Getting real on emissions: The Hugh Saddler Memorial Lecture

Saddler was a founding director of the Australia Institute and the Climate Institute. For many years, he consulted on energy policy for governments, NGOs and the private sector. In bringing together accessible communication and industry-leading analysis of the real rate of emissions, Saddler’s work was ahead of its time and continues to inform energy policy in Australia.

You can’t fix what you can’t see

A career highlight was his highly influential work on the Carbon Emissions Index (CEDEX), which later became the National Energy Emissions Audit (NEAA). The CEDEX was the first report to show accurate figures for all renewable energy production in Australia, including all wind and solar, in addition to black and brown coal, gas, and hydro.

With power outages across various Australian states and warnings of future gas shortages, the National Energy Market (NEM) had become a hot topic and Australia’s Chief Scientist, Dr Alan Finkel, was the newly appointed head of an independent review into the NEM’s security.

In April 2017 Saddler, along with other academics signed an open letter, coordinated by The Australia Institute, in which they outlined three ways governments and regulators could start fixing Australia’s energy market before the next summer.

• 5-Minute Rule to address demand peaks by changing market rules to allow very large consumers such as smelters to profit from demand management.
• Proven software systems used in at least 12 countries around the world can aggregate large numbers of commercial and industrial consumers into “virtual peak plants” that will provide safe and scheduled reductions in load, on commercially competitive terms.
• The reliability of electricity frequency in our grid is maintained by “ancillary services”. Our system needs new markets for additional services to reflect changing demands and technology.

The right reforms would address security, cost and emissions.

Let the data do the talking

Saddler’s focus was on taking massive amounts of data and making it comprehensible with clear graphs, such as the one below from the first Australia Institute Report showing the decline in black coal generation and the slow growth in rooftop solar and wind.

By January 2021 he was reporting that annual total renewable generation, including small (“rooftop”) solar, was making up more than 27% of electricity in the NEM. Later in the year, his Australia Institute report Back of the Pack demonstrated how this was far behind international standards.

In August 2021 News.com, The Guardian, SBS TV and the Sydney Morning Herald covered Saddler’s “scathing report” on the Morrison Government’s climate change policies, which claimed Australia ranked among the worst in reducing greenhouse gas emissions compared with 23 other countries.

In his last report for the Australia Institute in October 2021, Saddler shared some good news:

Total annual renewable generation, including rooftop solar, passed the 30% share mark in July and is continuing to grow strongly. The coal share fell to below 63%.

In South Australia, the share of wind and solar in total generation has also passed 63%, with gas down to 37%.

And some bad:

Total energy emissions to the end of August 2021, as estimated by NEEA, again increased, as growing consumption of petroleum fuels more than offset continued steady reduction in electricity generation emissions.

He showed, with his signature flair for graphs, the changes in his home state of South Australia where over half of energy for the year was the product of solar.

Saddler’s legacy lives on in the Hugh Saddler Memorial Lecture, held in his honour each year. In 2024 Lenore Taylor, the editor of Guardian Australia delivered the inaugural Hugh Saddler Memorial Lecture, asking “Does the Truth Still Matter” and in 2025 Mike Rann is speaking on “Courage in Climate Leadership”.