“We bite off more than we can chew, and then we chew like buggery,” says Andrew Forrest.
Dr Andrew Forrest strides into his Circular Quay apartment turned out in his usual immaculate blue-suit-white-shirt-tie combo, now adorned with a ribbon in Ukrainian colours on one lapel complementing the brass kangaroo and order of Australia pin in the other.
Forrest sold his vision at the COP26 talks in Glasgow, where his posse included former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull. His vision was welcomed by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the COP president, UK cabinet minister Alok Sharma, along with US political heavyweights who were determined to drive their country to belatedly embrace serious climate action.
“We bite off more than we can chew, and then we chew like buggery,” he says, prodding my arm for emphasis. He snagged a meeting at the International Energy Agency’s headquarters even though the Australian government, with fossil fuel companies in-tow, had not invited him. In Germany at the end of March, Forrest signed an agreement with Germany’s largest energy company E.ON, to explore a project that would see FFI export five million tonnes of green hydrogen per year to Europe by 2030 to help Germany replace the gas it now imports from Russia.