Eliza Murray
Deputy CEO - Climate Change Authority
Check against delivery.
May I begin by acknowledging the Ngarluma people as the traditional owners of the lands we meet on today, and pay my respects to their elders, past and present.
Can I also thank the organisers of Pilbara Summit 2026 for extending an invitation to the Climate Change Authority to join you.
Let me start with a question.
What if the Pilbara’s most valuable export in 2050 isn’t iron ore? What if it’s the low-emissions energy, materials and industrial products the world needs to decarbonise?
It’s a bold proposition, but perhaps the more important question is this:
Can the Pilbara become as central to the industries of the future as it has been to the industries that have shaped Australia’s economic story to date?
This morning, I’ll explore the opportunities created by abundant clean energy, the role of international partnerships in unlocking new markets, and the policy settings shaping investment decisions here at home.
But ultimately, this is a conversation about how regions like the Pilbara can continue to leverage their natural advantages to drive long-term prosperity in a changing world.
In reflecting on that, it’s hard not to notice the City of Karratha will celebrate NAIDOC Week in a fortnight or so.
This year’s theme – “50 Years Deadly” – marks half a century of leadership in amplifying Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices, culture, advocacy and achievements across the nation.
And while it’s a moment to recognise that extraordinary legacy, it’s also an opportunity to look ahead – to consider the kind of leadership that will be needed over the next 50 years… from all of us.
The Pilbara is no stranger to extreme weather.
Onslow Airport posted Australia’s hottest ever reliably recorded day, of 50.7 °C, back in January 2022, sharing the title with Oodnadatta in South Australia.
Two other Pilbara sites matched Australia’s previous record heat that day, at 50.5 °C.
Climate scientists are telling us it won’t be long before we set new heat records, with some of our major cities likely to have mercury climb above the 50 °C mark.
That’s a different kind of “deadly”.
Today, though, my focus is firmly on opportunity.
You might have heard Matt Kean, the Chair of the Climate Change Authority, talk about Australia’s home-ground advantage.
We have abundant sunshine and wind above us, and a periodic table of critical minerals – needed in the energy transition – beneath our feet.
Did you know that the western Pilbara region averages more than 10 hours of sunshine a day? That’s more than anywhere else in Australia, and nearly double what we get in southern Australia, where I hail from.
Many of you will know that work is advancing to enhance the North West Interconnected System – the main electricity network in this region – to realise the potential of a region that is not only sun-blessed, but also has excellent wind resources at night.
And developers – including some in the room – are working on an Australian Renewable Energy Hub for this region, boasting a capacity at full scale of 26 gigawatts.
That’s more that Australia’s entire coal-generation fleet at about 23 gigawatts – and that’s when all units are in operation.
Governments have recognised the Hub’s potential – backing early development with targeted funding, prioritising approvals, and putting in place the plans and policy frameworks needed to unlock projects of this scale.
The real question, though, is not whether the Pilbara has extraordinary renewable resources. It clearly does.
The question is: what will we choose to do with this abundance?
Because the opportunity before this region is much bigger than replacing ‘dig and ship’ with ‘generate and ship’.
There’s more value to be captured before the product leaves our shores.
The opportunity is to move up the value chain: to use that renewable energy to process, refine and manufacture; to transform raw materials into higher-value products; and to position the Pilbara not just as a supplier of resources, but as a powerhouse of low-emissions industry.
The Pilbara is home, of course, to one of Australia’s great economic success stories.
The iron ore industry transformed this region, underpinned decades of national prosperity, and plugged Western Australia into some of the world’s most important industrial economies.
That success was deliberate.
It came from:
- sustained government investment in enabling infrastructure
- companies willing to take long-term risks
- communities that supported and gained employment in new industries
- international partners who trusted that Australia would deliver.
Today, we are at a similar moment:
- The global economy is shifting, and countries are rethinking energy security.
- Manufacturers are hunting for lower-emissions supply chains.
- Investors are seeking places where they can deploy capital with confidence.
- Increasingly, nations are asking: “Who will supply the energy, materials and industrial products needed for our next phase of growth?”
The Pilbara is well-placed to answer those questions.
In addition to world-class resources, it also brings something equally powerful: deep industrial capability, world-class export infrastructure, and a workforce experienced in constructing and operating projects at scale.
It is uniquely positioned to build the next generation of industries, such as low emissions iron, green metals, clean fuels, and industrial decarbonisation services.
But the challenge is shifting.
Time and time again, we see projects with strong fundamentals – capable developers, interested investors, prospective customers, and supportive policy environments.
Yet, many still struggle to advance.
Why? Because every participant is waiting for somebody else to move first.
- The producer waits for the buyer.
- The buyer waits for the producer.
- Infrastructure waits for demand.
- And the financier waits for all 3.
It’s less about “first-mover advantage” than about considered, collaborative and sequenced movement. It is a coordination challenge.
And it is why I believe the next phase of climate and industrial policy will be less about setting targets and more about unlocking this ‘chicken and egg’ coordination stalemate.
And at its core, that coordination will hinge on how risk is shared.
Each participant sees the opportunity, but each is also managing exposure.
There are decisions about who invests early, who underwrites demand, who commits to supply, and how supporting infrastructure is developed in parallel, rather than in sequence.
When those decisions are made in isolation, momentum slows. When they are made together, investment can accelerate.
Fortunately, this challenge is not a new one for the Pilbara.
The region did not become a global resources powerhouse by waiting for certainty before gearing up to extract and ship that red dirt.
It emerged because governments, investors, companies and customers found ways to share risk and move forward together. The same was true for the North West Shelf.
Those experiences should offer us lessons and, importantly, the confidence we can pull this off.
We can all agree that establishing new low‑emissions industries carries risk.
The question is how we can allocate and manage that risk in a way that enables projects to gain momentum quickly and move cost-effectively into operation.
If we get the infrastructure right, if we build the right partnerships, and if we focus on delivery, the Pilbara can help write the next chapter of Australia’s prosperity.
Energy, of course, is big business.
As the International Energy Agency recently reported, investment in energy in 2026 will be about US$3.4 trillion, or not far shy of A$5 trillion in our currency.
And of that mammoth amount, the flows into clean energy will be almost twice that going into fossil fuels.
It’s far too early to know how durable the US-Iran peace agreement will be.
But around the globe, consumers, businesses – and governments – are already acting to reduce their exposure to the vagaries of distant events, which can be sudden, far‑reaching, and deeply disruptive.
In that context, ‘energy sovereignty’ and ‘economic resilience’ are fast emerging as defining themes of 2026.
Fortunately, home-grown electrons are increasingly competitive – not to mention being less of an environmental burden when generated with clean tech.
Again, that’s why the Pilbara’s extraordinary sun and steady winds mean a Future Made in Australia can also be driven by Energy Made in Australia – strengthening our sovereignty, resilience and security.
The soaring demand for electric vehicles globally is an example of a worldwide shift that many of us can see on our roads and even our own driveways.
We’re not far off seeing a third of new car sales being EVs in Australia – a level that would have seemed impossible as recently as last year.
It probably won’t be too long before the majority of buses and trucks – including giant mining ones – will also be electric.
Other sectors won’t be so easy to decarbonise, though, such as iron and steel, shipping and aviation.
Australia’s reliability as a trading partner has been built over decades, and it’s one we should be proud of. But maintaining that position means keeping pace with a rapidly changing global landscape.
We’ve long rolled out the welcome mat for investors, and that has made Australia a major destination for foreign capital. The task now is to ensure we continue to attract and retain it.
Those of you in the Pilbara understand this better than most.
So now the question is how we ensure that, as our trading partners decarbonise their own economies, Australia is front of mind as their partner of choice.
One approach the Climate Change Authority has been exploring is what we call “Decarbonisation Deals”.
It’s a simple concept: many of the transition opportunities run along supply chains and extend across national borders.
Consider, a steel producer in South Korea buying iron ore from a miner in the Pilbara, using technology sourced from Japan, and the whole venture financed through Singapore.
Now imagine trying to decarbonise that supply chain.
Every participant can see where the future is heading,
Every participant stands to benefit if the transition succeeds.
Yet each faces a rational reason to wait.
The miner wants confidence that there’ll be a buyer for a low-emissions product before investing.
The steelmaker wants affordable, reliable supplies of green iron before changing its production processes.
The financier wants certainty that the project will generate returns before committing capital.
And the technology provider wants a market large enough to justify scaling up.
Each is waiting for someone else to move first.
What might look like a technology challenge is actually a coordination challenge.
And that’s the challenge decarbonisation deals are designed to solve. Bringing together the key players across demand, supply, finance and government so they can move forward with confidence, together.
Australia already has strong bilateral partnerships with countries like Korea, Japan and Singapore. The task is now to connect those relationships to real projects, real investment and real supply chains.
By bringing together like-minded partners around practical challenges agreeing standards, coordinating infrastructure, securing offtake arrangements, aligning finance and policy settings – we can create the certainty needed to unlock investment.
That’s what will shift projects from concept to construction…
…and then turn what starts as a lighthouse venture to a thriving industrial hub…
…and transitions Australia from exporting emissions to exporting solutions.
Future competitiveness will increasingly depend not only on what Australians can produce, but on who we can partner with.
Take South Korea, to return to the example I mentioned earlier. Korea doesn’t have the Pilbara’s renewable resources.
And Australia doesn’t have Korea’s manufacturing base.
Neither country can realise their full potential alone.
But together each brings something the other needs.
The challenge – and the opportunity – is to align those complementary strengths in ways that serves the interests of both.
Imagine it: Australian clean energy powering the production of green iron used in Korean green steelmaking and automotive manufacturing, with vehicles ultimately finding their way back to Australia, and powered up with the same renewable resources that helped create them.
That is what a low-emissions value chain can look like.
To reiterate:
The countries that will succeed in the next phase of industrial development are likely to be those that coordinate their efforts to harness resources, technology, capital and trusted international relationships.
Australia is poised to do exactly that.
The Super Power Institute last year crunched some numbers and came up with some big benefits.
They estimated Australia’s present iron ore exports in the order of $120 billion a year.
And if Australia can move up the value chain and become a major exporter of green iron, that figure could grow to $386 billion annually by 2060 – more than tripling the value we capture from one of our most important resources.
The opportunity is significant but realising it will require more than technology alone.
The Climate Change Authority examined these opportunities closely through our advice to government on Australia’s 2035 emissions reduction target.
Drawing on our Sector Pathways work, we found that many of the key technologies – like electrification, energy efficiency and fugitive abatement measures – are mature and ready to roll out now.
That analysis informed our recommendation that Australia set a target to reduce emissions by 62%-70% below 2005 levels by 2035. Advice that was subsequently accepted by the government.
The challenge, then, is increasingly not whether the technologies exist. It is whether we can mobilise the investment, infrastructure, supply chains and partnerships to deploy them at the speed and scale required.
And that’s where the Climate Change Authority is now focusing its attention – particularly on the practical decisions many companies in this room will be considering as they weight up investment in a changing energy, industrial and policy landscape.
If your facility is large enough, it is likely you’re covered by the government’s Safeguard Mechanism.
The Safeguard Mechanism is part of the commercial landscape for major industrial facilities.
Covered facilities are required to reduce emissions intensity over time, creating an incentive to invest in efficiency improvements, operational changes and lower-emissions technologies.
Facilities that can reduce emissions more quickly than required, can generate Safeguard Mechanism credits, which can be sold to firms facing higher abatement costs.
And those facilities can also use Australian Carbon Credit Units – or ACCUs - to meet their obligations.
That means businesses and landholders generating ACCUs through activities such as reforestation and savannah fire management are increasingly linked through carbon markets.
The Australian Government has announced a review of the Safeguard Mechanism over the coming year, and the Climate Change Authority will provide advice as part of that process. Keep an eye out for a consultation paper coming out in a couple of weeks.
We’re also currently consulting on options to reduce fossil methane emissions at the moment.
Methane is responsible for around 30% of global warming to date, and reducing emissions from leaks, venting and flaring is widely recognised as one of the fastest ways to slow near-term warming.
Many of the solutions already exist, and we want to understand what will unlock their deployment at scale.
Whether your interest is in industrial competitiveness, emissions reduction, carbon markets or the future of the resources sector, I’d encourage you to engage with both consultations and help shape the next phase of Australia’s climate and industrial policy.
Because ultimately, the objective is industrial development as much as reducing emissions.
It is ensuring Australia remains competitive and prosperous in a world that is increasingly valuing low emissions products and production.
Let me leave you with one final thought.
Fifty years from now, people will look back on this period and ask whether Australia recognised – and grabbed – the opportunity before us.
The Pilbara did not become a globally significant industrial region by waiting for certainty. It grew because people were willing to act with conviction, to invest, and to back a vision of what could be.
Much like the pioneers who read the red hills inland from here, and turned that insight into prosperity, we can see the forces reshaping the economics of industry all around us.
Do we have the foresight to ensure our great export regions – like the Pilbara – seize their full share of what’s next?
And do we have the resolve to stay the course through the inevitable short-term pressures that could pull us off track?
Because this is not just an economic opportunity – it’s a generational responsibility.
We owe it to this generation – and all those that follow – that we gave it a red-hot go!
Thanks for listening, and I’ll be happy to take some questions.
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