Economist Ross Garnaut says Australian agriculture must help deliver zero emissions supply chains in the country's export industries with a "huge" advantage over the rest of the world in decarbonising.
During a keynote speech at the renewables in agriculture national conference, he said there were abundant opportunities for rural communities in embracing the zero carbon economy.
Professor Garnaut told the conference in Dubbo in central western NSW that Australia has five big advantages over other countries.
That included the country’s vast wind, solar and energy reserves, and ten times as much woodlands per head of population.
"Australia's advantages in storing carbon in the landscape and growing biomass sustainably and harvesting it sustainably, as inputs into the zero emissions industry are huge," Prof Garnaut said.
“For the first time since federation, the centre of gravity of Australian economic growth will be rural and provincial Australia and not the great cities of Australia,” he told an audience of farmers.
He warned that “life's very tough for farming in Australia” if the world fails to hold global temperatures at no higher than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
Prof Garnaut said Australia needs to be more innovative and farmers need to continue to build up carbon in soils.
He also said Australia agriculture must help decarbonise supply chains in order to stay competitive, given that regions like Europe will begin taxing food and other imports that have carbon in their supply chain from 2025.
"We're going to have to at a relatively early stage have a zero emissions supply chains in all of our export industries, that's quite a challenge but one that we're very well placed to meet," he said.
"We can decarbonise our farming supply chains more cheaply than other countries, big farm inputs, fertilisers, transport fuels ... all of these things can be produced at much lower cost in rural Australia."
Farmers for climate action chair Charlie Prell, who attended the conference, said decarbonisation presents a "sliding doors moment" for farmers and regional Australians.
"If we don't take up this opportunity and make the most of the renewable revolution that Garnaut outlined, we're going to miss such a huge goldmine," he said.
"Worse than that we won't know we missed it because someone else will be capturing all of the wealth that's been generated from the renewable boom."
