Net Zero Is Not Enough

AUSTRALIAN MINING BILLIONAIRE ANDREW FORREST'S GREEN CRUSADE

- JUSTIN WORLAND

Andrew Forrest at a Fortescue iron-ore mine in Western Australia on Dec. 5, 2024

IT DOES NOT TAKE LONG AT LUNCH with Andrew Forrest for him to start seeming less like an Australian mining billionaire and more like a climate activist-meets-zealous prosecutor. His rugged features quickly appear not to reflect the arid expanse of Western Australia's Pilbara region, home to the core operations of his $38 billion Fortescue iron-ore business. Rather, they appear the result of a succession of high-stakes court battles. When we meet at a luxurious Paris brasserie, he speaks passionately about a client that he's been representing for several years: the planet. His case? Corporate bosses must act nowand act fast-to tackle climate change, an argument he delivers with force and the unrivaled credibility that comes from decades in the carbon-spewing industry.

Then, his soup turning cold, he grabs me by my lapels and rattles off the facts as he sees them: fossil-fuel industry executives are "culprits," doing all they can to resist a transition to a cleaner economy. In other heavy industries, bosses have been "lazy" and shortsighted, focused on quarterly returns while the world burns. It's time for businesses to stop talking about long-term targets, he tells me, and completely ditch fossil fuels in the coming years rather than in the coming decades. "If you think you can't go green, then you're right," he says of his industry colleagues. "It's time for you to get off the stage and learn from someone with more talent, more conviction, or initiative than you who can lead your company."

Forrest founded the mining firm Fortescue in 2003 and plans to decarbonize operations by 2030