As the world decarbonises, Australia can either become a green export powerhouse and re-industrialise the nation or miss our chance by not acting today.
This research shows Australia can pursue an ambitious ‘Go for Gold’ scenario and secure a significant share of the global market for growth commodities, such as: ‘green’ steel, renewable hydrogen, renewable ammonia and ‘green’ aluminium. These products are set to dominate global economic growth this century and Australia is well positioned to be a leader in these markets.
This report warns that if left too late, not only will fossil fuel exports drop off as our major trade partners implement their net zero emissions pledges, other nations will capture early market share of new export industries leaving us with insufficient runway to replace the nation’s lost export income.
Read the summary report of Export Powerhouse: Australia’s $333 billion opportunity.
Ben Marshall
October 11, 2021 at 09:30
This is clearly a useful part of any rational discussion of climate, energy and jobs policy, and so it will be ignored by our State and Federal governments which are still taking fossil fuel money and letting the corporate sector dictate policy.
The only thing I’d add to Beyond Zero’s outline is that all infrastructure planning must include the realities of climate (current and near-future), and of sustainability (renewable energy isn’t “clean or green” per se – it just produces low-carbon energy) and environmentally focused on the realities of the extinction crisis (don’t bulldoze forests to build transmission lines), and that social justice issues are addressed by genuine government and community planning rather than the short-term market needs of the corporate renewables sector.
While our State and Federal government continue to ignore, or just pay lip-service to these latter issues, we will not have any genuine, or useful, climate, energy or jobs policies.