An Australian-born executive in Beijing says Australia is missing out on green energy opportunities in China because it is too narrowly focused on a carbon tax.
Mina Guli from the green technology investment fund Peony Capital says Australia only contributes 1.6 per cent of the world’s carbon emissions and that a carbon tax will have little environmental impact.
But she told Radio Australia’s Connect Asia there are big opportunities now that China has made green energy the centrepiece of its five-year development plan.
“Australia is a land of terrific big ideas, but we lack the population to support the commercialisation of most of them,” she said
“If we were really smart, what we would be doing is going to places like China, where we can see they have an enormous demand, and they don’t have the technology, and we would be saying to them, what we can do with you to support the greening of your economy.”
She says Australia’s debate about a carbon tax is obscuring possible green technology opportunities in China.
“Arguably a small reduction in our 1.6 per cent share of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions is not as big a contribution as we could make if we were looking and focussing on exporting our green technologies,” she said.
“[It] has opportunity not only to green the world, but also to create green jobs for Australia and green growth in terms of Australian income.”
But Ms Guli says a carbon price can go hand in hand with a commitment to develop green energy.
She says while Australia is lagging behind companies from the US, Europe and Japan, there is hope the country could become a world leader in green technologies.
“When I come to Australia and I see some of the technologies that exist in this country and see some of the game changing opportunities we have in China, I don’t understand why we’re not there,” she said.
“If we can figure out how to crack this industry and we can figure out how to crack some of these opportunities in China, there’s a huge, huge potential opportunity for Australia to really go from being a laggard in the green space to being a world leader.”
