Innovate, experiment, fail better, transform: governing climate futures
On 20-21 March 2025, a multidisciplinary group of scholars and practitioners will gather at the University of Sydney for the Future Climate Governance Forum, led by Associate Professor Katherine Owens, to explore these questions and rethink how we govern climate-led transformation.
Australia, like much of the world, is moving towards a net zero economy, but this transformation is about more than technology and funding. It is about governance — how decisions are made and coordinated, who gets to shape the future and in what ways, and how risks and rewards are distributed.
Governments are increasingly strategic actors in this transformation, but funding alone is not enough. Policies like the Commonwealth’s Future Made in Australia agenda and New South Wales’ Net Zero strategy recognise that both public funding and new forms of industrial policy are essential. Deep coordination and experimentation both within and across sectors — energy, transportation, industry, resources, agriculture — will be critical to making systemic innovation possible.
But how do we build governance frameworks that encourage learning rather than limit it? How do we create legal and regulatory systems that evolve alongside, and share, emerging knowledge? Most importantly, how do we ensure that governance itself becomes a force for innovation, not inertia?
This closed forum will explore current and emerging governance models and strategies that embrace experimentation, adaptability, and knowledge-sharing in uncertain conditions. Globally, these approaches are beginning to drive rapid testing and refinement, where failure is seen not as a setback but as an essential step toward better solutions.
New institutions and funding models are emerging to support innovation. The Clean Energy Finance Corporation, for example, is pioneering investment strategies that blend public and private capital. Governance frameworks are becoming more flexible, recognising that transformation requires structures that can bring together critical stakeholders and people and adjust in real time. From managing consumer energy resources to transforming construction waste markets, future climate governance must be radically reflexive and capable of rapid problem-solving.
Academic and practitioner contributions have been invited to critically examine these conceptual and practical dimensions, helping shape Australia’s approach to governing green industrial policies, public-private collaboration and knowledge sharing. Discussions will focus on key tensions, unanswered questions, and future research directions. Collaborations formed at this event will drive future research that helps to define the next chapter in climate-led transformation and governance.
This initiative is supported by the University of Sydney as part of a 2023/24 Sydney Research Accelerator Prize and by the Sydney Environment Institute and is co-hosted by the Australian Centre for Climate and Environmental Law.
For more information or to get involved, contact Associate Professor Katherine Owens at kate.owens@sydney.edu.au.
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