Jigar Shar, CEO, Carbon War Room, is now confirmed to present at the upcoming Australia21 conference, via video link to Washington.
The Carbon War Room was formed to ‘harness the power of entrepreneurs to implement market-driven solutions to climate change’, and was set up by Richard Branson, José María Figueres (former President, Costa Rica & CEO, World Economic Forum), and others.
Dr David Martin, Founder, Global Innovation Commons, USA will be presenting in person, along with John Hewson, Richard Hames, David Miles, Andrew Lawson, Will Steffen, Anna Skarbek, John White, Anthony Bergin, Tony Coleman, and others who will focus on the prosperity opportunities that climate change can bring to Australia.
Innovation – Driving Resilient Energy and EconomicFutures a one-day conference will take place Thursday 14 April 2011 at ANU.Further details here.
Following is the text of a media release issued by Australia 21 on Saturday 12 March.
Billions of dollars at risk by not having a resilience framework
The recent Queensland floods and the terrible Japanese earthquake illustrate how major environmental disturbances can throw lives, infrastructure, and governments into chaos. How they recover is a sign of their resilience.
‘One thing we know’, says Prof Richard Hames, the newly appointed President of Australia21, ‘is that the future will surprise us. We don’t know how, or where or when.’
Pressure is mounting from the impacts of environmental and community upheaval from environmental turbulence. ‘We don’t have to wait doing nothing until the next disaster strikes that would be foolish’.
‘A resilience framework will allow for a more considered approach to dealing with these issues,’ Prof Hames stressed.
There is an urgent need at federal, state, and local levels for a resilience policy framework to target investment for both human capital and infrastructure so as to optimise the recovery of communities and local economies.
There is a serious danger of undermining resilience by going back to the way we were and not proactively addressing resilience issues.
Prof Hames said we must ask the question how the Senate can pass the flood levy without a resilience framework.
Consideration of resilience and complex systems dynamics will increase our opportunities of finding durable solutions to natural disasters.
Building a more resilient nation will require developing resilience tools, such as strength and speed of feedback mechanisms, diversity of ideas and resources, and a strong capacity for self-organising.
Australia21 is hosting a national conference examining energy and economic futures through a resilience and innovation lens. The conference discussion will help shape the way we as a nation prepare for a climate change future.
Friday 10March saw Australia 21 celebrate the tenth anniversary of its foundation with dinner in the Great Hall in University House at the Australian National University.
At a meeting of the Australia 21 Board during the day, Australia 21’s Foundation Chairman, Professor Emeritus Bob Douglas AO, stepped down from the Chair and was succeeded by Richard David Hames, who becomes the body’s first President.
In appreciation of his decade of service to Australia 21, the Board appointed Professor Douglas, who will remain on the Board, Founder Patron.
Richard David Hames is a corporate philosopher, author and knowledge designer. Working at the interface between organisations and society, he is widely considered to be among the world's most influential intellectuals and strategic futurists.
An Australian citizen, educated in Europe and domiciled in Thailand, Richard has been honoured with numerous awards including a French Government Scholarship, a Leverhulme European Fellowship, the Mondadori Professorial Fellowship and the inaugural Lord Attlee Fellowship.
Richard is Founder and Honorary President of The Hames Group (a globally distributed think-tank and strategic design laboratory); Director of Thoughtpost Edge; and Distinguished Professor and founding Director of the Asian Foresight Institute at Dhurakij Pundit University in Bangkok.
For more on Richard’s background and achievements, see here.
Following on from its highly successful National Conference on Resilience in February last year, Australia21 will be convening another national conference at the Australian National University on 14 April, on the theme Innovation: Driving Resilient Energy and Economic Futures.
We have an outstanding speakers list – full details below. We hope we will see you there.
To register, visit our website here and click the registration button. There is a student concession, and an early bird discount for registrations received by 28 February.
INNOVATION – DRIVING RESILIENT ENERGY AND ECONOMIC FUTURES
14 APRIL 2011, ANU
‘At the centre of this Government’s approach to climate change is economic reform’
‘Innovation is critical to our economic competitiveness’
The Hon Greg Combet, MP Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency Nov 2010
Session One - 9.00-10.30am
Welcome Paul Barratt AO, Director, Australia21
Chair – Molly Harriss Olson NBLF
Dr David Martin, CEO, Founder and Chairman, M·CAM, Inc. (via Skype)
Topic - Intergenerational equity and Global Innovation Commons
Speaker – Anna Skarbek, Executive Director, Climateworks Australia
Topic – Curbing Climate Change and Sustaining Economic Growth
Speaker - Prof Richard Hames, Chair, Australia21
Topic – Innovation– a networked phenomenon
Session Two 11.00-12.30
Chair – Dr John Hewson,Chairman, Global DC
Panel Session – Policy and Market Incentives & Impediments to innovation and commercialisation in energy businesses
Brendan Dow - Ceramic Fuel Cells (tbc)
Andrew Lawson- mbdEnergy (Biofuels)
Paul Verschuer – Carbon Markets, Westpac
Dr James Bradfield Moodie – CSIRO (invited)
Session Three – 1.30-3.00pm
Prof Mandy Thomas – PVC (Research) ANU
Topic - Innovation in carbon capture
Speaker: Dr John White
Topic – Community Engagement on Climate Change
Speaker- Prof Graeme Pearman
Topic – Investing in innovation for low-carbon technologies
Speaker - David Miles, CEO, Innovation Australia
Session Four – 4.00pm- 5-00pm
Chair – Prof Bob Douglas, Director, Australia21
Topic - Implementing sustainable and inclusive solutions to climate change
Speaker - Prof Will Steffen, ANU
Topic – Communicating the policy impacts of climate change – recent insights
This year is a very special one for Australia21 as we move into our tenth year of operation as an independent, non-profit organisation that facilitates multidisciplinary inquiry on issues of strategic importance in the 21st century.
In March Professor Bob Douglas, Inaugural Chair, A21 will step down and Professor Richard Hames will take over in that role.
To recognise these milestones Australia21 is holding a dinner on 11 March 2011 and we’d like to invite you to join us.
Prof Glyn Davis will give the keynote address on knowledge and innovation for Australia’s future, and accomplished Australian cellist David Pereira will present a recital of music inspired by our natural world.
It should be a wonderful night as Bob Douglas looks back over ten years - and Richard Hames looks forward – and you enjoy great music, food, drinks and inspired conversations.
Reserve your table by 21 February 2011 by completing the attached dinner form.
Australia 21 mourns the loss of one of its foundation directors, Michael Ward, who died in a hospice in Sydney in the early hours of New Year’s Day after a six year battle with cancer.
Our feelings are best expressed in a message our Chairman, Bob Douglas sent yesterday to Directors past and present, to our research leaders and all the Australia 21 family:
Dear Australia 21 "Family"
I am saddened to pass on the enclosed report of the death of Michael Ward at 3:20 AM this morning. Michael was one of the six founding directors of Australia 21 in 2001. He has fought an amazingly determined fight against tonsil cancer for the past six years.
Michael's contribution to Australia 21's development was immense. Always a provocative and at the same time, a constructive thinker, he brought to the discussions on the board a freshness and amazingly diverse experience from a career in public health, the Republican movement, IT administration and CEO of an Eco-consulting firm.
Michael's determined battle with cancer was the subject of a series of newsletters which he shared with his many friends, first entitled "the tumour times" and subsequently, "sacred times".
In recognition of his stunning personal resilience, Australia 21 joined forces with The Menzies Institute at The University of Sydney during 2009 to hold the Michael Ward symposium on Health and Resilience.
We express our deep sympathy to Michael's two children, Irene and Max and to his close family who have provided heartwarming support during his nightmare illness.
We have lost a dear friend and colleague.
Bob Douglas
Board Chair
In spite of his great ordeal, Michael made the most of the hand that fate had dealt him. He received visits from family and friends right up to the end, saw out the fireworks on New Year’s Eve, wished the staff who were looking after him so well a happy new year, and a few hours later passed away peacefully in his room.
We shall continue to miss him, his ever cheerful countenance, and his wise counsel.
On the evening of 9 November 2010 Professor Ross Garnaut delivered the 2010 Cunningham Lecture to the Academy of Social Sciences. In it, he laid out an update case for action on climate change.
Most of the paper is a technical economic discussion about discount rates and their interaction with uncertainty and with the relationship between Australian and global mitigation. As such it is not an easy read, but it well repays close study.
Garnaut concludes his lecture by asking in very persuasive terms, “What if the mainstream science is right?”
I will conclude the lecture by answering briefly a simple question: what if the mainstream science is right? What if the science supported by the overwhelming majority of scientists who are qualified in the various disciplines related to climate, is broadly right? What if all of the Academies of Science in all of the countries of scientific achievement, are not deluded, or enticed into error by the availability to their members of certain types of research grants?
If they are broadly right, we would probably see a threat to our prosperity rather larger than any of the issues that do the rounds of public discourse on long-run economic development. The threats would manifest themselves in large problems in a few decades, and as the dominant problem well before the end of this century. The challenges beyond this century are difficult to reconcile with continuity in modern human civilisation.
If the mainstream science is broadly right, later in this century we will probably not be squabbling about whether a 37 per cent reduction in allocations to Murray-Darling irrigators is too much; but rather working hard to improve the chance of there being any water at all to allocate.
If the mainstream science is broadly right, defence and immigration would probably have radically different contexts. Probably, because there is uncertainty. It may be worse than this, or better. There is no reason to think the chances of better are higher than the chances of worse.
We should think about it, because there’s a chance that the mainstream science is right. When we think about it, those of us who are not climate scientists would need reasons beyond the current state of knowledge to think anything except that they are probably right. Certainly more likely to be right than people who have not spent the months and years and decades learning the subtleties of this complex area of knowledge. I hope that we here at least — members of this other learned academy that takes seriously the development and testing and accumulation of knowledge — can agree that there is enough of a chance that the mainstream physical and biological science is broadly right, to invest in understanding the implications for human society. After all, ours is the Academy that Australians look to for knowledge on how the immense pressures that we are in the process of placing on our societies may change human life on earth.
If we thought about the respective credentials of those who line up with the mainstream science, and those who are prepared to take their chances with information from other places, we would think that this issue was at least one of the fateful public policy matters of our time.
Nevertheless, as Professor Garnaut observes earlier in the lecture, notwithstanding the strong basis of community understanding and support, when push came to shove, the private interests seeking to block, blunt or slow down action prevailed over well developed community views. As he observes in the concluding phase of his remarks:
If there is to be success in the second attempt to introduce efficient, economywide approaches to substantial reduction in emissions, there will need to be a stronger and clearer message from the independent centre of the polity.
