Collectively and/or individually you as Climate Partners are convinced by the science, investing in or seeking solutions, but held back by policy uncertainty.

Together we share the frustrations and battle scars of a torrid past 12 months.  I’ve certainly got a few! 

But we also share a resolve that Australia shouldn’t be left behind in the journey that other economies and companies are already undertaking towards the expected multi – trillion dollar markets already emerging in clean energy and pollution reduction.

It is a journey from the fatal shores of high polluting, highly inefficient economies to the far safer, more stable and secure shores of carbon positive economies.

As I’m sure you our Climate Partners would acknowledge, this is also a journey of risk, responsibility and returns.

This journey is about the risk not only of climate shocks to infrastructure operations and profitability.     

It is about the risk of policy uncertainty generating poor investment decisions and the higher costs that imposes on everyone.  In electricity generation, as John Howard’s taskforce pointed out in 2007 and investors and companies like Pacific Hydro and AGL are saying now, we face higher costs because short term but still costly infrastructure will need to be built when longer term infrastructure is needed. 

It is also about the risks of Australian businesses and the Australian economy being left behind as one of the most polluting and energy inefficient economies in the OECD.  Australia is well down the league table when it comes to carbon competitiveness and carbon productivity.  This fact was revealed by independent research of G20 comparative performance and positioning commissioned by The Climate Institute that has been widely cited and used, including by Lord Nicholas Stern and leading Asian banks such as Nomura.

At its core this is an economic risk. It is about competitiveness and productivity. Australia is being left behind, a fact further supported by Climate Institute and Westpac research on our renewable energy investment being released today. 

This journey is also about responsibility. 

Leading companies like yours are taking responsibility for their pollution, or making it your responsibility to be part of the solutions, not of the problems, when it comes to climate action, clean energy and pollution reduction. 

You and other smart and strategic businesses have seen through the post Copenhagen fog of half truths and deceptions on climate science. 

You see the durability of the basic science and the continued and mounting evidence.  This science and evidence is supported by national academies of science globally, The US academy again as recently as last week, and other leading Australian scientific organisations such as CSIRO. 

As much as we may wish it, climate change is not being delayed or deferred. 

Companies of foresight know that responsibility deferred is not responsibility avoided. 

Finally, last but not least, this journey is about returns. 

As our partners at GE say, climate action represents one of the greatest market opportunities of all time. 

Clean energy investments have been remarkably durable throughout the Global Financial Crisis and are expected to hit $200 billion this year as they boom towards the many trillions of dollars expected in coming years. 

These economic opportunities are driven not only by the need for climate action but also by resource efficiency, energy security and public health needs. 

It’s vitally important that Australian businesses are involved across a broad spectrum of the opportunities in infrastructure, technologies and services.

We can’t just dig forever.

This journey of risk, responsibility and return is a journey that The Climate Institute has been committed to since its inception just under five years ago. 

It was then, with great foresight, that the family of Tom Kantor, brother-in-law of our Chairman Mark Wootton, decided to invest a substantial part of his estate in a new organisation to raise public awareness of the challenges and opportunities of taking climate action. 

Tom’s family committed to a five year investment for an organisation to make a short sharp impact with a view to institutional death at its end. 

I joined The Climate Institute in 2007 and found this, a unique opportunity in business and NGO worlds, able to get on with the job without the unseemly hassle of raising funds or revenues!

This allowed an unfettered focus, in a tough operating environment, as we undertook, from ground zero, our tasks of research, education and communication. 

Over the last few weeks and months that operating environment has become a lot tougher, but one we must address with new challenges.

Fortunately our Board has decided our institutional death may be a bit premature … and Tom Kantor’s family has gifted significant remaining funds to The Climate Institute. 

But to ensure we are here for the longer haul clearly needed, we must leverage off those funds and find a range of other revenue streams.  We are seeking a range of new partnerships of which this Corporate Climate Partners Network is a key part.

In doing so, we of course need to protect our key core assets, our integrity and independence.

So, with the help of KPMG, we have undertaken extensive due diligence of potential partners. 

We want partners who not only lead their sectors in innovation and investment in clean energy and pollution reduction solutions.

We want partners who also share a vision of Australia both cooperative and competitive in deploying those solutions, both of which are at grave risk today. 

We don’t expect, and I am sure the feeling is mutual, to always be in harmony with all the views of our Climate Partners. 

We do look forward to the robust exchanges which will sharpen our research, education and communication efforts.  This will be necessary to make them as incisive as possible in the challenging political, commercial and social realities we face.

This partnership will travel alongside other key partnerships The Climate Institute has built along our journey. 

Community partnerships such as the Southern Cross Climate Coalition, with the Australian Conservation Foundation, Australian Council of Social Service, ACTU and WWF.  We need this journey to be as fast as possible and so it must be as fair as possible – for workers and vulnerable households.  This is crucial to its political, economic and environmental sustainability.

And the Climate Partners will travel alongside other business partnerships such as that we have with the Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees, seeking to ensure the trillion dollars of our retirement savings are best managed for long term risks and opportunities, including those arising from the climate challenge.

Each of these partnerships can and must be mutually reinforcing as we take this journey of risk, responsibility and return.

So, it is a journey from the fatal shores of high polluting, highly inefficient economies to the far safer, stable and more secure shores of what will ultimately need to be carbon positive economies.

It promises to be, is proving to be, be an exhilarating journey.  One full of bumps, spills and hopefully some fun.

I look forward to taking this journey with you our new Climate Partners, and with other current and new partners we join up with along the way. 

This is an edited extract of a speech delivered by John Connor, CEO, The Climate Institute, at the launch of the Institute’s Climate Partners Network at Westpac, 24 May 2010.