"If we get it right, we've got the lowest cost renewable energy of any large country. And that could be the basis of strong competitiveness in a wide range of industries that use a lot of energy. Most of these — and the jobs in them— are based in rural and provincial Australia.

In fact, the economic growth in the next half century in Australia will be disproportionately in rural and provincial areas because that’s where the zero-carbon industrial growth will be."

Economist Ross Garnaut AC, who is Professor Emeritus at both the Australian National University and The University of Melbourne, explains where renewable energy is at in Australia in the lead-up to the federal election.