An article on The Conversation today laments that there is an ever-widening gap between rising greenhouse gas emissions and the steps necessary to keep global temperatures within the generally agreed – but increasingly difficult – 2°C safe limit above pre-industrial levels. It goes on to argue that the type of transformation needed would require the world to wake up tomorrow and embrace a new green industrial revolution whereby new economic development is focused on establishing a large and rapidly growing non-polluting energy sector as the vehicle to meet new energy and jobs demand. We are not talking about incremental changes and low-cost solutions. Rather, the challenge is structural changes and high-impact strategic decisions.
I recently gave a talk at the annual Bioenergy Australia conference entitled "How to build a bioenergy industry? From Sweden to Australia". I presented the rather dramatic transformation of the energy system in Sweden from the 1970s when imported oil dominated supply by about 70-80%. But over the past 4 decades, oil has declined to about 30% and bioenergy now provides about 32%. And the trends are for bioenergy and renewable energy to keep growing, and oil shrinking. The driver behind these changes is simple - strong government policy designed to build up new industries by creating conditions for investment, and a clear intent to phase-out fossil fuels.
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