Michelle's Summer Davos Reflections

I had three key goals at this year’s Summer Davos;

1. Promote the great progress of SA’s renewables transition and invite global collaboration to close our gap from 75% to 100% net renewables by 2027.
2. Challenge my thinking on complex global issues - especially a just energy transition
3. Experience the high tech of China first-hand - especially Electric Vehicles!

Plus a bonus personal goal of spending quality time with elite Global Shapers from around the world.

World Economic Forum’s Summer Davos (officially known as the Annual Meeting of the New Champions (AMNC)) is an annual congress for world leaders to explore the interaction between global macro trends. This year was the 15th AMNC, with the theme of ‘New Frontiers For Growth’ that included Energy Transition as a focus area, but there was a particular buzz around the topics of EVs, AI, Nuclear, Hydrogen, and US-China relations. The AMNC gathered over 1,500 high-level leaders from business, government, civil society and international organisations, as well as prominent entrepreneurs and young global leaders. We met in the port city of Dalian, People’s Republic of China for 3 packed days of panels, issue briefings, bilateral meetings, networking, cultural activities, and industry tours.?

I was invited as one of the 50 young leaders in the Global Shapers delegation, and I was the only representative from our Pacific sub-region. The local Dalian Hub hosted several days (and long nights!) of cultural activities to warmly welcome us to their beautiful city. I was even greeted at the airport at 2am by two Dalian Shapers who had both studied in Australia! They took me to my hotel in a NIO electric vehicle, with its dashboard chatbot and battery swapping technology making it easily one of the best cars I have ever seen.?

In order to navigate the global 'polycrises', we must harness the OUTRAGE and OPTIMISM of young global leaders. Unlike traditional conferences, the WEF AMNC Summer Davos congress engaged the audience at all levels. Beyond panel Q&A, we were invited to the table of industry dinners, intimate meet the leader sessions, and mingle with the high level delegates as equals - ensuring diverse representation in these important conversations. I was even invited to moderate a panel on Youth Employment Prospects - particularly in climate and AI - you can view the recording here. I also had the opportunity to speak as an expert panellist on the topic of “Ocean Cities” - representing the Global Shapers Adelaide Hub - I plan to summarise my contribution to this conversation in a follow-up blog.?

My highlight ‘pinch me’ moment of the entire trip was when I was washing my hands in the bathroom and looked up to see Amina Mohamed beside me, the DSG of the UN and a key architect of the SDGs. I left her a letter which thanked her for promoting the SDGs as a framework that I have centred my life around. I thanked her for giving my life purpose.

It's been 8 years since I was last in mainland China, for the 2016 Australia-China Emerging Leaders Summit, and to travel during my New Colombo Plan Scholarship where I spent 18 months living across Korea and Hong Kong. This time, I spent 10 days across Dalian and Beijing (and an unexpected 19 hours transit in Shanghai). As well as attending Summer Davos, I got to explore the city of Dalian, with its rich Russian and Japanese history, its modern corporate buildings, its welcoming harbour, and even a replica of Venice - canals and electric-powered Gondolas included! Dalian is a Friendship City of Adelaide, and I look forward to exploring further opportunities to connect our cities. I also had the chance to attend an Australian Chamber of Commerce event in Beijing, and connect with some Aussie expats thriving in China, as well as local experts working at the World Economic Forum’s Beijing Office, and of course the Beijing Global Shapers Hubs.

Here were my top three takeaways from the experience:

1. Demand management, flexibility and distributed renewables are key to the just energy transition - and SA is leading in all of them… but no one knows about us.?

• The world is duly impressed with China’s rapid uptake of clean energy - now making up 30% of their grid nationally. China installed more solar PV last year than the rest of the world combined, though it is still dominated by centralised utility scale solar farms. While many other countries are madly trying to incentivise PV uptake, some are still struggling with the economics, market systems, and infrastructure to allow non-state actors to install their own rooftop solar in the first place, and export excess power back to the grid.?
• Meanwhile, over here in South Australia, our electricity grid is already powered by 75% solar and wind, the highest penetration of Variable Renewable Energy of any comparable grid in the world. Our grid is often powered 100% by distributed rooftop solar PV - that is the solar panels on the roofs of homes and businesses - that of course swings to 0% overnight. We have introduced many tech, policy, economic, and social ways to manage that intermittency - though we have a long way to go to ensure we have 24/7 renewables by 2027. Our biggest challenge and opportunity remains sustainable long term storage and demand management.
• SA Power Networks recently announced a state and federal government funded program to integrate real time demand management into smart, flexible homes for greener, cheaper energy - which builds off our world-leading introduction of flexible exports smart solar program to allow further expansion of rooftop solar on an already full grid.?
• But in global forums like this, our progress is lost in averaging up to a national level - where Australia’s renewable penetration as a whole isn’t that impressive.?
• I firmly believe that South Australia has an outsized role to play in scaling our progress to accelerate the global just energy transition. It is in forums like these, where I can speak up from a state and city level to invite collaboration and knowledge sharing.

2. There is need for world leaders to set long term goals and make immediate, bold investments – leaving a trade-offs between centralised planning and delayed action, especially when global crises become politicised

• According to a report by the International Energy Agency, more than half of the electric cars on roads worldwide are found in China. But this did not happen overnight. At AMNC, we heard from Chinese policy and industry leaders who shared the 20+ year journey China has taken to ensure success in the EV transition. They directed talent, and investment from the ground up, developing patents for new technologies in batteries and AI that ensured a strong foundation and competent workforce.?
• Without the need to battle over 3 year election cycles, their plans are able to be executed at all cost. This is in contrast to the democracy we enjoy here in places like Australia that requires constant vigilance from political leaders. There is no right answer when balancing speed and safety, but I am disappointed by how unnecessarily political the energy debate has become.?
• When cycling around Beijing on one of the millions of hired bicycles, I was impressed that the city had blocked off whole lanes on each side of busy roads with plastic bollards to create safe and convenient cycling paths through the capital city. That may be an unpopular decision for some, but they get on with it for the greater good!
• I had the chance to take a behind the scenes tour of the immense petrochemical plant at Hengli (Dalian Changxing Island) Industrial Park. The inspirational messages plastered across the facility reminded workers of their contribution, with the Hengli Annual Report stating;? “Behind every beautiful thing lies relentless effort and sacrifice: We believe that spring will eventually reward those who persevere and put forth effort in winter”.
• There were several calls to action at the AMNC for more impartial institutions like universities to take up the responsibility of driving bipartisan visions that can endure election cycles.
• I have been inspired by the work of grassroots advocates like Jess Scully 's book 'Glimpses of Utopia', in showcasing how distributed and independent action can make immense impact when aggregated up. At the same time, I think the dedication to high-level centralised planning for a common vision, and sticking to unpopular decisions that upset lobbyists when the going gets tough in the climate race, is too often neglected and is delaying our critical actions in places like Australia.

3. Systems thinking is absolutely critical to meeting the global Sustainable development goals, making building empathy & common understandings across unlikely partners is a worthwhile investment

• Despite having spent the past 10 years living, working and studying abroad and attending global forums like this, I am still always grappling with the incongruity of Australia being in Asia, and what our place is in the region. My experiences have helped me to build empathy, to humanise the lived experiences of real people beyond what we might see about their countries in the news. It’s helped me realise that the world is full of polarisation and false dichotomies. It also helped give me a better understanding of our neighbours - with Asia literacy being a broadly under-appreciated area for young Australians.?
• If we are to meet the global sustainable development goals, we must approach them holistically, and not perpetuate the inequality and over-consumption that got us into this mess.?
• Integrating diverse voices in global forums like the WEF Summer Davos not only builds well-rounded future-leaders, but it puts us in the face of today’s established leaders and challenges their thinking.?
• One example I was excited about at AMNC was dialogues around “the true cost of renewables”, to avoid replacing one crisis with another. This year in Dalian, the World Economic Forum’s Centre for Nature and Climate, and the Centre Energy and Materials hosted a dinner of energy leaders to debate the true cost of deploying renewables. I was encouraged to hear global solar and battery leaders emphasise that while these technologies are an improvement on existing fossil fuel extraction, they are not actually zero emissions.
• Solar farms have an undeniable impact on the surrounding ecosystem, disturbing native flora and fauna, encroaching on indigenous lands, and competing with other land uses like agriculture and housing. Not to mention the transmission required to bring that energy to the demand centres. I heard promising examples of regeneration in the Gobi desert where solar farms provided shade for crops to grow and animals to graze in previously arid land.?
• Electric vehicles (EVs) can use 6x more critical minerals than internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles to manufacture, resources which already face human rights, exploitation and environmental degradation issues. I saw positive progress from the Global Battery Alliance who are creating ‘battery passports’ to allow us to compare performance on sustainability, not just cost, when purchasing batteries. My call to leaders is to invest more in public transport, active cycling and walking paths and limit the need to travel at all.
• And of course, we mustn't ignore the social impacts of the transition, and the need for international collaboration to share finance and risk for emerging economies. This is an opportunity to completely transform our supply chains to be less extractive, less exploitative and less excessive. I challenge all leaders to disrupt the colonial & coloniser mindset that led to this climate crisis in the first place. As one of the Chinese solar leaders at AMNC shared with us “Our world is a fishbowl. Everything we do, affects the entire ecosystem”

There are many more insights and reflections and revelations I had, especially regarding China’s energy transition

I’ve been asked a lot lately how I’ve come across these incredible global opportunities. I’ve also importantly been asked increasingly why I think they are a good use of my time. This might merit a separate blog for another time! Leave a comment if this is something you’d like to hear about.

Finally, to those who made this experience possible:

Thank you to the Global Shapers Community , and the World Economic Forum, for the opportunity for 50 Global Shapers to attend the congress every year, and for integrating us into the conversations.?

Thank you to the City of Unley , for funding a portion of my travel expenses and cultural experiences with a $500 community representation sponsorship.

Thank you to SA Power Networks , for supporting my attendance at these global forums despite the short term work disruptions.

Thank you to the 10,000+ Global Shapers around the world, as well as the Young Global Leaders, Tech Pioneers, and Social Innovators who give me the collective strength to speak truth to power, and the courage to maintain my authenticity in these overwhelming arenas.?

And of course, thank you to my patient husband Aaron Danicek for bringing me back to Earth and grounding me back in reality after these dizzying journeys.?