Mike Cannon-Brookes & Osher Gunsberg - GMPOOG - 02

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Thrilled to bring you this month’s Greatest Moral Podcast Of Our Generation.

Every 4 weeks on the A Rational Fear feed, Linh Do and I (Dan Ilic) present a climate news update and a long-form conversation with leader in climate action. This month’s chat is excellent.

Two very different brains leading climate conversations in their own powerful way.

Osher Gunsberg (The Bachelor / Better Than Yesterday Podcast) and Mike Canon-Brookes (Atlassian / SunCable)

Osher is using his celebrity to draw his broad audience to his podcast where he has meaningful conversations about climate anxiety and climate action.

And Mike is using his own personal wealth and huge influence in the business community to drive innovation and wedge government into climate action.

Great chat, an honour to speak with them both in the same Zoom call.

Cheers,

Dan Ilic

The first 8minutes of the conversation sound a bit rubbish because I forgot to hit record on my Rodecaster, so we had to use the audio from the Zoom recording which isn’t as high fidelity. So bear with us, it does get better.A NOTE ON AUDIO:

Thanks:

Big thanks to The Bertha Foundation, our Patreon Supporters and RODE Mics. Jacob Round,

TRANSCRIPT BY OTTER.AI BELOW:

Unknown Speaker 0:00

This podcast is supported in part by the birther foundation

Dan Ilic 0:04

to the greatest moral podcast of our generation joining me of course as she does for every one of these special greatest moral podcasts of our generations is lindow fellow Bertha Fela gaylin

Linh Do 0:15

Hello, hello, Iris. So good to be back.

Dan Ilic 0:18

This is our second greatest moral podcast of our generation. A huge thank you to everyone who listened to our Kevin Rudd episode, I think had a lot of good feedback from that, particularly around people who love the nitty gritty of climate backstabbing.

Linh Do 0:31

Yeah, the interview was amazing. And I think it just makes me even more eager to wait for when those cabinet files get released. You know, I'll be one of those geeks eagerly awaiting exactly what happened and will finally know who was the liar after all.

Dan Ilic 0:46

This of course, is out on the irrational fear feed every month we bring you an in depth conversation about climate change with climate legends and a little bit more about who is on our podcast a little later on. But first of all, a big thank you to our new irrational fear Patreon members including Nick with a K Lysa Yeager, Shelly Carr Simone Kevin and Tim Stevenson chipping in to help irrational fear jump to patreon.com forward slash irrational fear to support the podcast another way to spot irrational fear is to offset the carbon emissions from your car with go neutral for every $90 sticker go neutral by 3.5 tonnes of carbon offsets which is about the average yearly emissions for a car and then five bucks that comes to us to go neutral. Click on the link in the show notes. I'm recording my end of irrational feet on gadigal land and your nation's sovereignty was never ceded. We need a treaty. Let's start the show. Despite

Unknown Speaker 1:33

global warming, rational fear is adding a little more hot air with long form discussions with climate leaders. Good.

Unknown Speaker 1:44

This is called

Unknown Speaker 1:45

Don't be fright, the heat waves and droughts greatest mass extinction when facing a manmade disaster, podcast, climate

Unknown Speaker 1:58

shiana ration

Unknown Speaker 2:01

all of this with global warming

Unknown Speaker 2:02

and a lot of it's a hoax. But write a small podcast about generation.

Unknown Speaker 2:09

For sure.

Dan Ilic 2:10

All right, listen, let's get into our climate news for this week. Story number one, Australia joins the US China and Russia in refusing to sign our latest pledge on biodiversity. Is this any kind of surprise that we are with the US Russia and China on this lid?

Linh Do 2:26

Never Never surprised. But I mean, last year during the Madrid climate negotiations, we were with Saudi Arabia and given you know, everything that we're hearing about how koalas are going extinct, the billions of animals that were wiped out, unfortunately, during the recent bush fires, you think we'd care a little bit more

Dan Ilic 2:43

than there's a lot of similarities between Australia and Saudi right, but particularly about the way we treat our journalists,

Linh Do 2:47

that is definitely for alarming, but we still call ourselves a democracy. So it's a scary path that we're headed down.

Dan Ilic 2:54

Now. The Morison government said it refused to sign this global pledge, endorsed by 64 other countries committed to reverse biodiversity loss because it was inconsistent with Australia's policies, namely, net zero by 2050, which pretty much the rest of the world is signed up to. Australia has committed to net zero but before 2100, which is absolutely hilarious. I mean,

Linh Do 3:14

we weren't really alive then. So I guess for us, that's how we have to feel better about it. That's how I go to sleep at night.

Dan Ilic 3:21

And can I say thank God, I won't be alive then because it's gonna be too hot to live. kitten joshy, the climate hero on Twitter did tweet some calculations of his own, which were taken from the government's own data a few months back, and he suggested that we're actually on track to meet our net zero targets by 2300. So that's about the double length of Australia's colonised period.

Linh Do 3:42

The numbers at that point are just eye watering. Really, it's really hard to comprehend how our policies account for multiple multiple generations from now.

Dan Ilic 3:53

It's so interesting. This is the latest pledge put together by the WWF and un, I jumped over to the latest pledge page because anybody can sign up to it and sign their organisation up to it so I put you dear listener behind the pledge. So irrational fear is now signed up to this pledge. So putting out 10,000 listeners a month behind the pledge good on us.

Unknown Speaker 4:16

Yay by diversity.

Dan Ilic 4:18

I emailed Terry Butler as well because she had some comments to say about you know, why scammer didn't sign up but she had at this point in time, she hasn't got back to me whether she actually signed up to the pledge herself, but they went to the website and if you are, if you are a head of state of a country, you can actually click through to a form and sign up your country so I actually went through and signed us up as well. But they haven't got back to me is to verify my identity. I said I was the Minister for climate action and in fear That's what I said.

Linh Do 4:50

They ignore that doesn't exist in Australia. Although you know, it's like so funny given her our head of state actually is is that the royal family is all behind by diversity like Prince Charles huge support Well, this

Dan Ilic 5:00

is the thing this is absolutely things have the google doc says Head of State for your country and technically our head of state is the claim. So maybe we are already signed up by default.

Linh Do 5:10

Well, you know, one of the benefits of colonisation and the Commonwealth and the British Empire is potentially we can follow in the footsteps of what the UK is doing right now. I like

Dan Ilic 5:19

that if Tony Abbott was was Prime Minister and Lizzy asked him to he probably signed up to that pledge.

Linh Do 5:25

Her would have thought I used to think I was a Republican in terms of you know, supporting the Republic, but here we are. All for the monarchy

Dan Ilic 5:33

story number two. Exxon's plan for surging carbon emissions revealed in Lake documents now this story is interesting it as the rest of the kind of fossil fuel industry is planning on phasing out its emissions Exxon over the next five years is planning on increasing them by 17%. Are you surprised at all by this lindo?

Linh Do 5:54

I feel like Exxon has written the playbook on big organisations and companies that we can't trust Rio Tinto has just proven that again, in Australia, it almost doesn't matter what they otherwise say they're going to be doing because there's always something that they're trying to sweep under the rug.

Dan Ilic 6:09

This is really interesting bhp. So put out an article or somebody put out an article about bhp actually doing further oil exploration even though they've signed a pledge to get out of the fossil fuel game. But they're still exploring fossil fuels. I guess they're searching for it. So they can go put up a big sign saying don't dig here. I guess this was a finding under protected.

Linh Do 6:27

It wants to know that it's there. It's almost like you know, these big companies, someone in the PR department signing up to all of these pledges, maybe the by diversity one even, but then just you know, there's another part of it where engineers or whoever are going off and exploring new oil fields. It's just really reprehensible really,

Dan Ilic 6:47

shift in person is really significant significant for a company like Exxon, if its plans are realised Exxon would add to the atmosphere, the annual emissions of a small developed nation or 26, coal fired power plants. That's, that's insane over the next five years,

Linh Do 7:06

absolutely wild. It's interesting that you've been encouraging listeners to go neutral with their carbon emissions from their car. Do you think people will now change their mind about where they fill up?

Dan Ilic 7:20

yet? Absolutely. I'm gonna get a fill up with Shell. Definitely.

Linh Do 7:28

Buddy. Sorry, that was a bit of a question.

Dan Ilic 7:32

Can I say they extremely limited, particularly around bond I'm pretty sure Mobil Exxon is the only place I can actually fill up.

Linh Do 7:39

Well, the idea is to be a good carbon advocate is to drive even further in your heart to the nearest suburb Lin visit, or petrol station. I don't think that logic works out.

Dan Ilic 7:50

Are you telling me I'm gonna have to drive from Bondi to rosebay bp to fill up now? Oh, my God.

Linh Do 7:59

You're carbon neutral. So it doesn't

Unknown Speaker 8:01

matter. It just doesn't. Just doesn't matter.

Dan Ilic 8:04

Okay. Now, Matt Canavan has been slammed for his use of the Black Lives Matter slogan. And he's got a ute. And he's got black coal matters on the back of his unit. Tell us a bit about the story.

Linh Do 8:17

Well, why do we even start sometimes, when I like wake up to the news in Australia, I'm like, of course, that just happened. Of course, that just happened. Um, given the way that we tray, our indigenous people in this country, pretty reprehensible given the way that we have, you know, gone on to other people's country, and like, you know, built new coal power stations doesn't make sense. I think the only good that I could sort of try to say from this is maybe then rules out the argument that we have in this country for supporting brown coal, which, you know, whilst all calls no good ground calls even more inefficient, even more dirty, so at least, we're prioritising within, you know, the scale of bad things we already do.

Dan Ilic 8:58

I can't believe they've appropriated this activist language for their own activist language. It really hurts my head a little bit.

Linh Do 9:05

Yep. Well, you know, they're borrowing from the people who do do things well. So maybe this is a sign that I'm campaigning for Black Lives Matter, really is working.

Dan Ilic 9:14

Just another example of why people aren't ready black culture.

Unknown Speaker 9:18

Yep, never ending.

Dan Ilic 9:20

And finally, let's talk about the 2021 budget. Lin. Katyn Joshi, as we've mentioned before, is a fantastic tweeter on climate. You got to follow him. Ke TANJ. Oh, he did this great tweet this week, while when the budget was happening, he took the budget speech hit Ctrl F and search for the word climate. It appeared only once in Josh frydenberg speech. The sentence was 1.9 billion in new funding as part of our energy plan to support low emissions of renewable technologies, helping to lower emissions and climate change followed by the sentence. We're also helping to unlock five key gas basins, isn't that just doesn't that just symbolise everything that Australia is about when it comes to emissions actually And when

Linh Do 10:00

exactly it feels like that one mention was just say say we did talk about it, don't think about it in context.

Dan Ilic 10:08

I think that was actually my tweet as well off the back of kittens was like, say they did mention it. They didn't say climate. We didn't say climate.

Linh Do 10:14

We said it. They did about us know exactly. You know, it's about making sure that everyone gets represented, even if in this case, representation literally meant nothing.

Dan Ilic 10:25

So chillin. What I love about the budget speech, every time it comes around, it's kind of like our own version of the State of the Union speech, but it's really, really shared.

Linh Do 10:34

And it's way wonky. I have never been invited to a budget party, but I've been to my fair share of State of the Union ones in the US.

Dan Ilic 10:42

Somebody plays invite lindo to their budget party,

Linh Do 10:45

foreign into financial year one, I am open to all super geeky economic party conversations

Dan Ilic 10:51

into financial year ones are the best because often companies use that instead of Christmas. And so they treat their employees very well so that you definitely want to get on that gravy train.

Unknown Speaker 11:01

Okay, good to know. Good to know.

Dan Ilic 11:03

All right. For this week's podcast, we bring you a big conversation I had last week with Asha Gunzburg and, and Mike cannon Brookes at the Smart Energy summit. What I liked about this, it was a good chat with two really random people, you know, Asha Gunzburg, and Mike cannon Brookes. What do these people have in common? Yeah, okay. Well, you know, for those who don't know, Asha is the host of the bachelor, Mike cannon. Brooks is the software developer for Atlassian and and energy entrepreneur. What do you think these people have in common? Lynn? Do they have anything in common at all?

Linh Do 11:34

Well, honestly, on the surface, not so much. I think when I look at the image of like, I am confused. It feels like definitely a sort of a joke of, you know, three very random people walk into a bar, what happens? But I think this is sort of the good thing about what's happening in Australia is we have so many people who you think wouldn't care about climate change getting on board, because they recognise we all have a stake in our future.

Dan Ilic 11:56

I mean, in the chat, I discuss it further. But I feel like the only thing that really kind of draws these two together is that probably a decade ago, climate change wasn't a central part of their work. But now it is, as with all of us. Many of you might be wondering, where are the women on the panel, I asked this as well as from the organisers as well. They said, What do you want from me? I got I got one of the most famous people on TV and I got one of the biggest billionaires and I said, Well, Oracle is either a billionaire woman or a famous woman who could also be on this panel as well. So anyway, that they said that was enough. Without further ado, please enjoy this chat with Mike cannon Brooks and Asha Gunzburg.

Unknown Speaker 12:31

You're listening to the greatest moral podcast about generation

Dan Ilic 12:37

to many in Australia. Asha is a handsome face and has been in the front of many of the biggest TV moments in Australia, including stuff like channel v Australian Idol, the mass singer, Bachelor franchise, there hasn't been a rose ceremony he hasn't been part of. But what you may not know about Asha is that he is also a student of the world deeply connected with thought leaders around the globe. Asha has been part of s&m think School of Creative Leadership. He's interviewed some of the most interesting brains of culture, science and society. And on his podcast better than yesterday, he's managed to pull that bachelor audience into a very interesting deep thinking space. So don't be fooled by his $70,000 hairstyle. Brain is switched on to climate change, and he regularly profiles activists, entrepreneurs in the climate space. He was even on q&a s climate solutions panel earlier this year.

Osher Gunsberg 13:24

Welcome, Marsha. Thanks, Dan. I'm really grateful to be here. To be a part of this event is a real privilege and looking ally.

Dan Ilic 13:32

And speaking of q&a, our other guests today was on the show on Monday. He's a real jet setter. In fact, when he was eight years old Mike cannon Brookes managed to buy his first computer on frequent flyer points, opting for an Amstrad pay say 20. A choice he still regrets to this very day. He is the co founder of Atlassian team collaboration software company is a passionate clean energy evangelist. He's also one of Australia's great muckrakers, probably in a previous era, we would have called him a larrikin. He uses his change for the better however, Mike has co opted the term fair dinkum power from Scott Morrison and turned it into a war cry for renewables. And using not much more than Twitter and a few phone calls. Mike was the driving force behind Australia getting one of the world's largest lithium ion batteries, which was only superseded by the one they put in the back of Peter Dutton. We welcome Mike cannon Brookes.

Mike Cannon-Brookes 14:23

Thanks Good. Good to be here man. I like that was quite an intro. I don't know we've been over the PC 20 layers of Usher's microphone that he does you guys do have some some good microphone gang during

Osher Gunsberg 14:35

mocking I know a guy. Okay.

Dan Ilic 14:39

Well, before we get away, let's have a message from our sponsor.

Unknown Speaker 14:42

It's the largest recession in history in the

Unknown Speaker 14:47

Coronavirus stimulus is said to be slash job Kiba was 1500. a fortnight now 1200 or four nights job seeker was 550. a fortnight now just 250 a fortnight economic stimulus for by 3040 and 50% off the unemployed, I've never been more motivated to get a job that doesn't exist. There's more during the largest ever climate emergency is giving billions to the fossil fuel industry for pipelines.

Unknown Speaker 15:17

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Dan Ilic 15:35

Now, fellas, so it is a way of icebreaker so we can get to know each other get to understand our own our own ideas behind climate change, I thought we'd just do a little climate quiz. I've got the answers here that are given to me by Angus Taylor's office, but I want you to answer as truthfully as possible. So first of all, let's get the quiz underway. Folks, what is the best way to lower emissions? I'm sure Mike, what is the best way to lower emissions to jump in whenever you're ready? I shall. I shall go Russia.

Osher Gunsberg 16:07

I dig things out of the ground. Sell them once and somebody overseas and then burn them?

Dan Ilic 16:13

Oh, yes. That's correct. That's correct. Very good. All right, next question. Of course, Angus wrote, the best way to lower emissions is to make more emissions. That's what Angus asked me to let you know. All right. Next question. What is the one technology that's going to save the planet? suffocating from greenhouse gas? What is the one technology's going to save the planet from suffocating with greenhouse gas? Freeze? trace. Oh, I'm sorry. It's gas. greenhouse gas. All right. Well, gas. Yeah. More gas. More gas. Yeah, yeah. Okay. What is the best way to strengthen ties without Island neighbours and security partners in the Pacific? What is the best way to strengthen ties without island?

Osher Gunsberg 16:55

I should allow said Pacific to rise up and swallow them. Yes. That's very, very good.

Dan Ilic 17:02

Actually. You've done you've done your work here. All right. Excellent. Final question. The world is meeting again, a cop 26 in Glasgow next year. What's the best way to impress our global trading partners at that conference? What is the best way?

Osher Gunsberg 17:17

Again, a second shirt fronting

Dan Ilic 17:21

shirt Friday? I'll I'm not. I'm not sure that's quite right. The answer is, I'm afraid it's time to take a hodgepodge of mythical technology solutions not proven to work. And once again, be the bang whale on the supermarket trolley of progress and drag the rest of the world to the 10 items or less line. But arcia Congratulations, you have won the quiz well done.

Osher Gunsberg 17:44

That's terrible. Well, you want to get that wrong?

Dan Ilic 17:48

Oh, it's great to have you both here. Now we're all awake. Let's get stuck into the conversation, a satirist and a TV host and a software engineer, or walk into a bar and decide to make climate change the centre of what they do. How does that even happen for us three. Climate change is now part and parcel of our work. But as entertainers and creators of things 10 years ago, probably no really wasn't as important. Mike, let's start with you. How have you managed to kind of put climate at the centre of kind of what you're doing right now?

Mike Cannon-Brookes 18:17

Look, I think it's obviously a really, really important problem, if not the most existential challenge for humanity, depending on where in the spectrum you fall, I'd be towards the latter end of that spectrum personally. And I don't think it's going to take just, you know, green minded folk to solve. If you ask me, it's as much as an economic problem and a finance problem and a creative problem, storytelling problem. And we need all parts of society to get involved in solve that. Like, I've always been interested in technology, and the economics of things, business and other bits and pieces. So I happen to have some strengths that are super useful. But I, I think it's a good example, on your panel, if you need lots of different types of people to be tackling and attacking this problem.

Dan Ilic 19:03

What was there a single moment for you was like, was there like an aha moment that can you kind of brought you to this issue that you were like, wow, you know, I gotta do something I can I can do something.

Mike Cannon-Brookes 19:13

Look, certainly the big big battery from the intro was a large turning point for me personally, sort of got myself involved in a bit of a bingo there. And then, you know, when we got it solved, again, the reason I think that was such an amazing event is rarely have we had a lot of people shit on an ID, then the idea get built in Yeah, it gets proven in such a short period of time.

Dan Ilic 19:38

Right? If you've never worked, if you've never worked in television, like you've never worked in television that happens all the time.

Mike Cannon-Brookes 19:42

Well, but it was really instructive for me it because I had to learn a huge amount of content personally and got much more into the electricity system and how it works and why it works and how that affects climate change and emissions. And it was sort of a big startup a big journey for me, I suppose. But secondly, To see all of the stories in politics and other things behind it, and then to have that sort of laid, laid bare really quickly was was just a fascinating exercise. For me as someone who just says, that's just broken. Like I like fixing things that are broken.

Dan Ilic 20:15

That just seemed unjust. That was not right. People weren't saying the correct things. And I was perhaps naive before that. I think that is a really beautiful phrase like fixing things that are broken. Our show, what about you? How does how does someone go from hosting television shows in Hollywood to kind of being a climate change communicator?

Osher Gunsberg 20:33

I think, for me, it's because it became an undeniable problem, Dan, you know, became something that it was just, I was no longer able to ignore. If you'll allow me to virtuous virtue signal for just a moment, it was about 22 years ago that I stopped eating meat. When I, you know, I saw I started to struggle with how much resources were required to create the same sort of calorie of plant protein versus animal protein. And I just couldn't get by with that in mind, that's a bit weird. And that was kind of coupled with, you know, I seen with my own eyes or guns, snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef in 1992. And again, in 2004, in on the same spot, and I was just bamboozled and horrified at what I saw, and, and as the years roll on, and the conversations aren't getting any more progressive, the need to start to talk about this stuff is bigger and bigger. I think, for me, oh, we can talk about it later, as far as you know, the kind of conversations that I've had around this. But Mike's got a really important point there that there's so much more going on. That trying to drive conversations about it is is really, really the only thing that I'm possibly able to do. I mean, I'm not Mike, I can't organise a massive battery to happen, you know, the way that he was able to do, but I can't have conversations and I can, like, if it gets to the point where the bloke accounts, the roses on your television and talking about climate change, it's time we did something. Okay.

Dan Ilic 22:02

I really love that. That's great. Um, Mike, did you? This is a kind of a strange question to be asking. But I, you know, I certainly ask it from a good faith position. As someone who has worked in climate kind of activism for a while. There may be some people out there who feel like you're a Johnny come lately to this space. Do you feel any kind of resentment from from folks out there? I mean, are you out to steal climate campaigners Limelight?

Mike Cannon-Brookes 22:30

I mean, simple answer is No, man, I'm trying to help people solve a problem. I've been lucky enough to get myself in a position where when I speak my mind, people listen, which is great. And like Asha is for a totally different reason. Right? When he speaks, people listen, and to solve the problem, as I said, I think you need a lot of different things. Right? And so while Yeah, sure I get on Twitter every so often, and cause a bit of a stink, I mean, have a very large fund. Now, I think we're north of a billion dollars in personal investments between my wife and I and sustainability initiatives. So you know, whenever people say and put your money where your mouth is, I'm like, that's not quite true. And, you know, fortunate enough to be able to back large projects and really make a difference and change things. Have a very different storytelling ability to Asha, because you come from a technology and economics point of view, where you can say, Hey, I firmly believe solving this problem is is an economic problem. It's as much a finance issue as a wholesale thing. I'm glad you said, Mr. Owen before, as it is a technology issue, right? I firmly we don't need a another panel, we need ways of getting more panels out more quickly. And that becomes a finance equation. Right? We can talk about that. But the nexus of technology and science and economics is a really important point to have communicated

as well as that I've got, you know,

Unknown Speaker 24:03

I don't know, I

Mike Cannon-Brookes 24:04

suppose abilities to to, you know, talk to politicians and talk to opportunities. You call them amazing opportunities, right. And, and it's great. Often when I talk to them, I'm like, trying to convince them to see how the future is going to be it's almost the as I said to someone else, the curse of people that live in technology is we see what's going to happen 1020 years down the line, but we live in a disruptive, constant world. That's what we do. And you're like, well, this is how it works. And they're like, Oh, no, but you know, the power stations have been like this for 30 years and you're like, no, you're operating on 1982 economics like this is not this is just not how it works today. So I just

Dan Ilic 24:38

love I just love watching you on q&a Monday and just the ability to cut through politicians speak with just in effect effectively. You didn't say what you're saying is bullshit but the way you said it said Oh, sounds like bullshit, but

Unknown Speaker 24:55

I was warned not

Osher Gunsberg 24:56

use the word bullshit, which is why use the word buncombe

Mike Cannon-Brookes 25:00

I would I was just one on this one. So I hope that was all right.

Dan Ilic 25:04

No, I think you're allowed to say what

Unknown Speaker 25:07

your look looks like

Mike Cannon-Brookes 25:08

politicians have a tough job though, because they, they're trying to get elected, right, almost like their primary goal is to get elected. And then their second goal is to get something done. Yeah. And I don't think it should be that way around. But that's the reality of, of what's going on. Right. And so if you don't have to get elected, you can say, well, the correct answer is actually to do this. Let me explain to you why that answer is correct. Rather than, like, let me give the answer that's correct enough to get me elected, but we'll make some form of progress.

Dan Ilic 25:38

You You both both of you, Mike, and I should have been on q&a, Mike, last night. On Monday night, you were you're very much facts and figures, driving home, what you know, and driving home a vision of what could life could be Asha, your experience was a little different on q&a. It was it was had different kind of words attached to it, you know, very emotional kind of hope and grief are all tied into that. What What was that experience like being on q&a and kind of talking about climate on q&a for you?

Osher Gunsberg 26:07

Well, for me, if anybody knows my story, it was initially it was quite terrifying. Because I actually had quite a horrible episode of climate anxiety that tipped up into the actually episodes of psychosis and manifested as paranoid delusions. And I was actually when I was living in North America at the time, I was living in Venice Beach and I would go for run down the beach, and I would I try to see the oceans swallowing the houses along the boulevard, there it was, it was really, really horrible. And so it's still Yeah, it's tricky. You know, feeling anxiety having this conversation right now. But for me, being with that discomfort being with that is the only antidote that there is to this and being an action is the only antidote that there is to climate anxiety. You can pretend that it's not there, like a cancer diagnosis, you can wish it doesn't exist. You can carry on buying packs of diaries, you can just keep going and pretend everything's gonna be fine. But you know, that thing is messed metastasizing inside your body is eating you from the inside. Similarly, we just kind of have to be with it. We have to be with how grievous we need to fail, you know, and I did say it across the summertime when I started to see it in other people's eyes, people were talking to me because I've read my book and now like, are you are I actually am because I can see the fear that I saw in myself and other people now. And I get the feeling that I'm not I'm not alone, you know, obviously down experiencing what I was experiencing, because my fear was an irrational fear, Dan, but they get it. And the only antidote, once you've had that time to grieve, and you, once you start to realise it, I think this is what conversations about climate are so hard, because once you start to realise, like, hang on, we've done what, and even if we did everything tomorrow, it would still be worse for like, 20 years. What, like, that's a horrible thing to suddenly realise. And of course, it's confronting, and people don't want to talk about it. And giving people space to feel that is important, and allowing them to be with that grief, because it's only once you've sat in it and gone right then, well, I guess waterfalls of crises are a good thing. Um, what can I do? And then you move into action. And that's really the only thing and that's really what I was trying to talk about on q&a was like, being inaction is the only antidote to climate anxiety.

Dan Ilic 28:19

Yeah. And, Mike, you are a person of action, you were just talking about kind of your ability to kind of leapfrog competitors and innovate. And to use that overused Wayne Gretzky quote, you know, skating where the puck is going to be, is Australia skating where the puck is going to be?

Mike Cannon-Brookes 28:35

Look, I don't think we are, but I think we should be. I think perhaps,

I think that the climate change problem, let's face it, the climate crisis writ large is an incredibly hard problem to solve. Right? And part of the reason it's incredibly hard problem to solve is because it's a prisoner's dilemma by nature, right? Anytime you have someone bullshit you and say, oh, we're only like a couple percent of the problem. So why do we bother? Let's Let's write it. It's like, okay, you can get upset about that. But it's going to require the entire world to come together and solve this run. However, for Australia, we have this amazing opportunity, which should frustrate us even more, because we actually have an opportunity in this. It's not just doing our 2%. It's the ability for us to build, literally the future of our country. And I think when we talk about skating, where the puck is going to be, it's not about solving again, this is where, you know, long ago now I was all about 200% renewables because just literally it is a thing that makes people think, what do you mean 200%? It's because this is an opportunity for us. We've never been able to have more energy than we need, until you think about it and go Actually, that's all we do. Export is energy. Well, that's all we export. But when I talk about fossil fuels, we are exporting energy. All we're saying is we were evolved that to export a different type of energy. That's an opportunity for us and we have just such an amazing opportunity, not just resources, you've probably had lots of people in the last two days. He's talking about sun and wind and how it could power the entire world five times over from Australia, etc. That's all totally true. We also have the opportunity in the finance community, in the talent we have here. If you think about anybody that's built large scale infrastructure projects, I care if you're building a coal mine, or a large energy export project of a different kind, you need large scale project management, you need project finance, you need engineering, you need electricians, you need all sorts of different bits and people to make this. We have all that expertise in Australia. And we have the resources and the talent. And we need to get people back to work in massive numbers. We're talking about skating where the puck is going to be the single greatest frustration at the moment is that we don't see this as an opportunity and economic opportunity that we should be embracing, which is like never before five years ago, it wasn't true, right? We didn't have the cost models and stuff that we do today.

Dan Ilic 30:54

that that would be scanning with the puppies. I think, you know, the the notion of 200% renewables or 500% renewables totally blows my mind. It's like, yeah, of course, like, it totally makes sense. And it really annoys me when you when we hearing at the moment, particularly with hydrogen that came out in the Technology Roadmap, and how hydrogens can be made with gas, brown hydrogen, and there's like, what do you like? What are you doing when we've got all this other energy we could use to make hydrogen and we've got the water, we are good by water. We are good by the resources that we need. We like we're good by Sun and water, like good. We think good. Dory anyway. So anyway, I get really annoyed when I hear these, you know, myopic ideas that kind of lock us into into fossil fuels when it's so obvious that that we could execute on something far more innovative.

Mike Cannon-Brookes 31:45

I should say that we have a sundrenched land with boundless less planes that a windswept? Yeah, well, you can, you can keep going down lots of poetry and be like, we literally want this a long time ago.

Dan Ilic 31:57

Do that someone will write it, write it down and put it in Comic Sans and email to their uncle. And it'll be used as irrefutable evidence against climate change. So I'll share for you who is someone who is kind of globally minded yourself, like what what would you like to see Australia take to Glasgow next year in terms of in terms of plan?

Osher Gunsberg 32:18

Um, look, I think the most important thing as as extraordinarily humongous as the the investment that Mike is working on with his wife, and you know, the other people that we've heard over the last two days, we really are going to have to make our country safe for foreign capital, in the in long term policy, we really going to have to make it safe, because if we're gonna get out of this, we are absolutely 100% going to need foreign investment, we're going to need investors to feel safe, and that their investments will be good for 2030 more years here in Australia. And that's what that's what's gonna have to happen. When I first went overseas to study a couple years ago. Anyone that's talked to a Dutch person will understand the directness. Hi, I'm from Australia. Oh, really? What's going on with your country? Why does the carbon tax Why? Why do you still dig up so much coal, and I found myself like having to apologise to this classroom for the people. We are at enormous risk of being overlooked by the international community and the international investment community. I think the days of Australia being like, oh, that kind of scruffy larrikin that gets a roof over here and a pat on the back and off you go, you know, the little schoolboy that's gone over, if we're not clever, we're just gonna get left out of the opportunity, the extraordinary global opportunity that's ahead of us. And countries with sun and wind and bandwidth plans to stay will they'll be the ones that that get the cake and we will be sitting around going. Alright, I guess it is yes. Pacific bass. Oh, yeah.

Dan Ilic 33:47

It I mean, it is so strange seeing how Bacary out a whole bunch of things. Mike, you you have been having conversations with a lot of politic politicians. The Liberal government is all of a sudden becoming a market interventionist, you know, with what they do with guests, but out of chat with us, as well as energy minister Matt Cain on my podcast a few weeks ago, and he actually said very few, very few liberals are actually into fossil fuels. If that's the case, why do we have the situation today where the federal government is really backing fossil fuels, but the states and territories are leading the charge in renewables? That what is that? What does that disconnect between the states and the federal, federal politicians?

Unknown Speaker 34:27

How many hours? Do you have the answer that I

Dan Ilic 34:28

think we've only got 25 minutes. But

Mike Cannon-Brookes 34:31

look, look, I think for sure the states are taking charge, which is awesome. You could argue to be to be charitable. It's one of the positives of the way that our Federation is constructed, that we do have different groups that can kind of move forward in different ways. I think obviously mats doing a great job in New South Wales. We have a lot of other states are doing an amazing job. I would remind people that the AC T is 100% renewable now. And that's where the parliamentarians federally sit in Parliament House. So that always makes me Ah, feel good that we have one of the

Dan Ilic 35:04

few only I'm sad. Often houses in the world, in fact markets, the wind from all those politicians that gets those windmills going. So

Osher Gunsberg 35:12

thank you, Dan. Thank you. You can see yourself as my

Dan Ilic 35:14

Yeah, I could write for The Daily Telegraph with puns like that.

Mike Cannon-Brookes 35:19

Look, I think it's it's a it's a complex issue, right. The federal issue obviously involves lots of different complexities that the state driven issues don't. Right. But we have to, we have to work this out. And, again, we have netzero commitments, I believe in every state and territory now, but not federally. So there's a lot of argument about whether it matters federally, does it actually matter? And the answer is, I think it still does matter. But it doesn't matter as much as it would have done if we didn't have one. Right. So I do think we are getting that moving in the right direction. There are certain things that are federally controlled, that we need to move forward on and and to be fair to them they've done put the gas stuff aside for a second. The renewable any energy infrastructure investments, they're making transmission was there great. Like we totally need those and they have to be legit federally done. They announced, you know, for Star, the south and other things that they are federally. Finally, you and I either took too long. Okay, great. wherever we are, we're gonna move forward. framework for offshore wind and offshore other things. Again, we have massive offshore resources, price of offshore has converged to basically the same as price of onshore now. So they are moving in the right direction. Would we like them to move faster? Sure. Does it help to talk and keep pushing and keep moving? Yes, I think it really does. I think the

you know, what, great state and federal we need by

Dan Ilic 36:52

Yeah, I understand that. But I mean, with all this the state with the state territories with the states and territories or committing to net zero by 2050. It shouldn't be hard for the federal government government said, yeah, we are going to commit to net zero by 2050. Because the states are doing it. So we're going to absolutely do it. And it's it's it's like pure leadership play. And it doesn't it doesn't dog whistle to fossil fuel industries or their bass or anything like that. But having a flag in the ground, everyone can run towards it. And coal is still going to be mined, there's gases still going to be pumped. But it's a federal signpost that says yeah, we're we are also good actors in the world. Like it feels like this. It's an opportunity completely missed. And it sends the wrong signal to our neighbours and other people where you know, other people in the world we have to deal with.

Mike Cannon-Brookes 37:39

Absolutely don't I mean, don't get me wrong in Madrid, we were an international prime. Right, three countries blow up those towards us, Saudi Arabia and Russia. And that not a club that you generally want to be a member of when it comes to basically what what you're doing international diplomacy, etc. Right? Why did we do that over Kyoto credits? Right, like for all the bullshit you want to put around it, that is the literally the reason that we did that. Europeans were trying to make the credits that we're trying to apply for which by the way, should never have been, they were not written into the agreement. It's total bullshit. I forget. It was on was it on q&a, someone else said, it's like, going to your second marriage and saying, Oh, I did a lot of dishes in the first one. In the second marriage, I was like, that is the best. That's why we need crave storytellers like Oscar. And that was like, the explanation. That is literally what we're trying to say is it's a different accounting system in Paris and Canada, like they're completely different. Yeah, but we were not good internationally. How many years? Can you turn off and be not good internationally, and then ask for other things, and we need strategic international diplomacy in our region. We want to be a world leading group. We have to have that. Yeah. We had shut up in Glasgow, and that should have been right now. Without anything, we would have been locked out of the room. I

Dan Ilic 38:59

Ah, yeah, I get a feeling I get. I get I get the feeling we're still gonna be left at the room with this technology roadmap, but I don't know if that'll change between now then.

Mike Cannon-Brookes 39:08

I'll show up with just the Technology Roadmap in Glasgow in 12 mont