Fortescue Energy CEO Mark Hutchinson fears business lacks ‘the will’ to urgently bring down emisions

Fortescue Energy chief executive Mark Hutchinson has challenged companies to bring forward their net zero emissions targets and says those with 2040 or 2050 horizons are being lazy and not acting urgently enough to rein in climate change.The Australian Financial Review Energy & Climate Summit“It comes down to ‘do they have the will to really knuckle down and really get at this’ and I don’t think business has at the moment. I think we’ve got a long way to go.

“We’re now moving into a highly contested phase of our development as humanity, where in fact we’re going to have not very much energy at all because we want it to be renewable and we want it to be green energy and we’re continuing to grow in demand... don’t think we’ve got that social compact yet with our communities and in general with business,” he said.

“Getting a buyer to front up and say ‘I’ll give you a 10-year contract,’ - they’re like unicorns, they’re not out there at the moment,” he said.It was also hard for projects to find debt investors, Mr Coleman added. “It’s the equity investors who are already the true believers,” he said, adding start-up costs are often typically funded 60-70 per cent through debt and that those capital providers cannot see evidence of reliable returns yet.

He said project developers were not getting “sufficient revenue certainty”, while ongoing congestion in global supply chains was also pushing up costs. Planning and permitting issues and difficulties getting contractors following“There’s an urgent need for replacement generation,” he said, pointing to the two-thirds of the country’s existing coal power generation that AEMO expects to close in the next 10 years.

“From what we’re told about plant exit out of the NEM , if there is not sufficient generation that is built we do face some quite significant reliability challenges,” he said.

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