Good morning, everyone.

I begin by acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the land on which we meet, the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong / Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation, and pay my respects to their Elders past and present.

I acknowledge Martin Ferguson (Chair), Dr Matthias Raab (Executive Director and CEO), Peter Cook AC, and the rest of the CO2CRC team and thank them for the invitation to speak at this symposium.

I recognise I am an amateur in a room full of experts.

This is a timely opportunity to explore Australia’s contribution to carbon capture and storage innovation at home and on the world stage.

To achieve net zero by 2050, we will need to draw on every tool at our disposal.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) will play very big part in achieving that goal.

As the Government has made clear in its Future Gas Strategy – in the absence of alternatives, we need gas to get to net zero.

But gas is a fossil fuel, and while it provides essential fuel for power and industry, it produces CO2 which is contributing to dangerous climate change.

So in order to use gas, we need carbon capture and storage.

Highly respected, long-established international organisations such as the International Energy Agency and the International Panel on Climate Change, as well as our own Australian Climate Change Authority, all underscore and understand the role of CCS in reaching net zero.

So too do the Albanese Government’s Net Zero Plan and Future Gas Strategy.

The Albanese Government has committed to reach net zero by 2050.

And we have committed to reach a 43 per cent reduction from 2005 levels by 2030.

Both of those commitments are fixed in legislation.

And our Net Zero plan sets a target to reduce emissions to 62-70% below 2005 levels by 2035. These are the steps on our path to net zero by 2050.

Our Net Zero plan will help keep us on track for a safe and prosperous future.

The Future Gas Strategy sets out our expectation that Australian CCS facilities will provide cost-effective abatement options for local hard-to-abate industries.  

We view these technologies as part of a suite of measures.

But there are no silver bullets when it comes to addressing climate change. Technologies and targets will all combine to play a part alongside other efforts to reduce emissions and sequester carbon.  

Australia has huge potential for CCS.

Australia can lead the world in carbon management technology innovation.

We have the geology, we have the industrial capability.

And we have the people.

As Minister for Resources, I get the remarkable opportunity to travel this country, to see some fantastic facilities and meet some remarkable people. Last year, I took up the opportunity to visit the core library of the South Australian Geological Survey.

I will take this opportunity to thank and acknowledge Minister Tom Koutsantonis, the Treasurer, and most importantly, the Minister for Energy and Mining in South Australia. Minister Koutsantonis is doing excellent work, and I wish him the best of luck in the upcoming SA election.

At the core library, I was talking to one of the scientists about the prospects on the onshore segment of the Otway basin, and we got to talking about onshore CCS.  

And that’s when I first heard of Caroline the Borehole.

This morning may not be the first time some people here today heard about Caroline 1, but I suspect for some it is.

That is surprising because, according to the South Australian Department of Energy and Mining, Caroline 1 is the most productive well in South Australia ‘in terms of value of product’.

For those not aware, Caroline is a commercial production borehole near Mount Gambier in South Australia, that from 1968 until 2017, has produced over 810,000 tonnes of close to pure carbon dioxide.

And that CO2 has for 50 years been used to put the fizz in our drinks, but more importantly, it has been used in hospital surgeries and in firefighting all around the country.

Now we usually hear about boreholes that flow oil or gas, not CO2.

I want to be very clear, by talking about a CO2 producing well, I am not seeking in any way to minimise the impact that carbon dioxide produced by human industry has had and is having on the global atmosphere. Climate change is real and must be addressed on a global  scale.

But what Caroline 1 indicates to us, and moreover the wider public, is that carbon dioxide has been stored under ground for a very, very, very long time. It tells us that the earth’s crust has the capacity to store significant volumes of CO2 over geologically long periods. And as anyone who deals with geologists know, they are extremely long eras indeed.

As one CCS scientist explained to me, CCS is about reusing the reservoirs from which we have extracted oils and natural gas - reusing those reservoirs by returning CO2 into sub surface structures that are imminently suited to once again store such gases for millennia.

Our geology offers huge opportunities for safe, permanent CO2 storage – onshore and offshore.

“Permanent” means those long geological timeframes I mentioned earlier. And they are millennia longer than any above ground aforestation projects.

Maintaining forests, re-forestation and above ground carbon capture in the landscape is, of course, vital and important for many reasons – but they cannot match or come close to the opportunity of the extraordinary scale that carbon capture and storage presents - scale of both volume and permanence of CO2 reduction in the atmosphere.

For instance, the world’s largest CCS project on Barrow Island off the coast of Western Australia has stored 12 million tonnes of CO2.

That CO2 will be stored in the crust of the earth forever. To store an equivalent amount of CO2 above ground would require planting millions of trees, which would all have to remain standing and be replaced as they die or are lost to bushfires or storms. Fleeting storage of CO2 as opposed to permanent.

It has been well acknowledged that the Gorgon CCS project has not performed as well as first predicted, but it has stored more CO2 than any other project of any sort on the planet.

My overall point is that all efforts are required to avoid dangerous climate change and meet net zero targets, and large scale carbon capture and storage must be part of that effort.

The ground beneath our feet is not only a place from which we can extract resources and Caroline the CO2 Borehole shows us that we can also store CO2 beneath the earth’s crust safely and permanently.

It is clear that there remain many challenges to developing large scale CCS.

Australia is well placed to address these challenges because of our geology, but importantly, because of our people.

I was absolutely delighted to hear one of Australia’s leading scientists was recognised in the Australia Day honours for his work in geoscience.

Professor Peter Cook was recognised for his service to science and for his pioneering leadership in the development of carbon capture and storage by being awarded Australia’s highest honour - the Companion of the Order of Australia.

Professor Cook AC – whom we have just heard from – established and led the Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies and his leadership has positioned Australia at the forefront of geological storage research and practice.

He was integral to establishing the Peter Cook Centre for CCS Research at The University of Melbourne.

I would like congratulate Professor Cook for his outstanding achievements and this richly deserved recognition.

There are several important CCS projects underway in Australia, at various stages of development. I have already mentioned Gorgon - which is one of two operational commercial-scale onshore CCS projects.

And there are significant research and demonstration projects.

This includes CO2CRC’s very own Otway International Research Centre.

To date, Australia’s operational CCS projects have safely stored over 13 million tonnes of CO2 – through Gorgon CCS in Western Australia and Moomba CCS in South Australia.

More must be done, but they remain significant volumes.

Hard-won lessons from these projects will have to address technical, operational, and regulatory challenges.

The Albanese Government is working to ensure we have right settings in place to encourage investment in CCS.

We are currently reviewing regulatory requirements for offshore CCS projects, including important reforms to EPBC laws.  

The goal is to ensure the framework provides clarity and certainty for long term investment.

We want to provide a robust regulatory pathway for the effective, safe and environmentally responsible storage of CO2. CCS will never achieve the support of the community without meeting these requirements, and proving its effectiveness.

And we want to create a stable and predictable business environment that encourages investment in CCS as a long-term solution.

Of course, carbon management technologies are broader than CCS.

We are also looking beyond our shores for inspiration and opportunities.

Operational CCS projects around the globe provide valuable insights in critical areas such as site selection, monitoring, regulatory compliance, and technological innovation.

For instance, Australia is gaining insights from global leaders such as Norway and the US.

The lessons we learn are helping us prepare for larger-scale deployment of CCS in Australia, giving us the tools to protect jobs and support sustainable industry.

The government continues to engage in international partnerships to share knowledge and learn from other countries, including Japan, Korea, and the US.

CCS has its critics, but reaching Net Zero will be impossible without it.

That’s something respected authorities around the world agree on.

Indeed, Professor Cook was recently quoted as saying: “There’s no mitigation path I can see without it.”

We have the skills, the experience, and the determination to be a big part of this expanding sector.

So, we must do everything in our power to ensure the technology becomes as effective as possible, and that the benefits of effective CCS are explained and seen by the wider Australian community

Thank you once again, and please enjoy the rest of the symposium.