 Good afternoon everyone. My name is Tony Erskine, and I'm director of the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs here at the Australian National University. And I think the school is an exceptional place to study and research international and Asia Pacific politics, society, strategy, security, and diplomacy. Before I begin, I'd like to acknowledge and celebrate the Ngunnawal and Nambri people of the Canberra region and all the First Nations Australians on whose traditional lands we meet and work and pay my respects to elders past and present. I'm absolutely delighted to be here this afternoon and welcome you all to the Australian National University for this timely and incredibly important discussion of climate security and climate action in the Indo-Pacific. A very warm welcome to U.S. Ambassador to Australia Carolyn Kennedy, U.S. Deputy Special Envoy for Climate, Rick Duke, and Head of Division International Climate and Technology, Department of Climate Change Energy, the Environment, and Water, Cush Lemon Row. And welcome to our A&U alumna and Chief Operating Officer of MCI Carbon, Sophia Hamlin-Wong, who will moderate our Q&A session. I look forward to the questions that the brilliant minds in this room I know will pose and to what I know will be a fascinating discussion, so I'll keep my initial introduction brief. Ambassador Carolyn Kennedy served as U.S. Ambassador to Japan from 2013 to 2017. She played a critical role in the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, culminating in the historic visit of President Obama to Hiroshima and President Prime Minister Abe to Pearl Harbor. She advanced the realignment of the U.S. forces in Okinawa, promoted women's empowerment in Japan, and increased student exchange. In 2017, she founded the International Poetry Exchange Project to connect students virtually in Japan, Korea, the Philippines, and the Bronx through the power of the spoken word. In November 2021, she was awarded the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun, the highest honor for which foreigners are eligible in Japan for her efforts to strengthen U.S.-Japan alliance. Prior to her time in Japan, Ambassador Kennedy was at the forefront of education reform efforts in New York City, creating public-private partnerships to promote arts education, school libraries, and performing arts spaces. She served as CEO of the Office of Strategic Partnerships at the New York City Department of Education, Vice Chair for the Fund for Public Schools, and she was on the board of New Visions for Public Schools. She's also served as a trustee. There is more and more. I will stop there and say that it's an absolute pleasure to welcome Ambassador Kennedy here this afternoon. Thank you so much. Thank you all. It is such a great honor to represent the United States of America here in Australia, and I can't think of any place more important. I had a wonderful time in Japan, but this is a moment of opportunity for our two nations. Before I go any further, I do want to also acknowledge the traditional honors of this land. Yesterday, we were here for a tour of ANU and were able to be welcomed and participate in a really meaningful and significant ceremony by Paul House. My husband and I are extremely grateful for the welcome that we have received, what we've learned both at the Garma Festival and through other ceremonies about the respect for the land, the lessons that we all should learn. And there's no issue that is more relevant and more connected to those lessons than the issue that we're talking about today, which is climate change. I have had the great privilege of accompanying the next speaker for the last two days, and he is the Deputy Special Presidential Envoy for Climate. He is, I would say, the most knowledgeable person that I've ever met on this issue, and I am now incredibly knowledgeable as well, but you are going to have a great time here. So I encourage you to ask him as many questions as you can, and I know that you will also learn a tremendous amount. He will tell you, but I just wanted to say personally how proud I am to serve the Biden-Harris administration, who has made such an incredible commitment to the issue of climate change and has achieved significant historic legislative milestones to advance the United States' progress towards our climate goals of reducing our emissions by 2050, 50%, I mean 2030. So he knows all that, and so you are going to be able to ask him everything you want to ask him about it, but I will say that I don't think there's any issue more important for your generation, so it's great to see you all here. You are the ones that are going to have to take this forward, hold governments accountable, inform yourselves, participate, and enlist your entire generation. So thank you so much for taking the time to come here today. I look forward to continuing this discussion, to coming back to A&U whenever you invite me, and I would like to turn it over to our special guest, Rick Duke. Thank you, Ambassador Kennedy. Thank you to Australia National University, and thank you to our new colleagues from DQ where we've spent really all of the last day and a half since I arrived in country, digging into what we can do together on climate change and really ran out of time, even with that much work together already. So I'll be very brief in remarks in order to leave time for the Q&A, which I think is the most important part of an event like this, but just to say that my messages are simple. We have a shared set of conditions and opportunities on climate change between Australia and the United States. We have very common opportunities to invest in the clean energy transition and on the broader topic of climate progress. And both governments now are in a position where we have put forward the targets required in 2030 and net zero by 2050 in order to be doing our part to ensure that we have realized the promise of the Paris Agreement and that we are, in fact, doing what is required to keep warming well below 2°C and ideally keep 1.5°C as the warming outcome that we will be seeking. And so with that set of goals in place now with the new commitment from Prime Minister Albanese's administration to that 2030 nationally determined contribution and the prior commitment to deliver net zero emissions by 2050, you see that Australia is on a straight line path to that future, to that clean future. The United States is on a similar path and the whole of the world needs to be on that same path. And so what we do together and individually will be essential to developing the technologies that will allow us to achieve a clean energy economy. It will be essential to inspiring other countries to take similar steps, set similar targets and actually deliver against those targets. And what we've already been able to accomplish in a day and a half here and what we look forward to following up on in full is making sure that we have taken advantage of all of our common conditions and aspirations and commitments to work together on everything from research and development, where we have a strong platform to build on between our relevant ministries on research and development across the board and key technologies, but also on the policies required in order to transition to a renewables future with confidence and clarity and to do all the other transitions that are required to electric vehicles and beyond. But beyond that domestic work and that partnership on our domestic priorities, we have massive common interests and opportunities diplomatically. And we spent a good deal of this morning working on how we can Australia and the United States partner in order to encourage and empower other governments, including in the Pacific and Southeast Asian region to achieve the same benefits that we expect for our economies from shifting to cleaner, cheaper energy themselves. And that is something which Government of India, for example, is very clearly committed to already as its own priority because they want to deliver a renewables future to their own economy, to their own people. They set a goal of 500 gigawatts of renewables by 2030, which to put that in context, last year Australia deployed six gigawatts of renewables, which is impressive and important. And in the context of the Australian economy puts Australia on the right track to achieve that net zero future. But India, of course, is a much bigger place. And so India has to actually deliver 500 gigawatts by 2030. That is their stated intent. And that's the kind of country and opportunity where we can work together to try to help countries deliver on that promise together. So we look forward to much more work together with our colleagues in Australia. We could not be more enthusiastic about the potential for that work. And I would be remiss to not make a comment at the outset here about some of what we're doing in the United States to deliver on our own goals. And very specifically, we are proud and thrilled that we just passed comprehensive transformative legislation known as the Inflation Reduction Act in the United States. And we call it the Inflation Reduction Act because when we transition to the clean energy technologies that we need, electric vehicles, renewables, heat pumps, et cetera, we save money for consumers, for businesses, and we reduce risk in terms of energy price shocks. And that is what this $369 billion investment that the United States is moving to deliver will allow us to achieve in the United States. That then opens up all kinds of opportunities to intensify our cooperation with Australia and others on the same agenda and on a global basis. So thanks for the opportunity to have this discussion today and looking forward to the question and answer. Okay. I just briefly also want to introduce Kuchla Munro, who's head of division for the International Climate and Technology, the Australian Government Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, who's going to be part of our panel. And then just to introduce you to our moderator as well, Sophia Hamblin Wong is Chief Operating Officer at MCI Carbon, an Australian technology platform transforming CO2 emissions into building materials and other valuable industrial products. And Sophia, if I may hand over to you now please to moderate. Please come up. We're doing massless. Can everybody hear me okay? Well Yuma, and welcome to the Q&A part of this session. We'll be inviting everybody to ask a question. So get your brain juices flowing and thinking about what to ask. I as the moderator and the ANU alumna get to say a couple of words and ask the first question. So as Professor Erskine mentioned I'm a carbon capture and utilization technology developer. So I work in the fields of carbon dioxide removal and negative emissions technologies. And so my specific interest is in the really hard to abate sectors and how we're going to solve those really hard problems once the easier problems of climate change get solved. So I'm really excited to steer the conversation today. Now, just a couple of months ago I was actually in Norway at a carbon dioxide removal conference and the Department of Energy from the US were there as well. And I was actually mentioning to them that I had recently had a realization that we talk a lot about 1.5 degrees and net zero by 2050 and that is such an important thing. And in Australia we've been really talking about net zero by 2050 in the past year and there's been a lot of movement there. But I had this realization that net zero 1.5 degrees is actually about creating a better future for the next generation. It's not necessarily about the target itself. It's about creating a more vibrant, prosperous, robust environment for our future generations. And I actually had this realization because I care about it but also I'm about to have a baby and there is a person in this room that's going to be alive in 2100 quite probably. And the other thing is that my baby will be younger than the President of the United States of America in 2100. So maybe even still working and having a great life. So it just made me realize that we have to engage youth obviously a lot more. And my question to both of you is what are your countries doing to engage youth in the climate policy debate? Is it enough and what more could you be doing? So well thank you Sophia and also just because I haven't spoken I just wanted to thank the ANU for the invitation. It is wonderful to be here with you Ambassador and also with you Rick. And I think I counted. I only met Rick. It was actually less than 24 hours ago and it's been 10 plus hours of very intensive discussion. It's been fantastic. But your question obviously is an important one. So for it's been said that the election that we just had was a climate change election. And so much of what has driven that I think is it is civil society. It is the fact that youth, younger people, people here today care and like I care. And so many other people in our society just get it. And so there is that question of of course what more can we do. In about 15 minutes I wasn't with you Rick earlier today. I actually was able to join one of our sort of still online stakeholder events. And it was I think there was over 500 people who attended who wanted to know what was happening with the Australian government. Because we're just 90 days in with the new government. They wanted to know what was going to be happening at our biggest of events at COP which will be in Egypt later this year. And so many of those faces and people were young people. And so there are formal things that we can do. And then there is no doubt so many more things that we've got to think about in terms of the policy. But then just giving hope as well. From the American perspective I would almost flip the question and say that the young people in America have been engaging us as government. And doing so with great success. And when you look at the arc of climate action in the United States what you see is that there's been awareness for some time that this is something we have to tackle. We've known that we are approaching dangerous tipping points on climate change that we need to transform to clean energy and climate solutions for decades now. And there's been earnest effort myself included. Ambassador Kennedy I'm sure included certainly my boss John Kerry has been all of us have been working hard to take that seriously and convert that into transformative action on climate in the United States. We got close many times. We had within a vote or two outcomes on cap and trade legislation back in 2009 or 2010 in that two year period. We've had many other small legislative outcomes along the way that have been achieved and we've made progress. We've cut our emissions 40 percent from peak in the power sector. And we have actually delivered delivered on our 2020 objective to cut our emissions 17 percent. In fact we over delivered on that in 2020. But only this summer with the young people of America pushing in a sustained and visible and really compelling way. Did we finally see our Congress pull together not just this inflation reduction act but also in the last two years. There have been a series of legislative victories that are putting us now on a serious path to actually deliver 50 percent reductions or more in our emissions by 2030 and really track towards that net zero that we need by 2050. And so it has come in a sense bottom up and propelled all of us to finally be able to get some things across the line legislatively and including in many ways in a bipartisan fashion. Including both Republicans and Democrats in our Congress to be on a foundation that will allow us to deliver on the full transformation we need. You know how else do we engage with young people in this process. I would say that the when you look at the members of the administration I'm so proud to be a part of so many of my colleagues are in their 20s or 30s and just incredibly committed and talented in terms of all the nuance of climate action that's required. And so it's really great to see that. And it gives those of my vintage a lot of confidence that there's going to be the people and the passion in place to really deliver on the climate future we need. Thank you. Can I throw to the audience. Does anyone have a question. Yes. Thank you. It's really exciting to have all of you here and sharing your like expertise. My name is Nancy. I'm the editor of Australian Outlook for the Australian Institute of International Affairs. I'm also a native of California and have long been aware of the cooperation between Australia and especially Cal Fire on managing disasters fires especially because it's a huge problem for both places. As the climate's changing as as fire seasons are extending beyond their traditional boundaries which have really worked out well for the relationship given that the seasons were opposite previously. I'm wondering how that has affected US Australia relations in terms of disaster management and cooperation really. And what the future of that cooperation looks like in this new reality that we have. So I'll be candid. I'm not tracking those questions closely so I can't give you more than a general answer. What I can say is that we're getting one in five one one in five thousand year floods seemingly every week now in the United States. We are seeing these impacts that you're describing in terms of wildfire and drought. And it is getting very real in the United States and globally. And so I think that is a reminder for all of us that even at one point one degrees centigrade the impacts are quite bracing. And at this point the intergovernmental panel on climate change has been very clear. One point five is essentially locked in. And the question is how close can we cling to that. And so we have to do everything we can to mitigate faster globally. And that means not just the energy transition where of course we need to decarbonize global energy in Australia in the United States in India in Indonesia everywhere. We also need to do other things that complement that and that in many ways have faster climate benefits. We need to cut methane pollution. Methane accounts for half a degree centigrade of today's one point one degree centigrade of warming. And it is by far the fastest strategy available to us to pump the brakes on climate impacts. So we need to take seriously that topic. We need to do more on other non CO2 gases like hydrofluorocarbons and N2O. And we need to stop tropical deforestation. All these things that have immediate benefits in terms of managing some of those impacts which are very substantial in both of our countries and even worse in much of the world. In terms of how that's affecting our bilateral disaster management. I can only imagine without being someone who tracks that closely that it just means that the fire jumpers and the other folks who are on the front lines. About and I'll be heading to Bali next week where we have the G20 and Indonesia is the chair of that. And in our climate working group the focus is about recovering stronger recovering sustainably. And a core part of that is absolutely looking at where and how we collaborate. We share the knowledge the financing aspect is incredibly important to be able to do those things. So the centrality of climate change as part of bilateral relationships that will go through a raft of different areas is going to be critical. But where and how we work with others. And I think about this in the Pacific particularly in Indonesia but more broadly in Southeast Asia are things that we need to do. We need to do together but with others in particular. I think the question is next to you. Thanks. Niko Dros from the ANU. Rick you mentioned that one of the most important milestones for keeping 1.5 degrees on the table is reducing methane emissions particularly from oil and gas this decade. And the US has played a critical role in this of course leading the global methane pledge and I understand you've been involved in this work as well. I'm wondering what has needed to come together to allow for progress in this area. And secondly what are the major barriers remaining to addressing this issue. And I'd love to hear about Australia's situation around this issue as well. Thanks. Thank you for the question. So methane of course comes from fossil energy comes from oil and gas operations also from coal mining operations. But in addition to that it comes from agricultural sources and from waste including landfills and sewage and the likes. And we need to address all of that. And so one of the barriers is I think just awareness of how crucial it is to our near term climate future and related climate impacts that we're already suffering from. That's where we have worked with now over 120 governments on this global methane pledge as a way to set the agenda on the diplomatic stage to include methane. There was a report done recently by a group called the Climate Policy Initiative that looked at how much do the multilateral development banks invest in methane mitigation. And the answer is less than two percent of their climate investments. So there's an opportunity there for multilateral development banks for governments everywhere to take this more seriously to step up and be more creative on everything from regulations for standards for oil gas and coal operators to and by the way there are financial returns there. And I think that the leading companies in the oil and gas sector in the United States are pretty much universally clear that it is both possible and in their economic interest to move to reduce methane emissions from their operations. Because when they do so they're capturing product that is then something they can sell because when you prevent leakage from your oil and gas systems that's natural gas that you can instead use and sell and market. And we see similar interest in countries around the world now. Secretary Kerry my boss has had very positive outreach with Mexico. And we saw the president of Mexico and President Biden jointly announced commitment to deal with oil and gas in Mexico's oil and gas operations. We've got positive movement from Nigeria and a whole range of other players that see that this is something that can be not just critical for the climate but also cost effective in terms of its economics. When you get into areas like agriculture there are opportunities there as well. We have been very clear that the main strategies to reduce methane in livestock and dairy are to enhance productivity in those sectors which is something which again has an economic return at its core. And that's why we see countries like Pakistan joining us in the global methane pledge Argentina Brazil over three quarters of the world's major livestock and dairy producers have joined in this effort because they see that this is something where you can actually deal with a critical part almost half of today's climate change while also ensuring that you've got better productivity and output. And in the waste sector there are opportunities as well to take what is otherwise wasted organic matter that's converted into methane and landfills instead use it to generate electricity or use it to generate compost and better soil quality and the like. So across the board it's something where there is a need for more awareness more attention to the policy and investment opportunities in methane mitigation. And we're hopeful that to be clear the trend still is towards increasing global methane emissions about 10% increase by 2030. But the global methane pledge was announced less than a year ago and we are very committed to working with partners to change that story. And to answer it from I guess Strayer's perspective there's a long history and some of the fundamentals is about the measurement of methane. And we had a really good session on this with colleagues from our inventory area and the clean energy regulator with Rick and his team yesterday. And that kind of sense of the measurement aspects because it is about the emissions reductions benefits and you have to be able to measure it to manage it. But that sense of the work that has happened you know under our national greenhouse emissions reporting requirements is that it's around one third of all of the entities are actually from the oil gas and coal area. And so that level of detail allows us to know what they're doing how that's progressing. There's been programs of work that have been running for like over a decade in terms of how you think about emission reduction programs how you can actually incentivize that action. But to be frank some of those things in terms of as I sort of see it from a US to Australia perspective a lot of the infrastructure for example in Queensland with the gas was put in really recently. And it's actually an incredibly quite efficient operation from that perspective. So they're not necessarily low hanging fruit but they are very important emissions reductions that need to be achieved. And then in agriculture this is where it's really hard because you can do some of the easiest stuff in terms of you know sustainable agricultural practices precision agriculture and best use of fertilizers. But still fundamentally though the burping and pardon me I'm Australian I can say the farting of the cows and sheep mean that you've got to fundamentally address that. And that's where there has been great success I think as people know with what Siro has been doing and the seaweed supplements. And so there's I think the immediate things and then there's again thinking about the net zero by 2050 and how far we can go and how soon some of those research projects in the commercialization of that is going to be absolutely critical. We'll take this question here one then two. Hey son. Hey I'm Sarah I'm an early career researcher and I work for the International Ocean Discovery Program. So on the context in our rapidly evolving world science diplomacy and international collaboration is critical for to solve the climate crisis. What effects does the geopolitical threats have on expanding our international opportunities and also our success. What is our success in our ability to succeed in those climate goals. Just as an example I think that's a really great question so thank you for that. Just as an example I think one thing that's really come under a lot of scrutiny is you know for the clean energy transition that we do where are the solar panels made and the answer is largely in China. That's not a bad thing it's just like the scaling up of what we've got to do potentially that diversification of what we've seen through supply chains and through COVID is incredibly important. And so from Australia's perspective we've looked quite strategically at where some of those critical partnerships on research with different countries would be. And US is certainly one of those and there was an agreement signed between Minister Bowen and Secretary Granholm when she was out here a month or so ago which is going to look at how we get those technology and research linkages. But also I think critical countries of partnership for Australia will be with Japan, Korea and India. And the India relationship is one which we've decided to focus on solar and also the production of green hydrogen so the electrolyzer base in particular. And the University of Sydney under Martin Green, Professor Martin Green still absolutely world leading in the solar technology and that is actually going to be a whole new partnership that we stand up between Australia and India and are going to look about those research exchanges but also how you actually get that scaled up. So I think there's sort of a richness in terms of the science and research collaboration but also how that plays out in I guess the new geopolitics of what's happening at the moment as well. Let me add a few comments on this. I think it's a good very sweeping question. If you look at the one of the biggest geopolitical drivers in the moment of course is Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine and many reverberations from that. And I'll just mention two that I think are important in terms of how they intersect with climate change. And one is of course that we've seen global fossil fuel price shocks including right here in Australia with natural gas and oil both driving inflation and lots of consternation about all that. I think what has been sometimes lost in people's understanding of the reverberations on that front is that when you look at what countries are actually doing in response it's going to accelerate the energy transition. The European Union has tripled down on its efforts to deploy renewables and heat pumps and to electrify its vehicle fleet and otherwise respond to this crisis. That's going to take time. It always does take time to transform complicated energy systems but the pace is quickening because of the conflict the invasion of Ukraine. And similarly in the United States the Inflation Reduction Act I just mentioned nearly three hundred and seventy billion dollars in investment across the board in this energy transition. That is named after our priority to address inflation which is in many ways being driven by energy costs right now and at its core it's doing the same thing. It's tripling down on renewables on electric vehicles on heat pumps on clean hydrogen etc. And you're seeing that here in Australia from our conversations and around the world that that particular geopolitical shock that is reverberating so far around the world has really accelerated that shift. Another area I'll just more briefly comment on is that another consequence of Russia's invasion has been exacerbating already high fertilizer prices. And we have seen again that countries are if anything then moving to be more serious about over the long haul trying to shift towards alternatives to conventional fertilizer based on clean hydrogen to clean ammonia for example. That's a big part of the Inflation Reduction Act in the United States context. And we're also President Biden called on the world to join us in pulling together substantial funding to help governments around the world enhance fertilizer efficiency in the near term as a way to kind of manage through the food security climate security nexus. So you have all manner of intersections but they tend to point in the same direction which is for energy security reasons for climate security reasons for food security reasons. We need to move faster to deploy the solutions that we keep talking about here in this conversation. Great. That's a good question. I can start. Look there's no fundamental guarantee in politics as you know. Elections have consequences. They have important consequences including for climate policy. That said what we have seen in the United States is in large measure driven by this push from younger Americans but also from private sector and in a growing coalition. There is I think no turning back at this point on on this as we move into a mode in which we are going to be investing in all of these industries at a scale that people I think are just beginning to get their heads wrapped around. That is going to create more buy in. That's going to create more jobs. That's going to create more consumer benefit. It's cheaper to to own and operate an electric vehicle by far and you're not subject to the winds of oil prices. It's cheaper to have a house that's got solar and heat pumps and again you're insulated from energy price shocks and if you've got jobs in those industries as they expand you're going to be on the side of climate action accordingly. More specifically when we look at this track record of the United States. Yes there's been ups and downs. It's been complicated and not as fast as we wanted. At the same time we really did find a way to to claw our way to our 2020 goal. We over delivered on that by a few percent and in fact we're already almost to our 2025 goal which is no longer exactly operative but we had a goal of twenty six to twenty eight percent reductions by twenty twenty five and we're we're getting close to that already. And so kind of one way or another we've made headway against the targets that we've set the often quite aspirational targets that we set. And now President Biden has put forward a truly bold target of fifty to fifty two percent reductions by 2030 and with these legislative moves which are largely bipartisan supported at their core. Things like tax credits and incentives for renewables and electric vehicles and heat pumps and clean energy manufacturing and there is broad bipartisan support for those and we have seen including through the last administration that identical and similar measures that we fought for in twenty fifteen for wind and solar support for example persisted straight across administrations and drove record years for wind and solar. So now we've got that kind of order of magnitude larger scale much more comprehensive in scope and it really gives us sustained and I think very durable tailwinds on delivering on our twenty thirty target and our twenty fifty net zero journey. I'll just put it a little bit more simply because I think if the economics make sense you get jobs you can be positive and see the change it sticks. And so that sense of both the legislation of the twenty thirty target net zero by twenty fifty is bipartisan in this country. So the question is that you've raised is a really important one. But as was sort of Rick sort of referring it was like six gigawatts of renewables that came online. We've just got to do it quicker and we need more of it. So it's this question of just how you really get through the reforms and that momentum to just keep doing more. This gentleman at the back. My question is around the hydrogen economy and we all know that that energy trade is is going to have to continue into the future. And Australia could have potentially an enormous role to play in that direction. But what we're seeing is a certain amount of inertia for this to get underway. And indeed if you look at the history of the LNG industry which has taken fifty years to get to where it is now. We need to do this in in in 10 or 15 years not not 50 years. Is there for that reason a significant role for government to ensure that the international trade in hydrogen is a reality into the future. Given that that is really about the only alternative in terms of a long distance trade for seasonal energy storage. Thanks. Thanks Ken and it is good to see you. I think we've had this conversation offline a couple of times. There is a critical role obviously for government. It is an infant industry and that's why I think what is happening in Australia where we've had a strategy for the last two years. It has strong support I think with all states and territories and at the federal level. And just that proliferation of what we've actually seen happening in this country. There is a lot of potential there but where and how you realize that is is going to be critical. Just just as an example I think of how these things can shift and change and hopefully more quickly. It is just this huge potential for for example visited by the port of Newcastle. And just looking at what their business plans are and the level of attraction that you are also seeing from Japan and Korea in particular. About the partnering you know the production of green ammonia to begin with and then that scaling up. I think that with hopefully within that next decade of significant investment that needs to be by government and the private sector. But also about the trading relationships and offtake agreements that need to go in place. We really can succeed in this space. I'll just briefly add that I think the short answer is yes. And the same inflation reduction act that I keep commenting on includes really substantial incentives for both carbon capture and storage at $85 a ton per unit of CO2 captured and utilized. Which to the extent that one is using a kind of blue hydrogen strategy can can play a role. But also green hydrogen straight from renewables with enough support in order to really push green hydrogen into the marketplace over the next decade in the United States. And thereby green ammonia and thereby clean shipping and like so we think there's a huge market opportunity there. And we not only believe that there is a key role for governments but we see that just in the last month now materializing in the United States economy. We'll have one more question from this pot. Yeah. Hi. I'm Akka Rimon from you. I have a question in relation to I let me begin by saying that it's encouraging to note the commitment undertaken by the US and Australian government to cut down on emissions. Now I come from a small island in the Pacific. And I'm interested to know what are some of the plans that you are working together on the US and Australia and perhaps you know strengthening adaptation measures for the Pacific. Thanks. Thanks for the question. So I think I would underscore that we have a initiative under President Biden's leadership called prepare which is at its core seeking to mainstream resilience in what governments are doing with their investments and their policies and to encourage things like early retirement systems for all so that there is advanced notice when there's going to be a year with serious drought that there's a way for farmers to have some heads up and some ability to manage that. And the goal of prepare is to reach enhanced adaptation services and and get that to half a billion people globally. We are seeking to scale funding accordingly. And we're seeking to work with partners including Australia on on that agenda. I'll also just note that part of how we want to address these these questions is to deliver on our mitigation targets including of course the energy transition which some would call the marathon which needs to happen in order to stabilize a long term climate but complement that with this fast mitigation agenda including on pollutants like methane which are the fastest strategy that we have to reduce climate impacts even before 2050. So we're trying to do all of that including the adaptation piece as completely as we're able. And maybe just to answer your question a little bit more in the specifics of what Australia is doing. So there's both the $2 billion climate finance commitment made. $700 million of that though is to build climate change and disaster resilience in the Pacific. I think the minister for foreign affairs, Penny Wong, she was the first climate change minister and she has already visited a number of Pacific Island countries attended the Pacific Island forum. I think that that sense of listening better understanding what the needs of the Pacific are but still being very strong and firm of following through and partnering with what countries actually want and need. And I think sometimes there can be big solutions that actually don't really work depending on where you come from but can sort of be the thing that the US or Australia has. That sense of both being the partner of choice, being the partner that's going to be there and the partner it listens is going to be very important to what we do. Does anyone have a quick question? Yeah, middle, middle. Thank you. Riley, first year at ANU. Just a quick question about what you believe is the best strategy in providing job security for people who are currently working in the coal gas and oil industry as we start hitting our climate goals. I think at one level understanding where and how those impacts are because it's about that transition and understanding. Anecdotally my brother is a sort of fly and fly out worker that works in a coal mine actually out of Mackay. And it's interesting because in speaking with him about those sorts of issues, he's not actually that, you know, he personally is not that worried. And maybe it's the nature of the fact that he's highly skilled and I think that's a good recognition there. You know, what we're talking about or the government will be talking about next week is how much we need skilled workers in this country. And there are so many different opportunities. It may not be from being the coal worker to working in renewable energy. Like that's, you know, it's not point A to point B. But I think good planning diversification of the economies and creating those jobs of the future is, you know, and we need them now. We need workers and we need those jobs now is how we help manage this transition. I'll just add that in terms of the recent legislative successes in the United States, the Infrastructure and Jobs Act and now this Inflation Reduction Act, those major legislative wins on climate investment have been strongly backed by organized labor unions in the United States. And there is a real confidence on the part of unionized and non-unionized workers that there will be job creation and opportunities to transition into renewables offshore wind, onshore wind. In the meantime, there's a lot of work to be done on things like kind of the plumbing that's required to stop methane leaks and oil and gas systems. And there's work to be done on retrofitting homes and on putting in place heat pumps and just the manufacturing of it all. So, and this all takes time. None of this happens as fast as it needs to, frankly. And so it's not something where suddenly you flip a switch and everyone needs to transition to a completely different sector. It plays out over years and even decades. And so I am quite confident that there will be jobs for those in the fossil sector to transition to over that period of time. Yeah. And if I can just add to that, it is about bringing communities along for the ride and communicating clearly what the policy settings will be and what the opportunities behind the transition are. And I think I'll now I'll invite you both to just make some closing remarks, just summing up. One, so great to be able to spend, I think, an extra hour with you, Rick. But it just does underlie, I think, the importance of the relationship that you were. I know you're incredibly busy, but the fact that you were able to come and spend the time, listen to and better understand what's happening in Australia. Likewise, it feels me with great hope in terms of what we can do, what we can do together and what we can do with others. So again, thank you, but also for people who've turned out today and asked those questions and obviously you care. And those questions that I heard about how do we keep going? How do we get the jobs? How do we make this work? Well, we all know it's collectively what we do that's going to make the difference. I'll just add my thanks to Ambassador Kennedy for hosting our small delegation to Australia National University for this event and for our conversations that really lay a foundation for intensifying our cooperation in our respective economies and in third countries where we can do a lot in the Pacific region together and where we can, I think, build on a lot of complicated and essential cooperation in order to manage through this transition. Because it is complicated and it is underway in a serious sense in both Australia and the United States now. And we are natural partners in making it work for both of our economies and in encouraging the world to move faster on this because we need that. We need this to be done by 2050 globally. Thank you very much for joining me. Everyone, if you'd like to put your hands together.