Forging New Paths - Matt Kean On The Impending And All Encompassing Climate Transition

Hello out there, welcome to or welcome back to the Finding Nature podcast. My name is Nathan Robertson-Ball and when I started this show in 2024 I could only have dreamt about having today’s guest on the show. Matt Kean needs no introductions, and it was a pleasure to have him on. Matt has developed a reputation as a maverick in the Australian energy and environment sphere - all because he’s favoured reality, science and economics. Besides being a radical truth seeker and truth speaker, Matt’s public life is defined by service, diligence and activating. From his maiden speech as a state politician advocating for and then delivering mental health service improvements, to his landmark energy reform package in 2022 as well as holding the treasurer’s pen as one of Australia’s most costly disaster events unfolded along the eastern seaboard of the country.

I was keen to chat with Matt less so about his now very publicised work in the field of the energy transition and more about his views on whether the story of green growth is one Australians can rely upon. In a world where climate risk is increasingly imperilling communities, economies and insurance, what good is more solar panels and transmission lines if you can’t inhabit a community for parts of the year because of the heat or the transmission of disease makes avoiding serious illness difficult or you simply can’t access a loan because of the unavailability of insurance. Yes, the energy transition is an essential act. Is it enough to build a promise of prosperity to this nation and a world of eight billion, I’m not convinced.

As chair of the Climate Change Authority I also wanted to talk about how to have the extremely difficult conversation with Australians regarding the realities of a changing, new and more volatile climate. In a country where the climate wars has been the result of whether to continue to operate antiquated, dirty, unsafe and unreliable technology or transitioning to an inevitable future of clean energy, it baffles and worries me how to have a mature and honest conversation about the changed and changing climate. From the impacts of agriculture and farm productivity to the loss of the Great Barrier Reef and the communities that rely upon it to how First Nations cultures are lost or unable to be accessed due to rising sea levels or unliveable temperatures. Real people are already experiencing the harms of a changed and changing climate. Loss and damage has arrived, yet the mis and disinformation continues. Vested interests, and captured political figures and media commentators continue to drum up discontent and disharmony over dealing in the reality of change that physics and the world’s largest economy are delivering to this part of the world.

Matt Kean embodies a commitment to reality that I respect. Do I think science, economics and technology are all that is needed to transition to futures that are safer, healthier and more just, no. It’s a start, an important start, and I hope from this chat you appreciate just how difficult and consuming being a public figure in this effort like Matt has been, is. Considering energy and climate has largely ended political careers, that Matt not only found a path through that but grew as a result of it is a credit to his determination, capability and optimism. There is much we can all take from that.

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