Transitioning to a Prosperous, Resilient and Carbon-Free Economy: A Guide for Decision-Makers

This book is a comprehensive manual for decision-makers and policy leaders addressing the issues around human caused climate change, which threatens communities with increasing extreme weather events, sea level rise, and declining habitability of some regions due to desertification or inundation. The book looks at both mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and global warming and adaption to changing conditions as the climate changes. It encourages the early adoption of climate change measures, showing that rapid decarbonisation and improved resilience can be achieved while maintaining prosperity. The book takes a sector-by-sector approach, starting with energy and includes cities, industry, natural resources, and agriculture, enabling practitioners to focus on actions relevant to their field. It uses case studies across a range of countries, and various industries, to illustrate the opportunities available. Blending technological insights with economics and policy, the book presents the tools decision-makers need to achieve rapid decarbonisation, whilst unlocking and maintaining productivity, profit, and growth.

Ken Baldwin is Director of the Australian National University (ANU) Energy Change Institute and an ANU Public Policy Fellow. He is also Director of the ANU ECI Grand Challenge Zero-Carbon Energy for the Asia-Pacific. Professor Baldwin won the 2004 Australian Government Eureka Prize for Promoting Understanding of Science for initiating and championing “Science meets Parliament”. He received the Australian Optical Society medal and the Barry Inglis Medal of the National Measurement Institute.

Stuart Mark Howden is Director of the Climate Change Institute at the Australian National University. He has researched climate impacts, adaptation, and emission-reduction for food security, energy, water resources and urban systems. He has partnered with many industry, community, and policy groups. A major contributor to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since 1991, he is now a Vice-Chair of the IPCC. He shared the 2007 Nobel Prize with Al Gore and IPCC colleagues.

Michael Smith has been a Research Fellow or Adjunct Senior Lecturer at the Australian National University since 2006. He has co-authored or contributed to over 200 publications on climate change, including Climate, Energy and Water: Managing Trade-offs, Seizing Opportunities (Cambridge University Press, 2015), Factor Five (Routledge, 2010), Cents and Sustainability (Routledge, 2010), Whole System Design (Routledge, 2009), and Natural Advantage of Nations (Routledge, 2005).

Karen Hussey is an Honorary Professor with the Centre for Policy Futures at the University of Queensland. As an academic, Karen's research and teaching focused on the policy, institutional and governance arrangements needed to address issues including climate change, water resource management, waste management, biodiversity conservation, and the 'trade-environment' nexus. Karen currently works in the Queensland Government.

Peter Dawson is a consultant and writer and former senior officer for the Australian Government. He has worked on international trade, industry development, technology transfer, and government procurement policy. He has consulted internationally on Small and Medium Enterprise development for the World Bank and other agencies, mainly in Indonesia.