Jade Jungwirth
Power, Prosperity and Planet: Climate & Energy Policy for All will launch at Stoneman’s Bookroom this Sunday, where the writer Thom Woodroofe, joined by special guest Simon Holmes á Court, will discuss why good climate and energy policy should cost people less each month, not more.
Drawing on his vast policy expertise and political insights, Woodroofe has written a timely and informative book outlining the importance of widening the support base for action by making climate and energy policy work for all Australians.
The book succinctly outlines why the next wave of policy must focus intently on middle Australia, designing policies that make sense from the Cabinet Room to every lounge room across the mortgage belts and beyond.
“For about the last 15 years, give or take, I’ve had the great privilege to work at the pretty lofty halls of climate and energy policy internationally,” Woodroofe said.
“Having just moved back to Australia after a long time overseas, a couple of things have really struck me. One of which is that despite all the talk of the importance of the Paris Agreement, the importance of reaching net zero emissions and all these other highfalutin notions, there are still a large number of people in this country for whom that is either not resonating or the transition is not benefiting them.
“At the same time, there’s a whole bunch of people who want to move and often are moving to the extent they can in terms of their own household transition.”
Spending much of his working life looking at the transition from the top down (he played a key role in securing the Paris Agreement on climate change in 2015, including helping establish the High Ambition Coalition of progressive nations, worked as chief of staff to former PM Kevin Rudd, for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Washington DC, and forged a backchannel for US–China climate talks during his time at the Asia Society in New York), Woodroofe said he wanted the book to chart the three big transitions the country needed to make.
“These are: what we do with our clean power or our power system, what we do with our source of economic prosperity, which at the moment is heavily reliant on fossil fuels, and what we do in terms of our planet and our natural resilience.”
Throughout the book, Woodroofe draws on his personal experiences, including growing up on a farm between Castlemaine and Maldon.
“My family moved there when I was seven. There was no electricity, there was no running water, there was no gas, and no rubbish collection, but of course, the shire council charged full rates!”
His parents used a generator to power the bare necessities of lights and charging the laptop, but the diesel-fueled device was unable to run heating, cooling or even an iron or most kitchen appliances.
“I talk in the book about how, as kids growing up, we used to be very disciplined with our homework because we only had an hour and a half of our mother’s laptop’s battery life to be able to get something done before it ran out!
“But the really transformational story that I talk about is when I was 16, so it was 2005, the Howard government introduced the first serious solar panel subsidy in Australia. Solar panels were pretty expensive back then, but people got about 20 per cent of their outlay back. My parents took that subsidy up, and for the first time, we had regular electricity,” he said.
Woodroofe uses this example to demonstrate the transformational potential of renewable energy, and noted 10 million Australians could now to go to sleep each night under the power of solar panels.
“For all of them, they now see, feel and experience that transformational potential, albeit perhaps in a slightly different way, but for me, it was a very early lesson in energy literacy,” he said.
Woodroofe said that while climate change affected us all, the arguments for climate action were rarely framed in terms of the impact on ordinary Australians.
“In the face of high electricity and petrol prices, how can more households benefit from cheaper renewable energy and electric vehicles?” he asked.
“Given our continued reliance on fossil fuel exports, how can Australia avoid falling off an economic cliff in the coming decades? With swathes of the country at risk of climate-related disasters, how can we enhance our resilience and avoid insurance loss? And what are the real benefits of seeking to be an international climate leader?”
Power, Prosperity & Planet will launch this Sunday, May 3, at 12.45 at Stoneman’s Bookroom, 101 Mostyn Street, Castlemaine.