Harnessing nature’s power for net zero and biodiversity. Anna Skarbek’s address to the Forest Carbon Summit at National Press Club

Climateworks Centre CEO Anna Skarbek delivered the opening keynote address at the 2025 Forest Carbon Summit. Here are key takeaways from her speech delivered at the National Press Club in Canberra.

We can do both

Achieving net zero is possible – and the land sector is critical to that goal. But solving for carbon alone isn’t enough.

To be truly sustainable, we must also halt and reverse biodiversity loss and maintain food production.

The good news is Australia can do both – and continue to grow a productive, resilient economy.

The key is to manage and optimise competing land use needs – and the tools now exist to help Australia do just that.

With the right approach, environmental restoration and the growth of agriculture and land-based industries can go hand in hand.

It is possible to balance climate, biodiversity and economic objectives. But, it requires significant changes in how land is managed and used.

Carbon sequestration is crucial

Australia can, and is, decarbonising across all sectors.

However, a few industries – such as cement, aviation, long-haul trucking and some agriculture – are considered late to abate, with commercially viable solutions not yet ready.

Even with rapid technological advancements, Climateworks’ modelling shows that land-based carbon sequestration will be essential to balancing the remaining emissions to achieve net zero in time for our climate safety.

Beyond balancing out emissions that cannot yet be reduced, carbon sequestration plays a vital role in addressing historical emissions by drawing down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

This is essential for achieving net zero targets and potentially going beyond them to reach net-negative emissions.

Climateworks’ latest decarbonisation scenarios suggest that a cost-effective path to net zero could create up to eight times more land-based sequestration than is occurring today.

Carbon sequestration is not a substitute for emissions reductions

To meet Australia’s net zero targets, it must sequester more carbon.

However, let me also be clear – carbon sequestration in the land sector cannot be a substitute for highly ambitious emissions reductions across all sectors.

We must pursue a dual strategy: cutting emissions at the source while leveraging nature’s own carbon capture technologies, one of which is forests.

To achieve balance, decision-makers need the right tools

That’s where the Land Use Trade-off Model comes in.

LUTO2 – the second iteration of the Land Use Trade-offs Model – is being developed by Deakin University and Climateworks, with research contributions from CSIRO.

It is a world-leading spatial optimisation model that maps the best way to use and manage land to achieve climate, biodiversity and economic goals simultaneously.

LUTO2 enables decision-makers to plan land use transformations in a way that maximises co-benefits while minimising trade-offs – ensuring climate action strengthens, rather than undermines, nature.

What sets LUTO2 apart?

LUTO2 provides high spatial granularity, operating at a 1 km² resolution across all privately owned land (excluding urban) and crown lease land, which is more than 60 per cent of Australia’s landmass.

It integrates data on biodiversity, carbon sequestration, water use, agricultural productivity and food systems – including trade, food loss and waste and dietary trends.

It helps identify where land use changes will be most beneficial and cost-effective, offering insights into how different policies and market mechanisms could drive these changes.

It also draws on an extensive set of biodiversity datasets, including modelling of more than 10,000 species.

We can run the model to align with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5 degrees Celsius target and the Global Biodiversity Framework’s target to restore 30 per cent of degraded land while still meeting projected increases in agricultural demand.

Striking the right balance is crucial – and achievable

We have run the model with the Paris Agreement target with and without biodiversity targets.

The results? Dramatically different strategies emerge.

Without biodiversity considerations, the model prioritises large-scale monocultures to maximise carbon sequestration.

But when biodiversity targets are included, a much more diverse landscape is suggested – one that incorporates environmental plantings, riparian restoration, agroforestry and other land management approaches that enhance ecosystem health while still delivering on climate goals.

This reinforces the importance of balancing carbon sequestration with other land uses. This approach is not new to the industry, but the scale to which it needs to expand is.

There is no time for a climate now, nature later – we need to solve for both

What we face is not a choice between economic growth and environmental protection. With the right approach, we can deliver both.

A net zero future is within reach – and the land sector, including forestry, is essential to getting us there.

But to succeed, we must also halt and reverse biodiversity loss, and ensure that the benefits of change are fairly distributed across landscapes and communities.

By taking a nature-positive approach, Australia can grow its land-based industries while restoring the ecosystems that sustain them. That is how we create resilient landscapes, strong regional economies and a better future for generations to come.