All aboard folks! Team LMSU is continuing our BoCo odyssey, adventuring through each of the six sector decarbonisation plans. AND we’re bringing friends! That’s right, we’re calling in even nerdier reinforcements and experts to join us as we venture on. We're four in, two to go and luminaries helping us sum up so far include Dylan McConnell, Davina Rooney, Helen Rowe and Alison Reeve! And if somehow that isn’t temptation enough for you crazy climate cats, the only way you’ll see evidence of Luke, Tennant and Frankie’s cosplay efforts at our recent Chaos Trivia event is by subscribing on Patreon, so hop to it!

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We woke up expecting to record an episode about how to run a successful COP, but news reports suggested Australia may not get to host a COP at all! So ably assisted by Alex Scott – longstanding COP maven and current Senior Associate for Climate Diplomacy at the climate think tank ECCO – we talk a bit about the bid and ways for Australia to maintain a leadership position in a scenario in which it doesn't hold the presidency, the latest from the negotiations on the Big Four™️, and take some live questions from the audience.

And that’s it for now, Summerupperers. There is now a one-stop-shop for all your LMSU needs: head to

letmesumup.net

to support us on Patreon, procure merch, find back episodes, and leave us a voicemail!

All aboard folks! Team LMSU is continuing our BoCo odyssey, adventuring through each of the six sector decarbonisation plans. AND we’re bringing friends! That’s right, we’re calling in even nerdier reinforcements and experts to join us as we venture on. We're four in, two to go and luminaries helping us sum up so far include Dylan McConnell, Davina Rooney, Helen Rowe and Alison Reeve! And if somehow that isn’t temptation enough for you crazy climate cats, the only way you’ll see evidence of Luke, Tennant and Frankie’s cosplay efforts at our recent Chaos Trivia event is by subscribing on Patreon, so hop to it!

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So we're in Belém, Brazil for COP30 where the weather is humid, the caipirinhas are delicious, the NDCs are insufficient and the action agenda is extensive! Thats right folks, we're summing up all the colour and movement of week one, with a particular focus on the procedural gambit of the Brazilian Presidency that saw the 'Big Four' issues (what a pithy coinage that is, hey T?) that threatened to bog down agreement on the negotiating agenda allocated to their own special “informal backroom consultations”, immediately rendering said consultations far more interesting that the primary negotiations! 

Featuring: special guest co-host Josh Gabbatiss from Carbon Brief! Also featuring: perhaps our final (we feverishly hope so) round of COP31 host speculation!

And that’s it for now, Summerupperers. There is now a one-stop-shop for all your LMSU needs: head to

letmesumup.net

to support us on Patreon, procure merch, find back episodes, and leave us a voicemail!

Subscribe to LMSU’s Patreon for a sector plan BoCo bonanza!  

All aboard folks! Team LMSU is continuing our BoCo odyssey, adventuring through each of the six sector decarbonisation plans. AND we’re bringing friends! That’s right, we’re calling in even nerdier reinforcements and experts to join us as we venture on. This week, we’ll be joined by sometime co-host Alison Reeve from the Grattan Institute to unpack the Industry sector plan. And if somehow that isn’t temptation enough for you crazy climate cats, the only way you’ll see evidence of Luke, Tennant and Frankie’s cosplay efforts at our recent Chaos Trivia event is by subscribing, so hop to it!

—

With COP30 in Belem, Brazil only days away, your intrepid hosts dive into recent remarks from UN Secretary General, António Guterres, widely reported as ‘the world has missed 1.5C’, the reality being much more nuanced commentary from this climate champion as he enters his final year as Secretary General. Undoubtedly, it feels like a threshold moment as he acknowledges the world has breached 1.5C. We are now in the realm of overshoot, but the longer term of objective of stabilising temperature increases to 1.5C is still possible - keeping 1.5 alive - but only if we redouble efforts to focus on decarbonisation here and now, and flags the need to ramp up efforts on negative emissions. Significant remarks and food for thought on the real and difficult choices ahead!

Our main course

Is it 1965 or is what’s old new once again folks? Your intrepid hosts wade into the technical, controversial, futuristic yet bafflingly bootstrapped proposition that is geoengineering - shooting stuff into the sky and blocking out some sunlight, cooling the earth’s surface. What could possibly go wrong?! Well, this paper, ‘Engineering and logistical concerns add practical limitations to stratospheric aerosol injection strategies’ published in Nature and authored by Miranda Hack, V. Faye McNeill, Dan Steingart and Gernot Wagner, has some thoughts! Engineering challenges? Yes! Cost? What better use of diamond dust could there be! Governance issues? A few! What is incredibly clear from reading this paper is that there are no easy decisions when it comes to the need to consider negative emissions technologies or other novel ways of moderating temperature increases. Could it be that on closer inquiry, we should just focus on getting on with decarbonising, or is more research required?

One more things

Tennant’s One More Thing is: more ranting about data centres! Tennant has questions about the ultimate viability of the eyewatering numbers of speculative capacity in new data centre growth, as well as the equally worrying implications for viability coal closures if much of this does come to pass. Bubble or not, we’ll find out soon enough!

Frankie’s One More Thing is: a massive shout out and thanks to 150 fabulous folk that fronted up to Chaos Trivia last week in Melbourne, including ultimate winners, No One Likes A Gentailer. Props to our co-hosts Currently Speaking, our MC extraordinaire Mark Spencer and The NEMChat Singers who added colour, movement and grooves to the chaos! With all proceeds going to the brilliant First Nations Clean Energy Network there was much to love.  

Luke’s One More Thing is: a definitely-not-resentful readout of the paper he really wanted us to read this episode, IRENA’s ‘Delivering on the UAE Consensus: Tracking progress toward tripling renewable energy capacity and doubling energy efficiency by 2030.’ TL;DR is we’re going gangbusters on solar but woeful progress on energy efficiency. More to do!

And that’s it for now, Summerupperers. There is now a one-stop-shop for all your LMSU needs: head to

letmesumup.net

to support us on Patreon, procure merch, find back episodes, and leave us a voicemail!

Subscribe to LMSU’s Patreon for a sector plan BoCo bonanza!  

All aboard folks! Team LMSU is continuing our BoCo odyssey, adventuring through each of the six sector decarbonisation plans. AND we’re bringing friends! That’s right, we’re calling in even nerdier reinforcements and experts to join us as we venture on. This week, we’ll be joined by Helen Rowe from Climateworks to talk transport and infrastructure.

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With a promise to provide guidance on the next five years ‘and beyond’ your intrepid hosts digested the Queensland Government Energy Roadmap 2025. It provides a major reset in some respects with continuity in others. Grabbing the headlines was the telegraphed decision to run government-owned coal assets to end of technical life but much detail still ‘TBC’ when it comes to how decisions on coal will be made.Transmission is getting a big overhaul, renewables still gonna be big but maybe not so much on the wind front. More questions raised than answered here for now as Luke is left pondering the wisdom of scrapping a bicameral parliament in the great northern state!

Our main course

With a tantalising title of ‘Bills Down, Emissions Down: A practical path to net zero electricity’ your intrepid hosts are having what the Grattan Institute is serving! A timely provocation from Alison Reeve, Tony Wood, Dominic Jones and Ben Jefferson on the value - and they argue necessity - of reinstating a price on carbon in the electricity sector. The world has changed since the last time carbon pricing was discussed in the energy sector and the folks from Grattan argue the Safeguard Mechanism presents a ready made vehicle to get the job done. And they don’t forget to remind us of earlier work in their report Climate Phoenix that shows how the Safeguard could evolve into a broader emissions trading scheme, Much food for thought ahead of the 2026-27 Safeguard review!

One more things

Tennant’s One More Thing is: his appearance at an event hosted by the University of Adelaide, festively titled, ‘Livin La Vida BoCA’! No guesses as to what that was about: a whisper of chat about border carbon adjustments and our man Mr Reed manifests!

Frankie’s One More Thing is: a frustrating one-year delay to the vote by the International Maritime Organisation on the adoption of an emissions levy on shipping, following concerted lobbying from the Trump administration.

Luke’s One More Thing is: the long awaited and celebrated launch of the Commercial Building Disclosure Roadmap! *Finally* After previous reviews gathered dust on shelves, we finally have a plan for expanding use of Australia’s globally leading NABERS rating scheme in disclosing the nergy performance of more building types. Huzzah!

And that’s it for now, Summerupperers. There is now a one-stop-shop for all your LMSU needs: head to

letmesumup.net

to support us on Patreon, procure merch, find back episodes, and leave us a voicemail!

Subscribe to LMSU’s Patreon for a sector plan BoCo bonanza!  

All aboard folks! Team LMSU is embarking on a BoCo odyssey over the the next couple of months, adventuring through each of the six sector decarbonisation plans. AND we’re bringing friends! That’s right, we’re calling in even nerdier reinforcements and experts to join us as we venture on. For our first deep dive, The Planned and the Penurious (Energy and Electricity Sector Plan), we were joined by Energy wizard Dylan McConnell! Our second outing, 2 Planned: 2 Penurious (Built Environment), will feature buildings maven Davina Rooney!

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While it’s no Planned and the Penurious, your intrepid hosts have been following the final laps of the NDC Grand Prix as a flurry of countries have raced (?) to lodge their 2035 Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement. China’s commitment to cut emissions 7–10% below peak levels by 2035 is dissected: an under promise, over deliver scenario? Almost certainly based on their track record. India is progressing through the pack, Europe stuck in the pit lane with internal negotiations, the US is doing doughnuts in the car park, and what on earth do we make of the corner-cutting of Russia’s retrograde move? And what about the two-thirds of countries still in the garage that haven't even gotten around to submitting a climate pledge yet? Is this Trump Administration dirty pool? Luke thinks maybe, Tennant is sceptical, but it certainly makes for an interesting COP and raises questions about the Paris Agreement’s “ratchet” mechanism and the consequences (or lack thereof) for backsliding or just ghosting the party altogether. We commend you to Climate Resource’s NDC country snapshots as a handy dandy resource!

Our main course

One of your intrepid hosts may have described reading the recently published National Climate Risk Assessment as ‘eating our climate risk vegetables’ given the dense and confronting nature of this 250+ page report. But jokes aside, team LMSU wanted to shine a spotlight and give our listeners a sense of the breadth and depth of this significant piece of work from Australia’s Climate Service: fifty six nationally significant climate risks across eight key functional systems, with seven additional risks highlighted for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Eleven risks receive deeper analysis, assessed across three warming scenarios (1.5°C, 2°C, 3°C) and three time horizons (2025, 2050, 2090). While your intrepid hosts read the whole thing cover to cover, we reckon it’s designed as a more modular report and for those interested, we suggest reading the executive summary and use the table of contents to navigate to areas of interest. 

This paper reaffirmed the ‘why’ many of us are working in climate and energy and team LMSU is thinking of all you Summerupperers out there, more power to your arms!

One more things

Tennant’s One More Thing is: a book on climate change and energy transition, “Clearing the Air” by Hannah Ritchie. Simple and snappy answers to the many and diverse questions people have on climate,Tennant declares lucid, reasonable and a goodun!

Frankie’s One More Thing is: a plug for the upcoming Investor Group on Climate Change Summit 2025, coming up in Sydney on October 16-17 and featuring eminences such as Al Gore and not one, not two, but ALL THREE hosts of LMSU!

Luke’s One More Thing is: some listener mail from friend of the pod Purdie Bowden who had some thoughts on comments made by Alison Reeve on a previous episode about expertise not being valued in the public service. She’s advocating for an overhaul of APS recruitment practices and progression to value specialist skill sets, support public servants to upskill, allow cross pollination between public and private sectors and lots more very sensible excellent suggestions. Hear, hear!

And that’s it for now, Summerupperers. There is now a one-stop-shop for all your LMSU needs: head to

letmesumup.net

to support us on Patreon, procure merch, find back episodes, and leave us a voicemail!

Time is running out to get your tickets for Chaos Trivia! 

Team LMSU is joining forces with the fabulous folks from Currently Speaking for a blockbuster crossover event, with special guests, the NEMchat Singers. Chaos Trivia is set for the first night of the All Energy Conference on Wednesday 29 October in Melbourne, and as predicted, tickets are selling like hotcakes with only a few left! There will be trivia! Role playing? Musical interludes! Food! Drinks! And Tennant is still committed to some wizard cosplay! All proceeds go to the First Nations Clean Energy Network so - RUN, don’t walk and snag tix for you or a whole trivia team.

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Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a target! Your intrepid hosts reflect on the many and varied reactions to the slick and stage managed birthing of the Climate Change Authority’s advice on a 2035 target and the Government’s acceptance of their advice to adopt a target of 62-70% emissions reduction on 2005 levels by 2035. 

Simultaneously declared “Economy wrecking” (Opposition), “Weak and disappointing” (Greens) and “The sweet spot” (Prime Minister Albanese), it looks like business groups broadly land in the “benign toleration” camp and environment groups unhappy with the bottom end of the range. What do we reckon? The real debate starts now on the level of ambition needed in the policies to get to the top of the range—especially since current policies only get us to about 51% by 2035.

Looking for fodder for your own opinion? Check out the op-eds penned by Luke and Adam Morton, and Adam's conversation with CCA Chair Matt Kean.

Our main course

It wasn’t just the targets the Government served up last week that had your intrepid hosts salivating at the degustation menu of climate policy offerings to sample. Treasury modelling, NDCs, sector plans, OH MY! 

But y’all know the LMSU crew can’t resist the sweet tantalising temptation of a seriously nerdy modelling exercise and so it was decided - there was never really any question - to the Treasury buffet we go! With three scenarios to unpack, a friendship of climate models used - TIM, MIRA, EMM, ALEX, anyone? There was a lot to digest in here! 

Eye watering economic upsides for green exports, signalling on declining fossil fuel exports, the cost of delay and some seriously refreshing honesty about limitations of modelling, there was something for everyone here and some significant foundations being laid for the future debate of climate policy in Australia.

One more things

Tennant’s One More Thing is: a fun Well Actually post, “Why every Sankey diagram you’ve ever seen is wrong” by Michael Liebreich

Frankie’s One More Thing is: a shout out from Marian Wilkinson in response to our recent episode on her Quarterly Essay on Woodside, saying she wanted to provoke a broader discussion on the influence of large companies like Woodside on federal and state politics and local communities. Love your work Marian!

Luke’s One More Thing is: a plug for his other podcast, First Fuel, which features his recent interview with Dr. Saul Griffith at the Energy in WA conference in which Saul predicts the economics of electrification will spur a rapid decline in gas exports and urged a pivot to clean commodities.

And that’s it for now, Summerupperers. There is now a one-stop-shop for all your LMSU needs: head to

letmesumup.net

to support us on Patreon, procure merch, find back episodes, and leave us a voicemail!

In this special, rapid reaction bonus episode (freed from the paywall, in the National Interest) we provide the hottest of hot takes on Australia's new 2035 emissions reduction target, and the 1000+ pages of documents released by the Albanese Government this week. You're welcome!

We'll be back in your feeds next Friday to talk Treasury modelling. 

Meanwhile...

Step right up and get your tickets for Chaos Trivia! 

Team LMSU is joining forces with the fabulous folks from Currently Speaking for a blockbuster crossover event, with special guests, the NEMchat Singers! Chaos Trivia is set for the first night of the All Energy Conference on Wednesday 29 October in Melbourne. There will be trivia! Role playing? Musical interludes! Food! Drinks! And Tennant in some wizard cosplay, which should frankly be reason enough! All proceeds go to the First Nations Clean Energy Network and we reckon tix will sell like hotcakes, so - run, don’t walk and snag tix for you or a whole trivia team.

And that’s it for now, Summerupperers. There is now a one-stop-shop for all your LMSU needs: head to

letmesumup.net

to support us on Patreon, procure merch, find back episodes, and leave us a voicemail!

Step right up and get your tickets for Chaos Trivia! 

Team LMSU is joining forces with the fabulous folks from Currently Speaking for a blockbuster crossover event, with special guests, the NEMchat Singers! Chaos Trivia is set for the first night of the All Energy Conference on Wednesday 29 October in Melbourne. There will be trivia! Role playing? Musical interludes! Food! Drinks! And Tennant in some wizard cosplay, which should frankly be reason enough! All proceeds go to the First Nations Clean Energy Network and we reckon tix will sell like hotcakes, so - run, don’t walk and snag tix for you or a whole trivia team.

—

Targets! Targets! Targets! Have we reached peak 2035 target fever? You betcha, and it’s a smorgasbord with climate and business groups serving up their preferred target. Which one is just right? From the bottom-up analysis from EY with practical can-do actions to achieve 65-75% to Deloitte’s top-down analysis for Business for 75 suggesting a 75% target would grow the economy more than a 65% target, there was one bit of modelling the subject of much chatter, and that didn’t recommend a particular target at all! McKinsey’s modelling for the BCA took a look at modelled costs for achieving 50, 60 and 70% targets but omitted any analysis of benefits, didn’t consider global impacts and seemed to make some drastic assumptions about the impact on gas exports (but hard to know as no assumptions were published). The verdict? BCA seems to be trying to thread the needle in navigating different members’ views and… it could have been worse!

Our main course

This week your intrepid hosts pack the passports and FIFO into that GST-sapping, resource-rich, beachy utopia that is WA as we soak up Marian Wilkinson’s Quarterly Essay, ‘Woodside vs The Planet: how a company captured a country’. This cracker of an essay unpacks the complex relationship between Woodside, successive WA and Federal governments, and local communities. A particularly nuanced and sensitive account of impacts to the Murujuga people’s struggle for influence in the preservation of their cultural heritage is contrasted with accounts of shareholder action and activists calling out the cognitive dissonance from Woodside in claiming support for climate action while expanding plans for fossil gas extraction and export well beyond 2050. This was not the policy solutions paper Tennant wanted it to be, but we debated the merits of supply-side activism to shut down fossil fuel exports and whether the WA community would even be on board with that. This essay paints a vivid picture of Woodside’s omnipresence in WA and for a bunch of blow-in east coasters, we learned a lot!

One more things

Tennant’s One More Thing is: the International Maritime Organisation’s upcoming vote on a global carbon pricing scheme for shipping— even with the US reportedly opposed, the vote is expected to pass. Yay for rare moments of multilateral innovation! 

Frankie’s One More Thing is: the Investor Front Door is officially open! Or at least ajar for a couple of pilot projects. This could grease the wheels for Future Made in Australia projects OR could add more layers of helpful bureaucracy. Implementation matters!

Luke’s One More Thing is: for the fans of good periodicals out there, a solid vote for the latest edition of Foreign Affairs, which features essays on US-China tech competition, critical minerals, AI, and Australia’s role in the Pacific.

And that’s it for now, Summerupperers. There is now a one-stop-shop for all your LMSU needs: head to

letmesumup.net

to support us on Patreon, procure merch, find back episodes, and leave us a voicemail!

‘Abundance v Sufficiency: Dawn of Justice’ T-Shirt Edition 

The sufficiency movement is winning… at least when it comes to LMSU merch! If you haven’t read Abundance but keep finding yourself sucked into conversations about it, have we got the “No I haven’t read Abundance, that’s what podcasts are for” t-shirt for you! Merch as a proxy for ideological dominance? You decide. Run, don’t walk  to our merch page and grab the limited edition Abundance tee: www.letmesumup.net/p/merch/.

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Productivity Palooza 2025 continues like the perpetual festival the PC wished for and your intrepid hosts round up some of the big-ticket climate and energy related outcomes of Jim Chalmers’ roundtable. Environmental approvals? Hot to trot, before 2025 is out! Road user charging? Definitely happening, but only for EVs for now! Unlocking more investment from Aussie super funds? I spy with my little eye a performance benchmark test redesign! 

And what of the National Construction Code pause and reform? The suggestion of a lengthy pause to NCC updates resulted in exasperated bemusement at the boneheadedness of it all from climate folk, subsequently tempered by what was announced, a more modest pause until 2029. The verdict? Maybe focusing on the fact the NCC itself was a productivity reform is a good start, and while we’re at it, avoid scapegoating energy efficiency changes that save households money. AI to streamline the code and everything else will clearly save us all! 

Our main course

It’s time for some game theory as these beautiful minds leap into the climate geopolitics multiverse of Michael Mehling’s paper, ‘In The Vortex Of Great Power Competition: Climate, Trade and Geostrategic Rivalry in U.S.-China-EU Relations’. We take the green pill and immerse ourselves in three different universes, from a ‘Race to the Top’ where competitive cooperation drives climate innovation, to ‘Geopolitical Fragmentation’ where nationalism stalls progress and maybe leads to thermonuclear war? And the most intriguing of all, ‘Reversed Leadership’ where China leads the global decarbonisation charge, taking the mantle of global leadership from the US. China looms large across all three scenarios, driven by its increasing dominance in clean tech, but parts and combinations of all three scenarios are entirely plausible today. This short, timely paper packs a lot of punch! 

One more things

Tennant’s One More Thing is: the 2025 Luxton Memorial Lecture at the University of Adelaide, delivered by none other than friend and sometime co-host of the pod, Alison Reeve!

Frankie’s One More Thing is: the Climate Change Authority’s 2025 issues paper consultation, asking a range of questions on the effectiveness of the government’s response to climate change. If you have thoughts, and we’ll bet you do, chip them a response by 1 September!

Luke’s One More Thing is: a shout out to friend of the pod, Dylan McConnell, who - in response to our last episode on the NEM review - reminds us that visibility of large, industrial loads is just as important as aggregated is also in the sights of Nelson and his panel. Point well made sir!

And that’s it for now, Summerupperers. There is now a one-stop-shop for all your LMSU needs: head to

letmesumup.net

to support us on Patreon, procure merch, find back episodes, and leave us a voicemail!

‘Abundance v Sufficiency: Dawn of Justice’ T-Shirt Edition 

With a sufficiency of sufficiency-themed t-shirts now on the streets, the universe is out of balance and your intrepid hosts need to balance the sufficiency yin with an abundance yang! And OH BOY did we have an abundance of abundance-themed t-shirt ideas for you. YOU need not have Abundance FOMO any longer. Run, don’t walk to our merch page and grab the limited edition Abundance tee: www.letmesumup.net/p/merch/.

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It’s Productivity Palooza 2025 and invited to the hottest party in town (this here podcast of course) is the one and only Alison Reeve who joins your intrepid hosts in a Productivity Commission report launch party! Landing in Jim Chalmers’ hot little hands before the big Economic Reform Roundtable in Canberra (the other hottest party in town), the PC’s interim report, “Investing in Cheaper, Cleaner Energy and the Net Zero Transformation” has a grab bag of ideas: Adaptation - getting its moment, finally! Approvals - strike teams and make em’ fast! Carbon pricing - safeguard harder! Also check out this excellent OpEd from Alison in the AFR.

Our main course

I’m Wonky But I’m Worth It might have been the unofficial subtitle of the latest contribution to reform of the National Electricity Market by expert panel Tim Nelson, Paula Conboy, Ava Hancock and Phil Hirschhorn. That’s right, your intrepid hosts evidently didn’t have anything else to do last weekend than consume the 220-page elephant of the “National Electricity Market wholesale market settings review” draft report (we did, but we read it anyway – you're welcome). While heavy on financial jargon, we wonder whether this might be the political bullet proof vest this policy needs, lest the ESEM join the acronym soup grave of NEM review solutions past! Targeted upgrades to existing architecture across the spot market (visibility of DER!), medium-term derivatives (more liquidity via market-making obligations!) and long-term investment signals (enter, Electricity Services Entry Mechanism!) with a partridge in a pear tree and consumer reforms (the epilogue that Frankie thinks deserves a prologue). 

One more things

Tennant’s One More Thing is: the greatest movie ever made!? WARNING: 3.5 hours and carbon monoxide poisoning awaits.

Frankie’s One More Thing is: a watching brief on the expert panel on atmospheric measurement of fugitive methane emissions in Australia, chaired by former chief scientist Dr Cathy Foley, and just how this might contribute to policy - Global Methane Pledge, ahem!

Alison’s One More Thing is: is the gas network problem solving itself? A Victorian gas utility helping customers go all-electric feels like cause for celebration in putting consumers first!

Luke’s One More Thing is: a shout out and salute to outgoing Clean Energy Council CEO Kane Thornton, for his tireless work supporting and leading the growth of Australia’s renewables industry and for being an all-round awesome human. Go well and see you soon Kane!

And that’s it for now, Summerupperers. There is now a one-stop-shop for all your LMSU needs: head to

letmesumup.net

to support us on Patreon, procure merch, find back episodes, and leave us a voicemail!