 Before we get underway, as is customary, I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet. In my case, I'm in Canberra, so the Ngunnawal people. And I pay my respects to elders past and present. And I extend those respects to any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people who may be watching today, may be joining us today. So let me introduce our great panel. Malika Ishwaran is a senior economist and policy advisor at the Shell Scenarios Team. You might say the fabled Shell Scenario Team because their renown is worldwide. And Malika advises on economic energy and climate policies to shape Shell's long-term scenarios. And she also works with Shell on policy and advocacy on the energy transition to support the company's decarbonisation strategy. Really delighted also to have today with us one of Australia's most distinguished scientists, Dr. Kathy Foley, AOPSM. And Kathy, as I'm sure most of you will know, hopefully commences Australia's night chief scientist in January of this year. And she came to that role after a long and very distinguished career in our National Science Agency, the CSIRO. We're delighted to have two ANU colleagues with us today. Professor Frank Jotsow is director of the ANU Centre for Climate Economics and Policy. And he's a leading researcher on decarbonisation strategies, the economics of energy transition, policy instruments for climate change in the environment and international trade and investment. And delighted that we have Dr. Ryan Young with us. Ryan is director for research and methodology at the ANU National Security Colleges Futures Hub. And Ryan leads work on how to integrate analysis of long-term trends and potential futures into effective everyday policymaking. And prior to the NSC, he spent five years working on strategic policy in the department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Now, before we get underway, a couple of housekeeping announcements, I'll lead a moderated discussion with the panel to kick us off. And then after that, we do want to try and make this as interactive as we can. So if you have questions, please do post them to the chat box. If you could just include a name, that would be helpful. I'm happy to ask those questions on your behalf or if you would like to ask them yourself then just indicate in the chat function. So, warm welcome once again to all our panelists and let's get into today's discussion. And the first topic we want to explore is what COVID might mean for the future or how we should think about the future in the light of the pandemic. And I wanted to start with Mallika because Shell has done some scenario work on this already which you can find on the Shell website if you're interested. So Mallika, from the thinking of your team, how do you think that 2025 and 2030 will be different because of the COVID pandemic? And in terms of policy responses, how should governments balance the imperatives of health, wealth and security, which are three objectives that run through your scenarios? Yes, thank you for that, it's a pleasure to be here. So yes, so we've been thinking about the pandemic and its impacts, not just sort of the health impacts if you like, but looking at what are the impacts of the policy choices that are made during this pandemic to support the economy during it and also to then stimulate the recovery from it. And there are large uncertainties in terms of how that's likely to evolve over the course of this decade. So as you mentioned, we released our three scenarios called wealth, security and health last year to explore some of these critical uncertainties as we see it. A wealth as you might imagine is a scenario where the priority is given to reopening the economy. So this happens in parallel to the pandemic being controlled. So it's a story where economic growth bounces back quicker, but at the same time it's more challenged over the course of this decade as flare ups appear of the virus and the responses are need to be put in place to control that. So it's a very sort of bumpy kind of recovery. Security is a world where the response to the pandemic is to look inwards and to focus more on self-reliance and whether that's in terms of public health or whether it's in terms of economic activity. Focus is very much domestic. It's very much on stimulating activity within the economy domestically. And so again, this is a world where growth is a bit anemic because you don't have the benefits of globalization as you have pre-pandemic. At the same time, you sort of don't have the coordination on public health globally that's needed to address the pandemic effectively. So this is quite anemic sort of bumping along the bottom kind of sort of economy in this decade. And then the third one is health which is much more around securing wellbeing which is around dealing with the pandemic and then systematically opening up after that. So it takes a while for the recovery to take root but when it does it's a much more sustainable and stable recovery that happens. Now each of these has different implications for the energy system, for emissions as a result which is what we're interested in understanding. Now in terms of the policy, each of these scenarios has a different policy priority. So I think all countries will try to look at health, wealth and security and get a balance between them but it's the prioritization between those three objectives that will put you in one or the other sort of world. But what was interesting when we were doing this work was that looking at a green recovery in this decade. So investing in things that stimulate jobs, growth, demand today, but at the same time in things that set the economy up for a more sustainable, at least climate context growth path is a win-win. So the example I always give is on infrastructure. Investing in infrastructure around smart grids around EV charging networks, hydrogen infrastructure. These are things that will create jobs today at the same time setting up the economy for the transition to low carbon. So I think in terms of policy choices is an opportunity in building back from this pandemic in a way that is sustainable. And that will then provide long-term economic stability, economic growth and other objectives that health, wealth and security embody in the longer term. So hopefully that gives you a flavor of our thinking on this. Can I ask you just one quick follow-up question? So in your health first scenario, it looks like the outcome or the scenario that gives the best all-round results. Do you see real world empirical evidence for that right now? So this is something we've been watching closely to see what signals we see in terms of what governments are choosing to do. And I have to say it's quite patchy, it's up and down. The focus is really on getting the economy back in a lot of countries with not that much regard for the sustainability element, the climate element. And that's something that there's a sense that we'll deal with that after the economy recovers. But we have countries and regions like Europe which are really taking the lead in sort of investing in ways that are green. So again, you have the European new climate target to be new climate neutral by 2050. You have the European Green Deal which is now funding and thinking about how do you fund that towards the target. And a lot of that is targeting the recovery from the pandemic. So I think it's a very sort of up and down story in terms of what countries are choosing to do. But we do see a positive examples like Europe and like the UK where this sort of more enlightened, I guess, approach to recovery is sort of taking root. Okay, thanks Malika. I want to ask essentially the same question to Kathy and then also to Ryan. So Kathy, when you think about the pandemic and the way it might change the future, you know, how do you think about the next five and the next 10 years? What do you think is going to be different because of the pandemic? Well, first of all, thanks for inviting me to be here. I think the first thing we've got to realise in the next five years, it's not as though the pandemic is going to go away completely and that we're all sort of looking longingly for either the end of this year or next year where we're all suddenly going to go on our lovely overseas holidays. We have never had to face this sort of approach where having a globalised world where everyone jumped on planes, travelled all around the world, that we had the ability to share a virus around the world so effectively and therefore have to work effectively, globally to be able to contain it, requires us to do things we've never done before. So we've seen during this period in 12 months developed a whole range of different vaccines and as a consequence, we're rolling them out but we've never rolled out a vaccine globally ever before. So this is going to be a major human achievement, just doing that and that will be necessary because it's to get to the point where you're able to have enough people vaccinated so that you keep the virus under control is going to require this every corner of the world having acceptance of vaccines within the rate of people who can and can't because of other reasons. So that's the first thing. That's not going to happen quickly. We've got a lot of people in the world, a lot of places which don't have well-developed health systems but we do still have a lot of world movement. So that's the first thing. The second is, so it means that I think we're going to have to get used to wearing masks when we travel. We're going to have to get used to washing our hands all the time and it's just as well this year we didn't have a drought at the same time we're asking to hold our hands under the tap for 20 seconds when every time we washed our hands which was to be as frequent as possible. So there is technological solutions but we're seeing not just with vaccines but also saying well when we're traveling overseas or traveling at all, can we get to a point where we have immediate testing so that we know everyone going on to an aircraft or going into a building can get tested immediately so that they know immediately whether they've got an active COVID virus or whether they're immune or not. And so that's the first thing. And then once people are locked up together we've got the ability already to identify virus in Surge. And so therefore we'd be able to have sort of the internet of things working in a new way so that we'll be able to tell whether or not a say an aircraft which has traveled from Australia to Europe has got someone with COVID on it because it will have a flag coming up saying the collection of surages showing that there's COVID present so therefore you go through and test everyone on the way out. Again, those sorts of technologies are something which I think will evolve and we know that many of them are on the pathway to doing that. And so there will be a level of new technologies that will in the next five years or so allow us to probably get a lift up in normality. So that I think is going to be really critical. And then I guess in the longer term what we're seeing though is a little bit of a mixture of where we're reacting on one level. As Malika was saying, we have sort of gone into almost nationalism where countries are slowing down to look after their own public health system, their own vaccination programs and not really having a very successful global approach. I know there are activities to try and make sure that low GDP countries do get access to vaccines and there's some work being done there. But we're not really approaching this particular problem in a global way. But we are with probably, I suppose if you look at approaching climate, we are seeing a more global approach. So we've got two things going on there. But I think one of the things that we are seeing is a somewhat more global approach to how science is being done, which is going to be critical to solving many problems or identifying ways to solve problems. And we're seeing through the COVID pandemic open access to literature, which has allowed everyone to read the papers relating to anything to do with COVID. Now, that's the first time that's happened. Normally scientific literature is caught up behind a paywall unless someone's paid extra funds to get it open access. So that has allowed everyone anywhere to be able to access that. And that's just one of many examples of this move towards open science. And I think this is going to be something which will see grow in the next 10 years to become a new way of doing science. So that's probably two aspects of bunkering down and opening up. Okay, thanks, Cathy. And Ryan, when you think about the future or futures, what do you think is going to be different? Thanks, Richard. And thanks for the opportunity to take part in this. I want to focus on kind of future post COVID and want to focus on what you might call the second order effects. I'm not going to talk about health as such, but some of the flow and effects that I think will see happen. And I'm going to put my neck on the line a little bit and turn these into somewhat predictions. So you can come back to me in a few years and see how badly I've got it wrong. So the first one that I think is really interesting at the moment is there seems to be signs that next five, 10 years will actually be significantly richer. There's kind of lots of signs of economic growth that seem to be based on a few things. One is a lot of talk about the pandemic has accelerated adoption of digital technology, kind of five to 10 years of adoption condensed into six months, which is going to lead to significant productivity benefits and then kind of drive economic growth from there. Another aspect is the whole capitalism, creative destruction. A lot of businesses have gone to the wall that we're kind of struggling to hold on. So there may be that element that, you know, new businesses taking their place will have to be leaner, tighter and more focused on making things work. Other aspect is there does seem to be a lot of pent up demand for a lot of these things. So when people do get the chance to spend kind of like the roaring 20s kind of reaction after the Spanish flu that I think people will spend a lot. So I see significant economic growth. Counterpoint to that is that I think inequality over the next 10 years is going to be a lot worse as a result of the pandemic. More broadly, the wealthy kind of well educated people have been able to write it out pretty smoothly and a lot of, and I say probably most of the people on this call hasn't affected us too much and our quality of life may have gone up. A lot of poorer people have been hit hardest both in jobs, health impacts, direct pandemic impacts. I think it's important that this is a global issue, not just nationally that the World Bank estimated that 100 million more people worldwide will fall back into extreme poverty as a result of the pandemic compared to what projections were otherwise. So I think there's a real kind of inequality story driving out of the pandemic that we will need to grapple with and that could have lots of effects. The third one that I think is really interesting is what she's in the government space and how we make decisions, particularly at the political level but that flows into policy and businesses. To be honest, I've been surprised at how popular and much of the world a kind of zero risk mantra with respect to COVID has been for the public. In the public service, we're always talking about trying to be less risk averse, embrace risk kind of kind of grapple the risk differently but the kind of dominant public narrative has turned into a kind of actually there's some risks that we're just not willing to take any risks on and we want the government to do everything they can to stop that. I think that's going to have lasting impacts on how governments pitch, sell and make decisions. Not going to quite show power but I think the pandemic will be a turning point on that. And the last one I wanted to pick up some of what Kathy started talking and kind of focus on the kind of international dynamics and talking about nationalism borders. I actually think that the pandemic is, I'm quite negative about this, a bad sign for hopes of particularly at a political level, a kind of global push, global cooperation to solve anything. We hit a crisis, global crisis with the pandemic. What was everyone's response? Put borders up, shut people out, grapple to try and kind of get all the resources to our people. And there's, I think, a feeling and element that has looked, rich Western countries have seemed to have been primarily concerned about their own people, the rich Westerners and not worried about the impacts on the rest of the world. I think that's a lesson that will probably stick for a lot of the kind of international dynamics and it's going to make kind of global cooperation or global commons issues a lot more challenging over the next 10 years. I'll leave it there so we can keep going. Okay, excellent. Thanks, Ryan, with a bit of luck, we might have a bit of time to dig into that. And you boldly said they were predictions rather than forecasts. And of course, you will know the old joke about never making predictions, especially about the future. It's fraught, but I want to switch from the pandemic. We do have quite a lot we want to get through today. I want to switch from the pandemic and come to another example. We're thinking about possible futures is such a critical part of policy and decision making for governments and business. And that of course is climate change and the transition we need to make in all the industries that produce emissions, but particularly in energy to get to where we need to. And there has been a real shift even amidst the pandemic of or an apparent shift in the midst of the pandemic on global ambition on climate change. And this is most notable in America, of course, with the Biden administration coming to the United States with the incredibly aggressive and ambitious climate change agenda. But we've also seen China and Japan and the UK and South Korea all recently set out ambitious targets for getting to net zero. So I want to bring in Frank now because he lives and breathes this part of our collective futures. And Frank, I wanted to ask you when you look at that changing landscape, at least as far as declaratory policy is concerned on getting to net zero and when you think about the deep emissions reductions that that's going to mean, can it be achieved and how would we achieve it? Yeah, Richard, look, this is a point well taken, right? So perhaps surprisingly, we have not seen a dropping off in terms of ambition for decarbonisation and climate goals as a result of the pandemic, right? Even when leaders are not able to converge in person and reassure each other of the importance of the issues, this is a very positive development in many ways. And of course, what makes that possible is the increasing optimism about being able to achieve this, right? So countries would not be putting forward net zero targets if they didn't think that things are heading that way, right? And why do governments think that? Well, essentially because the business community by and large tells them that this is possible and achievable. And in a sense, in many instances also economically desirable in the long term, right? So that's the background. How to achieve deep reductions? Well, you know, the pillars of decarbonisation are really clear. You're looking for an essentially carbon free emissions free electricity supply. Then you're looking to electrify everything. Electrify everything you reasonably can in any case. And so that's transport starting with cars but other aspects of transport as well whether that's batteries or hydrogen. Many low temperature processes in industry and other bits and pieces can all be electric. And then of course you address the rest various industrial processes, agricultural production methods. You do what you can to reduce emissions. You're then left with some residual amount of emissions and that's why we talk about net zero, right? Because you'll want to compensate for the remaining emissions at the end of the day with carbon dioxide uptake from the atmosphere whether that's biological entries, vegetation, algae perhaps, or whether that's technical and, you know, R&D is making really tremendous progress on the technical negative emissions options as well. Now, the greatest progress in terms of, as you called it, declaratory policy really have been on the net zero by about the middle of the century or so. But obviously, you know, for that to really have an effect it needs to translate into near-term action. And they really look, I mean, I think the most significant thing that has happened this year in this space is the announcement of the 2030 emissions targets by the US, by the UK and a few other countries. These are really enormously ambitious targets. It will really take some doing, achieving those kinds of reductions in a time span of 10 years. But, you know, if you're asking what's necessary in order to deal with climate change, particularly that that's precisely that, right? Setting a strong ambition and seeing how far you actually get in achieving that. And, you know, I mean, when you then look at China, Japan, Korea and Australia, of course, right? So, all have net zero commitments or targets or statements of ambition of various kinds. And in all of these cases that will need to translate into stronger ambition for the near-to-medium term and ultimately stronger policy action as well. And so just to end on one note, that's perhaps interesting for discussion later on. This is not just a technological and economic issue. This is also an issue of social and regional transition. And certainly in Australia, there's really increasing a spotlight on this, right? So as this, you know, the idea that we will have very large-scale substitution away from fossil fuels over coming decades, that means a very profound shift in the economy and ultimately social fabric as well in some of our regions, right? And there's many other countries where the effects will be even more drastic than there will be in those regions in Australia. And that is something that I think collectively these societies will need to deal with and need to face up to. And there's a really urgent task for policy to come to grips with how to best manage that aspect of a societal and economic transformation. Okay, wonderful. Thank you, Frank. Now, Mallika, I wanted to bring you back into the conversation because of course, it's the climate and energy transition scenarios that have been such a big part of your team's work for some time. So how do you look at those international developments over the, particularly over the past, you know, four or five months? And do you still see, and I'm quoting from one of your own scenarios here, a technically possible but challenging pathway to get to the objectives of the Paris Accords? Yes, so, you know, I spoke about our pandemic sort of scenarios and that's the starting point for our long-term energy and climate scenarios. And that's because you're looking at a decarbonization in the next 30 to 40 years, you know, if you want to be anywhere near the Paris Climate Agreement objectives. And of that this decade, 10 years is pretty significant. So what you do this decade becomes quite significant in terms of, you know, achieving that ambition. So we released our long-term scenarios earlier this year and the three scenarios, I think the starting point of the pandemic scenarios. So the scenario called Waves starts with the wealth scenario. It's all about reopening the economy. But what happens is the reopening the economy is opening it in the way the economy was structured pre-pandemic. There's no attempt to address structural issues like Ryan mentioned our inequality around climate. And so, you know, you have an economy that's coming back as it was pre-pandemic. And you see those impacts playing out in the 2030s in terms of climate impacts sort of hitting. You see the inequality creating social tensions. And as a result in Waves what happens is late but fast climate action. So by the 20 late 2030s and 40s there's pressure to act on the social issues and on common good issues. And so there's action happens on climate but it happens to late but quickly. Now the island scenario, which is the second one start takes a starting point of security. It's all about nationalism. It's all about looking inward. And this is a world where again, you know, not much climate action happens because there's no global coordination around it or there's limited global coordination around it. And as a result of that, you find that this is a world where economic growth is low so and emissions are lower than they would be otherwise. But it's not because of any action that's taken but it's because the economy itself globally suffers a bit for quite a bit longer. So this is a scenario where it's late and slow decarbonization that you have. Now you mentioned the third technically possible but challenging scenario. And that's our sky 1.5 scenario. And that takes health at the starting point where you know, conscious choice is made this decade to put a green recovery in place. So you use this decade to make to start that transition to low carbon. And again, this is the scenario that is consistent with the Paris stretch goal of getting to keeping temperature rise as close to 1.5 degrees centigrade. So we still think that is a possibility. It is technically challenging but possible. So again, so those are sort of a range of scenarios. But again, what happened this decade becomes quite material in terms of the speed that you need to in order to decarbonize consistent with the Paris climate goals. So that's a really good point I think to pivot to our third topic, which is how decision makers, whether they're governments or businesses or even institutions like universities can use scenarios to make better decisions. Governments in particular are very good at putting off until tomorrow what really needs to be done today. So Malika, I mean, you are right in the thick of this from a corporate perspective. So perhaps you could just talk briefly about how inside shell these scenarios are used in internal decision-making, particularly when you've got CEOs who of course interested in the bottom line for the company, they're answerable to boards and to shareholders and so on. So yeah, so again, scenarios have been a traditional shell for a long time. It's over 50 years that this sort of function and capability has existed in the company. Of late, I think it's been scenarios again are not forecast or predictions or business plans. But what they do is in the face of very large and systemic uncertainties, they give you a way of exploring what the future worlds might look like in a way that's systematic. So in that sense, it helps the senior, the top of the company expand their horizons and their mindsets to then anticipate what are the risks that are coming? What are the opportunities to be seized? So again, that's sort of the function that we sort of feed into, that sort of longer term or visionary thinking. Now, the climate and energy transition scenarios, the first sort of impact was in 2016 where Shell did a strategy refresh and set up its new energy division. So that was sort of built up on the back of a lot of scenario thinking around the inevitability of the energy transition. This year when we released our long-term scenarios, it was timed not coincidentally to with our strategy announcements the same week. So again, it's our strategy announcement. This was around Shell becoming net zero emissions energy business by 2050 with intermediate targets along the way in terms of reducing our emissions. And it was interesting that it's not just emissions from our operations, if you like, producing energy, but it's also from emissions from the use of our products. If you're using a petrol, then the emissions from that count towards our carbon footprint, if you like. So again, those are thinking around the inevitability of the transition, the fact that in the sky 1.5 kind of world where the speed is of the essence, then that's a world where you have developed countries reaching net zero by 2050, developing countries reaching net zero before 2060. We very much wanted to be in that pioneer in the leading pack of driving the transition. And hence, that thinking then fed through into our targets around becoming net zero emissions by 2050. So do you think that Shell would have made that big decision if it didn't have this tradition of scenarios? Ah, it's a loaded question. I think it helps stretch the mindset. I mean, otherwise you're looking at shorter term horizons and sort of plans in that. And what we know here is that making this transition is a long-term prospect. You need to start making the investments. You need to start making the pivot. You need to start developing business models that help support and make this commercially viable decades in advance. So it's something where the long-term, bringing the long-term back into actions today becomes absolutely central. And as a result, I think the scenario thinking is a way of doing that and sort of driving that kind of thinking and that ambition and sort of setting a genuine strategy, I think, in terms of not just the next few years, but what does the company want to look like in 30 years? You're on mute, I think, Richard. Sorry, I went too fast. Thank you so much. I like that concept about stretching the horizon. And I want to ask this question, essentially the same question of Cathy and then Frank and then Ryan. So Cathy, I mean, you've worked, you know, for a long time in the interface with government and the business community, of course, and the academic world, the intersection of research and policy decision-making. I mean, how... And CSI wrote, Silver's done some great work on scenarios in the future. So how have you seen this type of work being used well? Or not so? Yeah, so I guess the first thing is, I think there's a lot of definitions of how that people describe scenario setting. So the one way is looking at roadmaps. Another one is actually planning for a major event. I think back of the Olympics in Sydney, I know it's 21 years ago, but I think that was a fabulous example where they had to go through and think of a whole range of different things at the time and they did a fabulous job. I think everyone remembers that as, you know, how early in time and such. But the thing which they didn't do was the post-Post Olympics of thinking, well, what is the world going to look like after that? What is this opportunity creating and how can we turn that into something which has ongoing benefit? And I think that has been held up as something we did well at one bit, but not following through. And if we look at some of the ways we've been using scenario, planning at the moment under a road mapping approach, I think the hydrogen roadmap that first of all started in CSIRO and then that convinced then Chief Scientist Alan Finkel to say, wow, this looks like, this is an interesting approach to having a transition or an industry that we can transition to in Australia to provide that, you know, sort of a new energy business and opportunity. He then was able to use his role as Chief Scientist at the time to go through and influence government and so it went on. But the thing that's really interesting is that I think it's tricky when we're talking about these intersectionality type scenarios of which any scenario is these days. So no one requirement for society is in a single government department. And the way we've set up our system is to have different blocks of groups focusing on their areas. But where we need to have major impacts to deal with challenges for us requires us to go across horizontally. And we're not as good at doing that but I'm seeing that there's a renewed willingness to approach solving some of these problems by going across horizontally. And so far we're seeing this, for example, with, well, I'll go back to the pandemic. You know, we saw a lot of scenario planning there and parts of it were done in health, in order to look at the public health approach. But then also looking in industry, trying to work out do we have all the manufactured products when we need, when everybody's looking for masks and hand motions and ventilators. And so those sorts of scenario plans are something which I think are probably not always called that way but it's when we look at a particular urgent situation I think we've got a great track record of that. And then it's the after when we're looking into the horizon scanning, which we've got some work. I know the National Science and Technology Council, which is the Prime Minister's access to advice from the research sector, does commit and get horizon scanning documents in different areas. But quite often they're taken over a long period of time and they're not necessarily sharp and ready to deliver. And so there's this, I think, when you're talking about when does it not work well and when does it work well? I think we seem to be really good at when there's a specific, well-defined situation, no challenge, but then it's where it's tricky is when you've got something which is more indefinite and ongoing and it's hard to define where the boundaries are. And that's when it's tricky to really nail down what does the scenario look like and how do you actually look at where to next? I'll just throw in one final one as sometimes too, just asking our questions about the counterfactual about sometimes it is better to do nothing and to be patient and wait. And then there's the other is also saying, we've come up with a policy. We wanna go through and push it forward, especially one where there's got potential social license issues. Do we actually red team it? Do we actually challenge it or put the black hat on? Whatever terminology is. To really drive us to think with one of the unintended consequences. Are there things which when you start discussing this broadly, that we actually start getting things out of the woodwork that really may not, well, the scenario may not lead to the direction we wanna go in. And so I think there's an opportunity for us to open that more in sort of that social discussion too and that building up our social license creds in when we're dealing with scenario planning. Right, really important point. And in the public service, you're starting to see for policy processes, people using techniques like a pre-mortem, which assumes that the grand plan failed. Okay, so what did we do wrong? And try and make sure we don't do it. Okay, so Frank, climate change, we all know this policy is fraud in Australia. So when you think about the modeling of how we can go about achieving reductions in emissions, I mean, how influential do you see that? I mean, are there ways in which we can use it to better help decision-making? Yeah, very fraud indeed. And look, I can't resist going back to the curly question you threw to Malika before, like would you have done this without the analysis? I think in general, it is true in this area that those who don't do the analysis or don't read the latest analysis tend to be a little bit stuck in the past because technology and economics of zero carbon technologies move so fast. And so every subsequent piece of analysis shows a quite a different picture and opens up the space of opportunities. And if you're following the International Energy Agency's annual World Energy Outlook, you're seeing really dramatic changes in how they assess how things might pan out over the next 20 years. So in Australia, modeling tends to be very influential, okay? Often in the positive, sometimes in the negative when it's used to kind of support pre-existing political decisions or whatever it might be. The climate change authority here has done excellent work in the past and right now it doesn't seem to be quite in the position to do such deep-seated modeling-based scenario work. Again, the immediate task that we have and many other countries have is to come up with a so-called long-term, low-emission strategy for the country. It's meant to be submitted to the UN climate negotiations before November and we understand that's under development. But at this point there's not really a sort of a public or stakeholder-facing aspect to that process. And so we don't know. Certainly in terms of the scenarios, right? That scenario work, not just the middle of the road kind of best guess, right? But the very different scenarios around it are tremendously important, right? And business tends to be well aware that they're operating in an environment of uncertainty and governments oftentimes seem to be a little bit focused on that central expectation. And it's just very briefly on our warming up time. Two examples, of course, solar photovoltaics, right? So it's now commercially competitive in many parts of the world and certainly including Australia and the challenges for policymakers, in particular in electricity. And now very, very different ones from what anyone imagined just five or 10 years ago. Second example, the possibility and likelihood, in fact, of a trade in renewable energy-based products, commodities, and even energy international trade. And so there's a tremendous opportunity for countries like Australia to be, you know, the green energy exporters of the future rather than fossil fuel energy exporters of the future. Hydrogen, but not just hydrogen, also hydrogen for fertilizer, possibly green metals, green steel down the track. And, you know, no one but the very bravest of modelers would have had that on their canvas just five years ago. Yeah, that's a great point. And just the pace of change on some of these issues is undoubtedly very hard to keep up with, which is a good segue to Ryan. So Ryan, you work with government agencies, public servants who are grappling with hard policy and trying to keep up and think about the future. So what have you seen work and what doesn't work so well? Thanks, Richard. I think the, I guess, first framing comment to make, and I think some of what Mallika was talking about in terms of kind of expanding the horizons, kind of think about different things is very relevant, but there's one real challenge when you're working government in that the agencies work separately from the ultimate decision makers. And so you're often kind of not working hand in hand with the decision makers, the ministers and the politicians, which kind of creates quite a different dynamic around how you use them. So I think one thing that needs to work and needs to be done is that the scenario of work, Alternative Futures, however you talk it, works well when it's integrated into other policy work, other capability work, other planning work. So it's not kind of a separate independent thing, but it's integrated into this. And the concept that's got a lot of traction around the place that I've seen at the moment is the idea of using scenarios to stress test, either existing policies or future plan policies. Now scenarios gives the options around that kind of explore some of the complexity. And it's a nice way of going, okay, we have a policy approach that we want to use. Will it work under a number of different scenarios to test kind of how robust is it for a future plan, given Richard, as he said before, the prediction is hard, especially about the future. And I think the other thing picking up on something Cathy said is that scene scenarios work really well as a way of just bringing together different stakeholders and agencies together in an open way. And it's a safer way often to talk about a lot of the issues and the complexities. Talking about a hypothetical scenario is a kind of nice way to build the ideas, test thinking, explore ideas without kind of fighting over a concrete propose or a concrete budget submission. So there's some things that I've seen work. What hasn't worked? Big temptation is always to try and make our scenarios comprehensive and cover everything. The problem is we can never do that and we tend to end up with really boring consensus-driven scenarios, which kind of people think they already know and their eyes glaze over. If we're doing this work, it has to be interesting or attractive or kind of offer something. I think the other thing that doesn't work is where you've got pre-cooked outcomes that you're trying to drive out with a scenario, if you're kind of implicitly using to education or prove a point, and that turns people off often. They're really interested in it as an analytic tool if they feel like they're being kind of preached out or tried to be convinced via a scenario it's turned off, but it can be really tempting. Thanks, Ryan. I might just add one example that worked personally well for me in which the Futures Hub actually had a role. So when I was doing the foreign policy white paper in 2017 and we had our policy framework, we then got help from the Futures Hub to build us a couple of simple regional futures and we tested or war-gamed some of the policy against those futures with a collection of sort of very smart people with minds that liked contesting orthodoxies. And that was actually very helpful in clarifying our thinking around some aspects of the white paper and also in understanding where it might begin to fall apart in possible futures. Now look, we've got just under 15 minutes to go. Because we've got two people who think a lot about the future, I've got two rounds of kind of quick-fire questions about the future for each of them. And that will probably get us to the hour, but there is still time if people had a question, please do post it into the chat box. So my first round of quick-fire questions was to all of the panel, what do you think is going to surprise us over the next five to 10 years? And if I could get Frank and then Ryan and then Kathy and then Mallika in that order. So Frank, why don't you go? Okay, I have to unmute myself here. So now you're asking us to make predictions, right? So of course it's not a prediction, but I think that we will see renewable energy and electrification growing even faster, faster than most people expect. And that means then also faster displacement of fossil fuel assets. In Australia that spells power station closures faster than anticipated, as was the case with each previous one, of course. And weakening export demand for coal and later gas again, probably faster than we expect. On the upside, of course, very large new investments, including in hydrogen-based industries. I really expect that all of this will gather steam faster than we might think. So Frank, quick subsidiary question, led by business or by government? Led by business with the occasional facilitation by government. So with many of these things, governments will need to get out of the way. With some aspects, governments will need to create the right framework conditions. And particularly, for example, in a national electricity market, that's the case. And in other cases, governments are well advised to help with the startup investment. First of the kind type investment. Good example, for example, the relatively small scale investments that the Arena Australian Renewable Energy Agency announced today in two hydrogen, green hydrogen production facilities. Okay, thanks, Ryan. And sorry, Frank, and apologies for the double world question. Ryan, your go. I'll jump in with one thing quickly. So I think our kind of national state politics will be even more volatile and erratic than we think it's possible after shots from a pandemic, digital disruption and a whole lot of social inequality problems. So we think last year, last 10 years has been volatile over federal level. I think the next 10 years will be worse. So that's an Australian, that's an Australian politics, you don't mean that. And well, rich Western countries, particularly. I think Europe's gonna be in the same position, the US the same, so. All right, well, that would definitely be interesting, Kathy. Yeah, I was thinking of what Frank was saying, but I'll add something different, which is I think we're gonna see quantum technologies and quantum computing come to its own and really charge forward with the ability to do things we just can't currently do. And an example will be a quantum computer that can design new science experiments that allow us to crack the issue with developing paddlers that allow us to do things which we can't do with say splitting ammonia so that we're able to really fast track some of our drug development management of hydrogen, which ammonia adds to. But also the other is allows to handle much larger databases and also have a whole step up in what's possible with machine learning and artificial intelligence. Okay, thank you, Kathy. Malika, what do you think's going to surprise us over the next five to 10 years? I think the pace of change, once governments, businesses and society in general align behind the objective and the need. I think the pace of change, once that alignment happens, I think there'll be sort of the innovation, the extent of innovation in low carbon fuels, technology solutions will surprise us. And also in the end, the cost, if you like, the resource cost of making that change will be a lot lower than what we think today. Okay, thanks Malika. This question reminds me of when I was the head of the Office of National Assessments. And we did use to try and do forecasts about big picture change. But of course it was laden, always laden with uncertainty. And governments would say, well, what of this are you certain about? And we would say not much. And they would say, well, what are you certain about? And we would think for a while and say, the only thing we're certain of is that things will happen that we haven't thought of. Governments used to find that incredibly unhelpful. Okay, my second quickfire question. So actually in all of this discussion, we have had quite I think a lot of positive optimistic takes about the future. Often we don't get that in these discussions. Certainly national security experts always tend towards the bad news. So the second question was what good news do you think about for the future? And I just want to reverse the order we've just had. So Malika, if we could start again with you. Yes, so I think, you know, despite the pandemic, which is more than a year now that we've been still living with it. I think action and the realization and the action on climate has continued and abated. And the fact that I would put out there is that as the latest count, we were looking at this, over a thousand companies have come up with some form of net zero ambition by 2050. And as Frank was mentioning, over 120 countries have come up with net zero targets for 2050 again. So I think to me the sort of the, in some ways the downside of having this pandemic and that nationalism is also sort of a realization of the role of sort of government, the role of businesses in the public good and the need for that intervention. And you see that reflected in some sense in the pace of climate action continuing despite sort of really challenging economic conditions that everyone's facing. Okay, thanks Malika. Kathy? Yeah, I think my good news is that I, the movement towards open science I can access so that willingness of researchers to share their data and be more cooperative. And that's, that is actually a pathway to for soft diplomacy. So maybe that's a good sign of keeping any doors open where things are possibly closing. But also I think will lead to better science faster commercialization. And it will also allow everybody to be able to access research literature whether it's industry schools, professionals, government. And I think therefore we'll give a pathway to have better information so that we can get rubbish and fake news for free on the internet. But hopefully we'll be able to get good quality research on the internet. I mean, basically open and accessible. Thanks Kathy, Ryan. I'm gonna kind of expand a bit more Kathy was saying, you know, globally the population is wealthier, far better educated and kind of than it ever has been before. So in terms of not just the open science but the broader innovation ecosystem of smart educated people looking to solve problems is much, much deeper and bigger than it has been in the past. So the potential for people out there to come up with kind of great new solutions to things that we never thought of is far greater than it's ever been. You know, there's billions of people who can do it now as opposed to tens of millions and there might have been 30 years ago. Okay. You're making me feel mildly, mildly optimistic. Frank. Yeah, look, my response to this is actually quite similar. You know, collectively with some appropriate resolve, we can actually do really big things, right? And the pandemic has been absolutely devastating in parts of the world. And at the same time, you know, the response, the corporate response in many countries and then very fortunately, including ours has shown us that, you know, we can do amazing stuff when people agreed to pull in the same direction. And of course, you know, on the technology side of things, the fact that vaccines were developed and are being rolled out at this incredible speed, right? Is a thoroughly positive thing and that can make us very optimistic. I think that similar progress can be, could be achieved on climate change. Okay. Thanks, Frank. Look, we do have, we've got two and a half minutes left and we have one question. So I'm going to squeeze it in. We have a question from Caitlin Byrne. Her question is, given the complicated technical and transformative nature of policy solutions required to address issues facing the globe, how should decision makers bring public audiences along in the process? Now, we don't have time for you all to have a go at this but maybe either Frank or Ryan, I don't mind one or both of you. Any one game? I'll be very quick and maybe that gives our guests some time to respond as well. I think policy makers should take these big challenges in the same spirit as your last question, Richard. Namely, you know, what are the opportunities, right? What, you know, look back from a hypothetical of having achieved a very good outcome. How did we get there, right? And that shows the way and bring the community along on that positive journey. And Rika, do you have any thoughts on this from a corporate perspective? I think one of the things that's come out very clearly for us is that making change at the pace required for Paris then it requires society and communities coming along. And it's not just about managing the risks at the downside of the transition on the sort of the most vulnerable. It's also about setting a vision of having an energy system that's more equitable and beneficial to society as a whole than what we have today. So it's sort of a story around not just managing and minimizing risk but also seizing the opportunity to have a system that helps correct some of the inequities of the past. Okay, Ryan, you were leaning forward. You've got 30 seconds. One quick thing I think decision makers and policy makers need to take the time to understand the kind of general public. They kind of use different terms, think about things differently and kind of unless you can't, if you don't understand them, you can't bring them along. Matthew, anything to add? Social license is always very important to be able to make major decisions. And if you look at things where we've done it poorly, genetically modified foods is a good example where science rushed forward with what they thought was great without bringing the social license with them and eventually went through a long process and as a consequence, I think it's something which is much more accepted than it was originally. Right through to introducing particularly technologies or policies that are really quite big changes to the way we operate. And I think we're going to be seeing a lot of that in the next 10 years, but we've got, I think, to make sure that we do it in a way that we don't end up with things like boat faces, the outcome from the gathering people's ideas and having it collected in a way which really is providing that deep thought. And how you do that is a challenge because quite often we're swayed by local media. I mean, social media and sort of interest groups and not really hearing the full spectrum. So that's the biggest challenge is actually how you go about getting the true public engagement so that you don't end up with interest groups having an overstated ability to sway decisions which may not be of benefit for the majority. Okay, terrific. Thanks, Cathy. And for those of you who don't understand the reference to Boatie, McBoatie face, just Google it. It's rather entertaining. Okay, our time is up. We've covered an incredible amount of ground very quickly. I really wanna thank our panelists who've been concise and sharp and disciplined and helped me get through all of that. Thank you so much for being with us. Particularly wanted to recognize that we did get Mallika up rather early to appear bright and sharp at 7 a.m. when many of us are not at our best. And thank you to everyone who's joined us on the conversation today. And I hope you have a good evening and have left this session feeling positive because I have about the future, all the futures. So thank you all. Goodbye.