Energy transition to renewable energies: Opportunities for Australian cooperation with Vietnam and the Philippines
Vietnam and the Philippines are two of the most vulnerable countries to climate change, with increasing energy demand and reliance on fossil fuels. This webinar assesses the opportunities for Vietnam and the Philippines to transition towards 100% renewable energy, and to overcome a series of challenges that the countries face. The COVID-19 crisis further highlights the importance of ensuring access to secure and affordable energy, as a huge portion of the workforce shifts to working from home.
The economic stimulus packages to respond to COVID-19 offer an unprecedented opportunity to combine recovery programmes with the urgent need to shift investments towards a clean energy transition. Australia has world-class solar and wind energy resources that could be harnessed and exported to assist both countries. Regional cooperation offers solutions to both deal with the immediate crisis but also set the foundations for the energy systems of the future.
This webinar synthesizes policy recommendations based on recent reports published by the Murdoch University node of the Energy Transition Hub.
Dr. Ursula Fuentes Hutfilter, based in Perth, Western Australia, is presently working as a Senior Climate Policy Adviser at Climate Analytics Australia. She focuses on the development of climate policy and energy transformation strategies in the Asia-Pacific Region, and contributes to work on the Climate Action Tracker. She is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at Murdoch University, Western Australia, leading a project under the Australian-German Energy Transition Research Hub.
From 2013 until January 2017 she was Head of Unit for Strategic Aspects of Climate Policy and the National Climate Plan at the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Germany, where she has been responsible for general and strategic aspects of climate policy, as well as for the development of the German domestic climate plans and programmes at national level, covering all sectors: energy, buildings, transport, industry, agriculture, and forestry. Previously she was in charge of managing, building up and developing the German National Climate Initiative, a funding programme for innovative climate technologies and projects for local communities, small-scale businesses and consumers.
From 2003 to 2010, she held positions on International Climate Policy of the Federal Environment Ministry as Head of German Delegation to the IPCC (Fourth Assessment Report Cycle, Initiative on Special Report on Renewable Energy) and as Issue Leader for the EU Negotiation Team to the UNFCCC, focussing on mitigation, forestry (REDD/LULUCF), shared vision/ultimate objective, scientific and strategic aspects.
She held positions as research analyst for energy and climate policy for the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU), for the Federal Parliament, and as project manager at RIVM in the Netherlands for the Science Policy Dialogue Project on Longterm Options for the Climate Regime.
Education: PhD in Atmospheric Physics (1998), Degree in Physics from Ludwig Maximilians Universität München.
Anna is currently a Climate and Energy Policy Analyst at Climate Analytics contributing to the Climate Action Tracker, the Australia report of the Scaling Up Climate Action Series, and a Climate Governance Assessment Project evaluating the readiness of countries to ratchet up climate policy from an institutional and governance perspective.
Anna’s interests focus on the development of climate policy and energy transformation strategies in the Asia-Pacific Region. At the Energy Transition Hub, she worked on projects looking at how Australia can support a transition in South East Asia countries towards renewable energy based development, including opportunities for Australian renewable energy exports. In a previous role at Murdoch University, Anna researched the topics of green growth in Australian cities, and transitioning urban environments with renewable energy to a post carbon society.
She holds a MA in Politics with Honours from the University of Glasgow.