Australia’s future in the global green economy may depend on what it transforms rather than what it extracts, according to UNSW’s Dr Rahman Daiyan, who spoke this week at the Green Metals Forum during COP30 in Brazil.
Dr Daiyan, from UNSW’s School of Minerals and Energy Resources Engineering, said Australia “must move beyond its traditional mine-and-ship model and invest in downstream processing and low-carbon supply chain design”.
He warned the challenge was “not just technical and economic – it was cultural, industrial, and geopolitical”.
Dr Daiyan, an expert in renewable fuels and mineral processing, cited partnerships such as the Australia–Germany green iron initiative, which Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen highlighted earlier in the COP30 proceedings.
Dr Daiyan said the initiative “was less about the supply chain numbers” and more about “a dialogue – about what Europe needs, and what Australia can provide”.
That conversation has become increasingly urgent as Europe’s carbon-neutral ambitions by 2050 collide with energy limitations.
“If they wanted to meet that demand themselves, they would have to increase their renewable grid by at least double by 2050, and that’s where countries such as Australia came in.”
Hydrogen is critical to decarbonising steelmaking but remains expensive to ship, while green iron – iron ore already reduced using hydrogen – can move far more efficiently.
“Taking green iron from Australia can potentially save you 263 petajoules of hydrogen import and 20 terawatt-hours of electricity annually,” Dr Daiyan said.
“It allows us to have a bit of value addition for Australia.
“So, in that sense, it’s a win-win partnership.”
Australia produces nearly a third of the world’s lithium and significant amounts of nickel, cobalt, and iron ore, according to Geoscience Australia.
Yet most of those resources leave the country unprocessed.
Researchers argue that developing downstream capability could multiply economic returns and reduce emissions across the supply chain.
Dr Daiyan said Australia’s vast solar and wind potential provides a unique advantage.
“It’s not that we are [only] bottling up our sunshine and wind in the form of green metals,” he explained.
“It’s also about the technology integration – the universities coming in.
“There are a number of startups in Australia developing this sort of technology as well.”
He pointed to the Australia–Germany HyGATE program — co-funded by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) and Germany’s PtJ — as an example of international collaboration enabling low-carbon industrial innovation.
“We can develop catalysts which we mine in Australia — low-cost minerals — but we’re not very good at scaling up,” Dr Daiyan said.
“We found out the Germans were excellent at scaling up.”
UNSW Energy Institute CEO Dani Alexander said that Australia’s clean-tech talent pipeline offered a global advantage.
“If you look at the work that someone like Dr Rahman Daiyan is involved in, it’s remarkable,” Alexander said.
“He’s scaling up renewable jet fuel production using waste CO₂ and green hydrogen, contributing to an $8.2 million program to commercialise hydrogen-low-carbon liquid ammonia technologies for export, and helping design systems that convert captured CO₂ into high-value catalysts — turning carbon waste into fuels and chemicals.”