57 countries gathered in Santa Marta, Colombia, late last month agreed to accelerate efforts to transition away from fossil fuels. Australia was one of them. Yet, the Australian Government continues to approve new coal and gas projects and to spend billions of dollars on fossil fuel subsidies. With Tuvalu agreeing to host the next international conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels, this contradiction in Australia’s climate policy will come under increasing pressure.

Join our panel of experts to discuss what happened in Santa Marta, what comes next, and what it all means for Australia and its Pacific neighbours.

SPEAKERS:

Dr Richard Denniss – co-Chief Executive Officer, The Australia Institute

Richard Denniss is co-CEO of the Australia Institute. He is a prominent Australian economist, author and public policy commentator, and has spent the last twenty years moving between policy-focused roles in academia, federal politics and think-tanks. He was a Lecturer in Economics at the University of Newcastle and former Associate Professor in the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University. He is a regular contributor to The Monthly and the author of several books including: Econobabble, Curing Affluenza and Dead Right: How Neoliberalism Ate Itself and What Comes Next?

Louise Morris – Advocate, The Australia Institute

Louise is an award-winning advocate with 20 years’ experience encompassing climate, energy, forest protection, and law reform in the not-for-profit sector, and federal politics before joining The Australia Institute.

Fergus Green – Associate Professor, University College London & Writer in Residence, The Australia Institute

Fergus’ research focuses on the drivers of, and responses to, fossil fuel expansion. He has published in leading academic journals and was a contributing author to three editions of the UN Environment Programme’s fossil fuel Production Gap Report (2019–2021). He has also advised on fossil fuel-related climate litigation in multiple countries. Before academia, Fergus worked as a lawyer in Melbourne and subsequently as a Policy Analyst & Research Advisor to Professor Nicholas Stern at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Ebony Bennett – Deputy Director, The Australia Institute

Beginning her career as a journalist in the Canberra press gallery for the Sydney Morning Herald and Australian Financial Review, Ebony has worked in federal politics in a variety of roles for almost 20 years and has published research on climate change and energy, gender and street harassment and contributed a chapter to Morrison’s Miracle: The 2019 Australian Federal Election (ANU Press 2020) and The Nordic Edge: Policy Possibilities for Australia (MUP 2021).

Ebony is a regular commentator and contributor across broadcast and print media, she appears regularly as a commentator on ABC and Sky News and has a fortnightly column in The Canberra Times.