Clean energy can help protect our future

by CHARLOTTE STERRETT, MENZIES FOR CLIMATE
11th June 2026

I’VE BEEN THINKING a lot about war lately — not just the headlines or the geopolitics, but what conflict does to the systems people rely on to survive once the fighting moves on.
We talk about lives lost and cities destroyed.
We talk far less about broken water systems, contaminated land, polluted rivers, and air you can no longer breathe safely.
Increasingly, I can’t separate those impacts from the dirty energy we used every day to power our world.
Reading WWF-Australia’s new report, A Future Made with Australia: The New Energy Security, landed uncomfortably close to home for me.
Because it turns out Australia — despite all the stories we tell ourselves — is one of the most exposed countries in the IndoPacific under a fossil fuel based energy model.
Australia exports vast amounts of coal and gas.
We’re often told that makes us secure, resilient, independent.
But the report shows the opposite is true.
Our high dependence on fossil fuels, thin liquid fuel reserves and reliance on imported oil leave us dangerously vulnerable to global shocks.
We already know this but remain in denial.
When war broke out in Ukraine, global gas prices soared.
And despite producing more fossil fuels than we need domestically, Australian households and businesses were hit hard.
That wasn’t a failure of supply.
It was a failure of the model.
Fossil fuel systems are brittle in ways we don’t like to acknowledge.
They’re centralised.
Highly flammable.
Easy to disrupt.
Pipelines, refineries, and shipping routes are magnets for conflict and pressure.
When they fail, the damage ripples fast — through prices, supply chains and people’s lives.
What’s become clearer to me is that this isn’t just about Australia.
It’s about how energy sits at the heart of security, stability, and power across our region.
The good news is that our neighbours have already worked this out (even if we haven’t).
Across the IndoPacific, countries aren’t waiting for the next crisis to confirm what they already know.
China, for example, now ranks as the least exposed major economy in the region under this analysis — not because it drills more, but because it invested early in electrification, renewables, and strategic resilience.
South Korea is accelerating its transition, framing energy shocks as reasons to move faster, not slower.
They’re not debating whether to move beyond fossil fuels — they’re already doing it.
Meanwhile, Australia risks clinging to an energy story the region is already moving beyond.
This is ironic.
Australia already has all the ingredients to lead a different future.
World-class solar and wind.
Critical minerals.
Proximity to Asian markets.
Strong institutions.
Deep regional relationships.
There are very few countries that hold this combination.
And yet our energy diplomacy still leans heavily on an old promise: that digging and shipping fossil fuels somehow guarantees longterm security — for us and for others.
The report makes it clear this offer is expiring.
Renewable energy changes the equation in ways that matter deeply for security.
Sun and wind can’t be blockaded or sanctioned.
Distributed systems are harder to knock out and quicker to repair.
Power is generated closer to where it’s used.
Communities gain resilience instead of exposure.
This is why energy security and climate security are no longer separate conversations.
In a world shaped by conflict, climate shocks and instability, clean energy isn’t just about emissions targets.
It’s about whether societies can keep hospitals running, water flowing and lights on when things go wrong.\
Australia has a choice to make.
We can keep pulling on an energy lever that increases our risk — or we can step into a role that reflects the world as it is now.
It’s not only governments that have a part to play.
Here, in Warrandyte, the clean energy transition is already unfolding on our streets and rooftops.
For some, that looks like putting solar on the roof, adding a battery, or moving off gas when appliances need replacing.
For others, it’s joining or supporting local climate and energy groups like Menzies for Climate or the Nillumbik Climate Action Team (NCAT).
These are quiet actions, but they add up to something powerful: less exposure to volatile fossil fuel markets and more resilience right where we live.
We can’t control global conflicts from Warrandyte.
But we can decide whether we keep tying ourselves to an energy model that heightens risk, or help build something more stable, cleaner and more resilient.

This article was written by Charlotte Sterrett, former Yarra Riverkeeper, and member of Menzies for Climate and advocates for a swimmable Birrarung.
It has been adapted from a WWF-Australia report published in April 2026 A Future Made with Australia: The New Energy Security.