Ian Dunlop: What we need is a Government of National Unity

Posted on by Mik Aidt

Ian Dunlop’s Engineers Australia keynote address starts at 34:38 in this video. Duration: one hour

“We have to change the fundamentals of society in a way which is much deeper than we are currently thinking. We are not going to see growth in the conventional sense – it will be a different form of growth, I would suggest. And we need that leadership. So from where ever you are within the community – whether it is professions or elsewhere – we have to see that really coming through as strongly as we possibly can. So any support that you can give to that, whatever ability you have, the better.”

Audio excerpts of Ian Dunlop’s keynote address:

6 minute excerpt:


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47 minute excerpt:


» To open or download this 47 minute audio file, right-click here (Mac: CTRL + click)


“We are going to have to change the context of the debate. Build coalitions of champions committed and prepared to speak out on this, because you are not going to get leadership from the political world. It is too hard, given the way we have structured the political system. You need community pressure. You need the progressive groups in society who are prepared to get in behind this, particularly progressive corporates, the insurance industry, the investors who are now starting to realise that there are some very big problems they haven’t been thinking about, and the professions, particularly engineering who are going to do all this.

The military, in understanding the risks. And where we have governments, fine, they should join in. But the international institutions are way ahead in recognising what we have to do. So we have got to expand that emergency movement. The implication in a policy-sense is that you have to take a normative approach. You’ve got to really say: “Look, this is where we are going to get to. What are we going to do to get there?”

Not a question of what is politically possible, and if we manage to do a little bit better, then that’s fine. We’ve got to take the absolute emissions reduction required.

This has got a whole lot of implications for national security which are starting to become more obvious. And obviously setting the right playing field to allow it to happen – in other words: we are essentially giving subsidies to the fossil fuel industry that are five times greater than what the renewable energy industry gets. Why?

We have to stop that. And we have to stop high carbon investments.

I think in the end you have to set this set of issues – if you like: the common good – outside the normal political arena. Otherwise we won’t get it sensibly addressed. Carbon pricing is required. Removal of subsidies. Bio sequestration. Research…”
Excerpt of Ian Dunlop’s keynote address at Engineers Australia’s event, ‘The Big Conversation’

“We have to have a healthy global economy and we are only going to get it if we address global warming in a fundamentally different way from the way we are going. And the benefits that are coming out of that are actually enormous. People talk about it noting the problems, but actually the opportunities are unlike anything else that we have ever seen in terms of the investment that has to be made.”

The video recording is also available on youtube.com

Article about the event:

» The Fifth Estate:
Video: The Big Conversation on the climate emergency and why we must act now


Ian Dunlop

  Ian Dunlop

Radio interview with Ian Dunlop

» Right-click to download the audio file (MP3)

The Sustainable Hour’s radio interview with Ian Dunlop about his response to Bernie Sanders’ World War II-mobilisation climate statements.

“Politics is broken in this country. Money has stopped the real issues being addressed. This is not a left or right wing political issue. This is an existential issue. If we don’t get it right, we all have a very big problem. What we need is a Government of National Unity.”
Ian Dunlop



“We are being taken for fools by our politicians and corporate leaders as they place personal aggrandisement and self-interest ahead of our future. Climate change is a genuinely existential issue which unless rapidly addressed, will result in a substantial reduction in global population with immeasurable suffering, the beginnings of which can already be seen in the climate-driven refugee crisis engulfing Europe. Australia, as the driest continent on Earth is not immune. We have left it too late to solve this dilemma with a graduated response; emergency action, akin to placing the economy on a war-footing, is essential if we wish to avoid the worst outcomes.”

Excerpt from an opinion piece by Ian Dunlop in Sydney Morning Herald on 25 May 2016:
‘Climate change: waiting for catastrophe means we will be too late to act’


About Ian Dunlop
Ian Dunlop, 72, is a former senior Executive of Royal Dutch Shell and has worked in oil, gas and coal exploration and production, and in scenario and long-term energy planning. He chaired the Australian Coal Association 1987-88, and the Australian Greenhouse Office Experts Group on Emissions Trading 1998-2000, which developed the first emissions trading system design for Australia.

Ian Dunlop has wide experience in energy resources, infrastructure, and international business. He has worked at senior level in oil, gas and coal exploration and production, in scenario and long-term energy planning, competition reform and privatisation.

From the late-1970s, he established a coal industry involvement for Shell in Australia, where he was involved in extensive industry reform, improving the safety performance of coal mining, and initiating research into the implications of climate change for coal. During this time he was involved in the marketing of coal to a wide range of customers in Asia and Europe. He chaired the Australian Coal Association from 1987-88.
He is a Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and the Energy Institute (UK), and a Member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers of AIME (USA).

He is Chairman of Safe Climate Australia, a Director of Australia 21, Deputy Convenor of the Australian Association for the Study of Peak Oil, a Fellow of the Centre for Policy Development, a member of The Club of Rome and of Mikhail Gorbachev’s Climate Change Taskforce.

He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science at the University of NSW, and an Associate of the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute at the University of Melbourne, writing extensively on governance and sustainability issues.

» Ian Dunlop’s home page: www.iandunlop.net

» Ian Dunlop’s Facebook page



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» James Cox – 26 May 2016:
“We are talking about a genuine existential issue”
Interview with Ian Dunlop, Sustainability Consultant based in Australia



“The main environmental groups are not honest about the problem.
The NGOs are as much a part of the failure as anybody else.”
Ian Dunlop

Oxfam Australia

“The problem with the main environmental organisations is that they feed
into a political system which is flawed. Telling our political leaders that ‘we want
change’ will no longer suffice.”
Ian Dunlop



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