<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct/02/ross-garnauts-superpower-follow-up-tells-a-story-of-promise-but-also-of-peril>
"In his landmark 2019 book
Superpower, Ross Garnaut, an economist prominent
since the Hawke government years, opened with a projection of Australia’s
future that seemed a tad optimistic at the time.
After touring the then desiccated Murray-Darling Basin, Garnaut hailed the
tumbling prices for renewable energy as offering a feasible path to cut carbon
emissions and halt climate change without stalling the economy.
Not only were the economic winds shifting in Australia’s favour because of its
abundance of wind and sun, so were political ones.
Annastacia Palaszczuk stands in front of wind turbines.
“If we are wise, we can change the political story of climate policy in this
nation,” he wrote.
Less than three years on, “superpower” regularly surfaces in statements by
state and territory ministers, and since May, by federal ones too. Cue, then, a
new book,
The Superpower Transformation, that Garnaut edited “after an
electoral flood [that] has dug new channels for Australian political history”.
(The rains returned too.)
“The book seeks to explain the coming challenge,” he tells Guardian Australia.
“If we are to be pulling in the same direction, we need to know what that
direction is, how far we’ve got to go, and the advantages of going there.”
We chat at the end of a big week for the energy transition off fossil fuels.
Victoria’s monster new energy storage goals, Queensland’s accelerated
decarbonisation plans and AGL’s faster exit from coal all jostled for headline
billing.
“None of that was a surprise,” Garnaut says. “That’s all consistent with the
story I’m telling.”
That story, as Garnaut and other experts tapped for the new book highlight, is
one of promise but also of peril. Since 2019, the prospect of “green steel” and
other metals fired by hydrogen rather than coking coal has only enhanced
Australia’s relative advantages as few nations boast both rich mineral and
renewable energy wealth."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
