Interview: Multiple solutions needed for environmentally sustainable economic growth, says BHP CEO

There is no magic solution to address the challenge of how nations can grow economically, improve the quality of living for their citizens while trying to limit carbon emissions, one of Australia's most influential chief executives has said.

BHP Billiton Chief Executive Andrew Mackenzie said on Friday in Melbourne that a number of measures are needed to make much more efficient use of fuels and decarbonize the energy supply. "We have to see a growth in renewables and a growth, in my view, in nuclear power," he remarked. "Therefore we say, have a price on carbon, think about the regulation and you'll stimulate the technology. It's a portfolio of measures and energy efficiency above all. Carbon capture and storage of fossil fuels and then a greater proportion of energy being generated by nuclear and then renewables."

The interview was part of Xinhua's "Talk To China" series discussions with leaders from various sectors of Australia with an aim to strengthen conversations between the two countries.

Mackenzie said within the renewable sector, the development of solar power will see the greatest upside in terms of technology development. "But of course solar and nuclear also requires minerals and with renewables you require more copper,"Mackenzie said."Then, to the extent that we need to rely on fossil fuels.. we need to be looking into ways in which we can capture the carbon when they're burnt."

Mackenzie said for environmentally sustainable economic growth, China needs to depend on a secure, non-domestic sustainable supply of commodities.

"China will get environmental benefits through the supply on what is generally very large and efficient operations that exist overseas which would be hard to recreate," he said. "In many cases the natural resources, the minerals within China are more expensive to develop than the ones overseas. If (Chinese companies invest) overseas through buying those raw products, they will get them in the long run at a lower price than if they depend on their own domestic supply."

Mackenzie suggest China continue investment in it's own import/ export infrastructure rather than expensive internal or external developments, saying China can have confidence in the global supply of materials. "Avoid those investments and instead invest in effective ways in which you could cheaply import low cost material from low cost suppliers who are already established," Mackenzie said. "I said that China could count on the sustainable supply of the raw materials it needed to grow.. I think two years later, we've made good on that promise, Mackenzie said."Relative to that time; prices are now lower, but volume is higher."

Mackenzie said commodity prices would remain relatively stable in the coming years due to the added capacity created from the boom in demand from China, reiterating his point of investing in non-domestic operations. "The demand stimulated a lot of new supply additions, not all of them delivered at particularly low cost,"Mackenzie said."We now have around the world an enormous amount of stalled infrastructure that can be expanded relatively cheaply to meet further growth in demand."

Mackenzie expects more Chinese investment will rush into Australian resources sector. "For a long time Australian resources have been developed through a combination of investment from domestic companies ... and then overseas companies from many parts of the world, including China, Japan and South Korea. I think that's a fine way to develop things, because most of the minerals that are developed in Australia are exported to places like China, Japan and South Korea." Endi