Adelaide Convention and Exhibition Centre, 11-12 April 2024
The AJBCC, through its Clean Energy Transition Subcommittee, in partnership with the JABCC and with the support of the Government of South Australia, held a conference in Adelaide on 11-12 April 2024: Transitioning Australia-Japan Energy Partnership Towards a Carbon-Neutral 2050.
The networking reception and dinner addressed by Minister Tom Koutsantonis and the National Reconstruction Fund’s Martijn Wilder AM on 11 April was followed by a full day of discussions on 12 April at the Adelaide Convention Centre.
As energy is pivotal to the Australia-Japan relationship, with Australia as Japan’s largest energy supplier and Japan as Australia’s largest market, the partnership’s evolution toward carbon-neutrality by 2050 is crucial. This commitment, reinforced by COP28, demands new industries, technologies, and trade approaches.
Close collaboration between governments and businesses is essential to implement pragmatic policy frameworks. Our event built on previous discussions, fostering ongoing collaboration between key stakeholders to develop sustainable agendas for future action.
Key takeouts included:
- Strong commitment from both countries to the shared goal of carbon neutrality by 2050, while recognising that transition would necessarily be a long and complex process;
- Increased understanding of the different circumstances of both countries, the fact that each would have its own path to decarbonisation but that our huge energy relationship would mean decisions in each country had the potential to have major impacts in the other;
- A strong stress on the importance of ensuring security of energy supply is maintained through the transition; and that existing fuels such as gas, with suitable abatement measures, would have an ongoing, critical role to play in underpinning successful decarbonisation;
- Widespread agreement on the importance of the role of government measures in shepherding new technologies to commercial viability, and on the need for such measures to be inclusive of all technologies that might contribute to the goal of decarbonisation – a “technology-agnostic” approach;
- Neither public nor private sector funding alone can singularly meet the energy transition challenge – close coordination and cooperation between public and private sectors across both countries will be essential;
- Support for Australia and Japan to remain key energy partners in a decarbonised world, but acknowledgement that this is not a given in a world where competition for investment in carbon-neutral energy systems is intense;
- The critical need to develop a more coherent and improved bilateral narrative to underpin and enhance confidence between Australia and Japan (at industry and government levels).
- information channels between businesses, governments and key stakeholders need to be strengthened and formalised to help ensure the Australia Japan Energy Transition Partnership can reach its full potential and grow and develop and emulate the successful energy partnership that both countries have enjoyed to date.