Published Jul 10 2020

Power Trip - What Happens Next? podcast exploring renewables

Liam
Smith
Director, BehaviourWorks Australia, Monash Sustainable Development Institute
Susan carland
Academic, author and social commentator
Paul raschky
Associate Professor, Economics

We're discussing the topic of renewable energy in the next three episodes of the What Happens Next? podcast.

Energy remains front and centre of political debate, a divisive issue among those who want to see a swifter transition away from fossil fuels and end the use of coal-fired power, and those who don’t believe such a transition is necessary, or viable, due to potential economic impacts. 

Renewables have long been touted as the solution to reducing our reliance on fossil fuels, and in Australia renewable energy is growing at a per-capita rate 10 times faster than the world average – nearly three times faster than the next fastest country, Germany. So why haven’t renewables taken over yet? Our experts explain that the reason isn’t technical or economic, and the pure lack of political will to change could lead to unmitigated disaster.

Paul Raschky is an economist specialising in insurance. The industry is already planning for situations in which parts of the world might become unliveable due to global temperature rises increasing natural disasters and catastrophic weather events. Liam Smith is a behaviour-change expert who fears we’ve missed the window for the move to renewables that scientists say is needed to limit global temperature rises to 2 degrees Celsius.

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About the Authors

  • Liam smith

    Director, BehaviourWorks Australia, Monash Sustainable Development Institute

    Liam is one of Australia’s leading authorities on behaviour change. He's committed to using behavioural science to tackle public policy issues for the benefit of individuals and society at large.

  • Susan carland

    Director, Bachelor of Global Studies, and Lecturer, School of Language, Literature, Cultures and Linguistics

    Susan's research and teaching specialties focus on gender, sociology, contemporary Australia, terrorism, and Islam in the modern world. Susan hosted the “Assumptions” series on ABC’s Radio National, and was named one of the 20 Most Influential Australian Female Voices in 2012 by The Age.

  • Paul raschky

    Associate Professor, Economics

    Paul's research interests are in the fields of political economy, environmental economics, insurance economics and development economics with a focus on natural hazards. He is a founding member and current director SoDa Labs, which applies new tools from data science, machine learning, and beyond to answer social science questions using alternative and big data.

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