About this episode
Australia leads the world on rooftop solar. Four million homes have it, and ten million people go to sleep each night under power from the sun. The incentives were built for people who own their home, so renters and apartment dwellers have been left behind.
Thom Woodroofe spent 15 years in international climate diplomacy. He argues the movement won the case on the science and never built the coalition to carry it. His new book makes the case for a transition that pays off here and now, for the people usually left out.
Joy McConnochie and Fraser Thompson work through the ideas with him. The conversation moves from the household to the nation: how to get solar to renters, why towns like Gladstone and Townsville are the real test of a fair transition, why Australia has no other industry ready to replace coal and LNG, and how to trade with China without being forced to choose a side.
About the guest
Thom Woodroofe is a climate diplomat turned policy strategist. He helped secure the Paris Agreement, including through his work advising the President of the Marshall Islands. He advised former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in Washington and built the Asia Society’s China Climate Hub.
Thom is now a Senior International Fellow at the Smart Energy Council, focused on green metals diplomacy and COP31, and a Senior Advisor at Kaya Partners.
His book, Power, Prosperity and Planet: Climate and Energy Policy for All, is out through Monash University Publishing.
”There is just not a source of prosperity that will replace coal and LNG on our trade balance sheet. So we either dive into this agenda and build it now, or we don't.
Thom Woodroofe
We cover
- Growing up off the grid, and what first sparked the interest in solar
- Fifteen years in climate diplomacy, from the Marshall Islands to Paris to China
- The book’s argument: won the science, not the coalition
- Why transitions run on self-interest, the Alan Finkel point
- How fast the economics have moved, from Copenhagen to Paris to now
- The rooftop solar equity gap for renters and apartments
- Policy fixes: stamp duty discounts, green mortgages, faster depreciation
- Solar as standard as smoke alarms, plus balcony solar and community batteries
- Australia’s hardest transition, and Donald Horne’s Lucky Country
- Iron ore, coal and LNG, and the case for green iron and green steel
- The vision gap for fossil fuel communities, and lessons from the US and Spain
- The litmus test: a parent in Gladstone, the Illawarra or Townsville
- National resilience, the insurance crisis and disaster payments
- Future Made in Australia: intent, implementation and the recent budget
- Sustainable aviation fuel and Australia’s fuel security
- Clean tech supply chains, critical minerals and China
- What gives Thom hope
