This week the world's climate ministers, including Australia's embattled Minister for Emissions Reduction Angus Taylor, are meeting in Madrid for international climate talks.
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It has already been an inauspicious start to the COP25 UN Climate Change Conference, where Australia is receiving a well-deserved kicking from the international community for its inaction on the issue.
Australia bagged the infamous Fossil of the Day award from environment groups on the opening day. The satirical award, presented each day of the conference, was in recognition of the Australian government's downplay of the link between climate change and the bushfires that continue to devastate communities across the country.
As the talks continue, we shouldn't be surprised to see members of the European Union, who are leading the way in tackling climate change, taking aim at Australia for our weak climate commitments.
Trade Minister Simon Birmingham recently got a taste of this when France pushed Australia to adopt enforceable climate change targets as part of a planned trade deal with the EU.
COP25 should be a wake-up call that our domestic climate policies and position on thermal coal exports are undermining Australia's standing in the world.
With climate concerns at record highs at home and growing international pressure, could this be a turning point for Australian climate politics?
As the bushfires have shown, inaction on climate change has huge social and economic costs. What many Australian policymakers don't yet understand is the economic opportunity of acting on climate is equally big - in fact, it's enormous.
Australia's sunshine, wind and large land area are the envy of our neighbours. Australia has some of the best solar and wind resources in the world. This puts us in an excellent position to become a major exporter of renewable energy to the Asia-Pacific region, creating new industries and new jobs.
And it turns out this economic transformation and positive vision for Australia is a story that Australians want to hear.
WWF-Australia recently conducted national research to better understand what climate change stories resonate with middle Australia - the people who've been called "the quiet Australians".
Australians want to hear messages that are positive, that are solutions-focused and that tap into their love and optimism about Australia.
By far the most popular message was this: we are a nation of quiet achievers, at the individual, community, and business level. We invented WiFi and EFTPOS - technology that is used all over the world today. The modern solar cell was invented by an Aussie, and Australia has one of the highest rates of household solar in the world - with one in seven households having solar panels on their roofs.
This message appealed to people across the board, regardless of their stance on climate change.
It should come as no surprise that Australians want to feel pride in Australia. And there are many things to be proud of.
Australian companies - big and small - are spearheading clean energy solutions like grids, batteries and electric vehicles. We are also seeing an increasing number of Australian companies power their operations with clean, renewable electricity; more than 240 organisations joined the Business Renewables Centre Australia in its first year.
But what our research also tells us is that Australians are good at thinking big and trading globally.
Not only can we power our own economy with 100 per cent renewables, we can produce so much more, and sell this surplus energy to the world in the form of liquid sunshine, expertise and solar-powered products and metals.
Now we have heavyweights sharing this vision. In October, Chief Scientist Alan Finkel and ARENA chief executive Darren Miller suggested Australia should move to 700 per cent renewables. Economist Ross Garnaut agreed in Superpower, his book on the renewable opportunities open to Australia.
The good news is we are starting to get on with making this vision a reality. Already South Australia and Queensland are funding renewable hydrogen pilot projects. Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest and Mike Cannon-Brookes have invested in a bold plan to export 10GWs of solar from the NT to Singapore.
COP25 should be a wake-up call that our domestic climate policies and position on thermal coal exports are undermining Australia's standing in the world.
But we must do more - the global criticism at COP25 should bring that point home. Australia has the capacity to be the world's leading exporter of renewable energy inside the next 10 years. At WWF we're embarking on an ambitious campaign to help Australia make this happen.
If communities, governments and industry work together, we can unlock the investment needed to build new renewable export infrastructure, create a renewable knowledge economy and decarbonise some of our most intensive industries.
In so doing, Australia could then show the international community that we can transform from climate laggard to climate leader, by not only decarbonising our own economy but helping our neighbours to do so too.
Together we can harness Aussie ingenuity to get on and quietly achieve the most significant economic restructure our country has undergone in a century.
Seven hundred percent renewable energy is a big, audacious goal - but Australians have always been up for a challenge. Better we act now to be a future global winner than a fossil of yesteryear.
- Dermot O'Gorman is chief executive of WWF-Australia.
