly the same thing, started saying all Australia needs to sell coal. And in fact, some of his ministers have said Australia will still be selling coal out past the 2050s. This idea that if we don't sell it to them, someone else will… I call that the drug dealer's defense. It's like if you don't buy it from me, then you're going to get worse quality stuff from someone around the corner, so I'm actually somehow performing a public service. Coal, wherever it is burned, whether it's burnt here, or whether it's burnt overseas, harms Australia, and it harms the rest of the world. There is no such thing as clean coal, and I think people have seen through it, and some of the biggest public campaigns and on the ground mobilizations here have been against big new coal mines in Australia. The Adani coal mine that was here was the feature of the previous election, the one before this. There is widespread support to say stop opening up these coal mines. And I think people just don't buy this idea anymore, that Australia has got to sell it to them, because otherwise they'll get it from somewhere else. I think Australia has such a large share of the global thermal coal market that any shift from Australia will have repercussions and ripples right around the world. And if Australia stopped doing it, then I reckon it wouldn't be that others would step in. It would send a really clear signal to the rest of the world that coal's days are over. I think the second thing that we probably need to put on the table front and center is what is an economic diversification and support and transition plan for coal and gas workers and communities. What does that look like? And that hasn't really been thought through that well from governments in the past, and that has created the space for scare campaigns. I think part of what we've got to do in this Parliament is to say we need a plan to support coal and gas workers through the transition.

Akshat Rathi 18:48 Specifically though what is your red line while you're in power, and these discussions are going on?

Adam Bandt 18:55 Look, the Australian Greens have a policy of getting out of thermal coal by 2030, both for domestic and export use, and metallurgical coal by 2040. But what we're putting on the table at the moment, in this term of Parliament, is a compromised position. Let's just stop opening up new coal and gas projects and we can then have a discussion about how we get out of it. Whether we have a managed exit by 2030, whether the government has got some other idea. But what we're putting on the table in all the negotiations we'll be having with the government is stop opening up new projects. That should be something that everyone can agree on. Now, we weren't able to get their agreement to that during the climate legislation negotiations. And that was disappointing, but that was round one. The next round will come when the government introduces the regulations to explain how it's going to cut pollution. And we'll be looking very closely to see whether that allows new coal and gas projects. Because as I say, that is something that will need the support of the Senate, where the Greens are in the balance of power. We're also going to push for our environment laws to include what's called a climate trigger. Which is to say, when you give environmental assessment approval to new projects, at the moment, you don't even have to take into account whether it's going to make climate change worse. We want that to change. And the last thing that we will push for that we're saying very, very strongly to this new government is stop giving subsidies to coal and gas. There's about 11 billion AUD in subsidies per year at the federal level that go effectively to the coal and gas industries. So we're saying stop funding them, put a climate trigger in our laws, stop opening up new coal and gas mines. They're the positions that we are putting on the table and that we are going to fight tooth and nail for in this term of Parliament.

Akshat Rathi 20:42 Now in the elections, the conservative Liberal party, which might confuse some people listening to the podcast, but the conservative Liberal party lost some of its safe seats to climate-positive candidates. Is being anti-climate action now a dead position in Australia?

Adam Bandt 20:57 I think absolutely, if it’s not dead, it's on life support. And I think people shouldn't underestimate the significance of this. We saw conservative seats switch to candidates that have a better climate policy than the new Labor government. You saw conservative states prepared to vote for a candidate that says we need a transition plan out of coal and gas, and I want you to stop opening up coal and gas mines, and 43% is far too weak. And we saw conservative seats go to the Greens as well. It's not just progressive Labor seats that went to the Greens it was conservative Liberal seats that switched to the Greens for the first time. You get rewarded in Australia politically now for having a better policy on climate. And this is something I don't think the penny has quite dropped with the new government yet that there is now space for them to go further and faster.

Akshat Rathi 21:53 That was a fascinating conversation. Thanks, Adam.

Adam Bandt 21:56 Thanks very much.

Akshat Rathi 22:04 After the break, we'll hear from Senator David Pocock, one of the new crop of independent politicians Adam is talking about, and whose journey from rugby to politics has made him a deciding vote in Australia's Upper House.

Akshat Rathi 22:19Welcome back. Joining me now is David Pocock, one of Australia's most celebrated rugby players, who captained the Wallabies and played for the team between 2008 and 2019. In 2021, David moved into politics and beat a conservative incumbent to become the first independent candidate to ever win the Senate seat for the Australian Capital Territory, which includes Canberra. Alongside the Greens, his vote was crucial for passing Australia's 43% emissions reduction target. David, welcome to Zero.

David Pocock 22:57 Thanks. Good to be with you.

Akshat Rathi 23:00 You've had a fascinating career. You captained Australia's international rugby union team, you've campaigned on social issues like marriage equality, and now you're an independent senator in Australia's upper house with the deciding vote when it comes to climate legislation. Where did your climate journey begin?

David Pocock 23:19 So I grew up in Zimbabwe and moved to Australia as a teenager, and in high school, really enjoyed geography, so I started learning about climate change. It seemed like something we should be paying a bit more attention to back then and I guess that urgency has just grown. Over the years, while I was playing rugby professionally, I was involved in some community development work back in Zimbabwe, and talking to rural subsistence communities, and just hearing their concerns about the changing climate and their inability to really adapt. They simply don't have the funds that wealthy countries have to actually adapt and they've contributed nothing to the problem. That really heightened my interest in it and I guess really spurred my advocacy, wanting to use whatever platform I had while I was playing rugby to get more people talking about it, particularly here in Australia. We're a huge fossil fuel exporter, and probably no surprise, we've been a climate laggard, we've actually frustrated international talks. It's just not good enough for Australia to be doing that. We have to actually be part of the conversation, part of the solution to this global challenge.

Akshat Rathi 24:34 As part of your urgency on climate, you got arrested in 2014 chaining yourself to a coal digger. What was that like? What made you want to take that step?

David Pocock 24:45 Like so many people I'd been involved in a bunch of campaigns, marches, protests, writing letters, petitions, and then there was this coal mine that was one, in one of Australia's best agricultural rural areas, and two, that area is in the middle of a critically endangered ecosystem. It made absolutely no sense to me in terms of the environmental impact, the impact on farmers, and obviously, the climate impact of opening up a brand new coal mine. I got to know one of the farmers who now lives next door to this big coal mine, and having grown up in a farming family, I could sympathize and see just how helpless and unrepresented you feel. But then I just decided that I needed to actually make that stand alongside him and hundreds of other people who were arrested on that mine site. And the mine went ahead, but a very similar project a few years later, didn't go ahead. So while it was unsuccessful, I think it added to the conversation around opening up new coal mines, given all we know about climate change.

Akshat Rathi 25:55 And then why did you finally decide to make this jump from being a political activist to a politician?

David Pocock 26:02 After rugby, I was involved in an agriculture and conservation project in Zimbabwe, spent most of last year there. And halfway through the year was approached by a community group here in Canberra, where I live, saying, “We think that there is a pathway for an independent, to represent the ACT (the Australian Capital Territory) in the federal parliament, if we can get the right candidate. We've been having all these kitchen table conversations, your name keeps coming up, would you consider it?” And initially, I didn't think it was for me. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought this is an amazing opportunity to potentially represent the community I love on all these issues that are important to me, are important to the people that I'd be representing. But we're not seeing the kind of ambition that we need. We're not seeing politicians actually deal with these big challenges we face in a way that turns them into opportunities for all of us. So I thought, well, if I don't do this, I'll probably regret it. I don't want to sit around after the election, or in a few years time, thinking about what could have happened. And so I put my hand up, and having never been part of a political party or being formally involved in politics, it was a wild ride. Really, really enjoyable and energizing just seeing the amount of community support and building a campaign that was really crowdsourcing a policy platform that resonated with people. And we've seen, across the country, a record number of independents voted into the lower house, and then also the Senate.

Akshat Rathi 27:41 Let's just sit with that for a moment because … It is hard. Many countries have two major political parties. That's the case here in the UK, where I live, you have the Conservative party, and you have the Labour Party. That's the case in the US, which is essentially a two-party system with the Democrats and the Republicans. And that was the case in Australia for a long time. Of course, there were other parties. But those two parties, the Liberal-National coalition and Labor, were really the two major forces. What happened in the last few years that's changed Australia's landscape so drastically, allowing independents to make it in the parliament?

David Pocock 28:21 I think there are a number of factors. One, just the underlying dissatisfaction with politics as usual. And then on top of that, having, in the last Parliament, a few independents who were actually talking about the issues that people are concerned about. Talking about more ambitious climate action, talking about integrity in politics. And then a number of candidates decided to actually run and there was a group set up to actually help fundraise for these independent candidates.

Akshat Rathi 28:49 The group David is talking about is Climate 200, a crowd funded organization that raised millions of dollars to support the campaigns of 23 candidates running as independents or for minor parties in this year's election.

David Pocock 29:04 We've seen money in politics, the sad reality is that you need money to actually be able to win to run a good campaign. And for the first time, that wasn't a problem for many of these independent candidates. They were well-resourced, they were talking about things that mattered. And on the back of that we saw tens of thousands of Australians, who hadn't previously got involved in politics, volunteering and campaigning. Here in Canberra, a city of 420,000 people, I had over 2,200 volunteers. It was really energizing and I think left everyone feeling a little bit more hopeful about the future.

Akshat Rathi 29:49 The bill enshrines an emissions reduction target in law, which is 43% from 2005 levels by 2030. What do you see as the priority legislation to pass to ensure Australia meets this target?

David Pocock 30:04 Well, it's historic in Australia just to actually legislate a target, having 43% by 2030. And net zero by 2050 in law is a step forward. But this is nothing to sit around patting ourselves on the back about, and even the business community here in Australia has been pushing 50% by 2030. So clearly, we have to ensure that this 43% is just a starting point, it's largely symbolic. And now we've got to get on with the business of transforming our entire economy, working on the generation side of things, and then beginning to work on the demand side, working with households to actually ensure that they can reap the significant benefits of electrifying their households. You know, that's the challenge — this has never been done before. But that's the opportunity. For me, it's about ensuring that we have a target locked in. I'd like to see that ramp up over time, but then to actually be focusing on the integrity of it: The integrity of the offsets that we're allowing companies to use for their hard to abate emissions, the focus on communities that for generations have had jobs in fossil fuels. We need to be investing in those areas, ensuring that those communities have secure well paid jobs into the future.

Akshat Rathi 31:23 Australia is the third largest exporter of fossil fuels; coal and gas are major parts of the economy. And fossil fuels continue to make the country a vast amount of money. How do you ensure that this continued prosperity can happen while you move away from the extraction and export of coal and gas?

David Pocock 31:42 Australia is the developed country that stands to lose the most from climate inaction. We're seeing huge warming already, and we're seeing the effects of that. But given our renewable resources, we also potentially stand to gain the most from actually having the political courage to act, and to act decisively. And to become a renewable superpower. We've got huge deposits of things like lithium, which we need for batteries, and we've got huge renewable resources that we could potentially be exporting to our neighbors. All of these take time to develop. So we've got to get cracking.

Akshat Rathi 32:21 Do you support the calls to end all fossil fuel projects? And do you believe there's any chance that the incumbent Labor Government will ever agree to such a proposal?

David Pocock 32:32 Well, if you're gonna listen to scientists, we can't have any new coal and gas projects. That's clear, the IPCC was so clear about that. So I support that. We simply cannot afford in the long term to be opening up new reserves of fossil fuels. The challenge for Australia is to be building these industries for the future at the same time as we're phasing out fossil fuels politically. To be blunt: No, I can't see the government going for it in the current political climate. But I think societal attitudes towards climate change, towards the social license that fossil fuel companies have, is changing so fast, that hopefully it'll be possible very soon.

Akshat Rathi 33:17 I don't know if anybody's made this comparison before, but your vote in the Senate is like Joe Manchin’s vote in the US Senate. You will be deciding whether to let legislation go through or not many of the times. Joe Manchin, of course, had to play both sides and had to make compromises on the climate side. You could be playing the opposite role of pushing it even higher and higher in ambition, is that a fair comparison?

David Pocock 33:48 So in the Australian Senate at the moment, there's probably three people that the government could get a vote from in terms of climate. So yeah, there's real opportunity there to actually be pushing the ambition and to be shaping policy to ensure that it is working for everyday Australians, that climate action is actually starting to address some of the cost of living issues that we're seeing. The thing I said to people in Canberra during the election campaign was my commitment to people is, on every piece of legislation, I'm going to hold it up and say, how does it affect the people of the Australian Capital Territory that I represent? How does it square with the kind of future that we want to create? And then use whatever power I have on the crossbench with that potential balance of power vote to ramp up the ambition and to suggest amendments that make it better and improve the legislation coming through the Senate.

Akshat Rathi 34:41 At the last COP conference, which was held here in the UK, in Glasgow in 2021, Australia was awarded the Colossal Fossil award for its ongoing support for fossil fuels. As we approach COP in November, which will be in Egypt this year, where do you think this climate bill leaves Australia?

David Pocock 35:01 I was at COP in Glasgow. And as an Australian it was embarrassing to see the way we were acting on the world stage. Even at our Australian pavilion, we had a gas company front and center of our display. So I think this legislation is an announcement that we're back at the table, we're there to be constructive. I expect there will be a big focus on support for developing countries, given it’s in Africa. And that's what Australia needs to be doing here in the Pacific. We have to be stepping up our engagement and our support of our Pacific neighbors to deal with what is, for many of them, an existential threat. I don't think 43% does that. But it certainly signals to the world that we're no longer, hopefully, not going to be obstructionist, and trying to water down future agreements.

Akshat Rathi 35:59 David, thanks for joining me.

David Pocock 36:01 Thanks for having me.

Akshat Rathi 36:08 Given Australia’s status as one of the largest exporters of fossil fuels, what happens there affects the world. As climate impacts have piled on, it's forced a change in the politics of the country, with independents becoming a force to reckon with. But it couldn't have happened without the concerted effort of those organizing around a cause.

Thanks so much for listening to Zero. If you like the show, please rate review and subscribe. Tell a friend or tell an undecided voter. If you've got a suggestion for a guest, or topic or something you just want us to look into, get in touch at zeropod@bloomberg.net. Zero’s producer is Oscar Boyd and senior producer is Christine Driscoll. Our theme music is composed by Wonderly.

Many people helped make the show a success. This week, thanks to my Bloomberg News colleague in Australia, Ben Westcott, who cannot be stopped when he has a scoop. I'm Akshat Rathi, back next week.

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