High-Level Event on Clean Energy Transition and Electrification

Thank you President Erdoğan and Dr Birol for convening this event.

I would also like to thank my friend President Erdoğan for our partnership on COP31 and your leadership in advocating for the 35 by 35 target.

Electrification is fundamental to the clean energy transition.

Backed by renewables it reduces emissions.

Over-time electrifying our economy can reduce global dependence on fossil fuels, enhancing energy security and independence.

Building resilience to global energy market shocks, like those we continue to grapple with resulting from the conflict in the Middle East and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

This has meant that around the world, including in Australia, there is greater recognition of the need to be less vulnerable to shocks that are beyond the control of nation states, and that has led to further support for businesses and households to take action.

One in three Australian households have installed rooftop solar.

What we needed to do was to make sure that that energy was captured, and we've done that by providing an incentive for households and small businesses to install home batteries under our cheap home batteries program.

And over 600,000 have done that, representing over a million people in our population of 28 million.

What that has done as well is to take pressure off our energy grid, whilst obviously reducing energy bills for individuals, all while making an enormous difference to lower emissions as well.

Through electrification we can capitalise on the benefits of renewables, with more efficient industries, cleaner air, more control for households and businesses over energy choices.

To achieve the 35 by 35 target, Australia is modernising our energy grid.

We have invested over $8.5 billion in transmission projects to connect more renewables to the grid.

Making clean energy more accessible and affordable for consumers.

We’re supporting private investors and operators to deliver an additional 40 gigawatts of generation capacity by 2030.

Just like Australia, the world is already electrifying, but not fast enough.

We are on track globally for just 25 percent electrification by 2035.

Which is why Australia is backing global efforts like this one.

Nowhere does this matter more than in the region, in our home – the Pacific.

For those who attended the Pacific Pre-COP in Fiji and Tuvalu this year, you saw firsthand how the Pacific is on the front line of climate change.

One of the things we're doing is providing support for projects in the Pacific through the Pacific Resilience Facility, but also through designated programs that we have.

For example, one program in Palau, the first large-scale solar and battery project will supply more than 20 per cent of energy needs, meaning not just less dependence on the importation of fossil fuels, but also providing for lower energy costs, but also cleaner air as well.

This will displace more than a million litres of diesel consumption each year.

This shows how accelerating electrification builds economic resilience.

This allows small nations like Palau and other island nations to have confidence in reliable energy supply, even in the face of global energy shocks.

More solar and wind power, more batteries and storage and more of the critical minerals and rare earths this technology depends on.

Helping economies in our region grow and helping the world meets its net zero goals.

I look forward to hearing more about the opportunities for further collaboration between nations, and in particular, I think developed nations such as ours have a responsibility to help small islands in our region, but to help developing nations around the world as well.

I think that is going to be one of the defining things that comes out of COP31.

And I think the partnership between Türkiye and Australia in the lead up to this COP, and at the meeting itself over the next coming days, when two countries separated by half the world can come together and work in partnership with such seamless cooperation, it shows what we need to do as a globe as well to drive the change that the world wants to see and that the world needs.

Thank you.

PM&C acknowledges the traditional owners and custodians of country throughout Australia and acknowledges their continuing connection to land, water and community. We pay our respects to the people, the cultures and the elders past, present and emerging.