How Australia can become a leader in a world of zero net emissions

In his bestselling Superpower, renowned economist Ross Garnaut showed that Australia – rich in resources for renewable energy and for capturing carbon in the landscape – could become an economic superpower of the post-carbon world. Now, in The Superpower Transformation, he turns that idea into a practical plan to reshape our nation.

Garnaut outlines new evidence that stronger and earlier action on climate change would be good for jobs and incomes, including in the old gas and coal communities and in rural and regional Australia. He looks at the challenges for the new federal government: how Australia can meet the objectives set at the Paris and Glasgow climate conferences – and the growing costs of not doing so. He shows that our national decisions matter greatly for the world.

With contributions from Mike Sandiford, Ligang Song, Frank Jotzo, Isabelle Grant, Susannah Powell, Dylan McConnell and Malte Meinshausen, as well as a major essay from Garnaut himself, The Superpower Transformation covers electricity, hydrogen, steel, exports, carbon capture in the landscape and more. It reveals the rich endowments of five resources that give us the most to gain economically: ‘The new opportunities are much larger than the old.’

Over the past nine years, Australia has consistently acted against its national interest. This compelling book shows how to change that, so that the nation becomes a confident leader of progress towards zero net emissions.

‘Our nation’s most prophetic economist’ —Ross Gittins