Australia should be leading the way on solar power

In The Daily Fix, Crikey taps into the wisdom of experts and community leaders to find solutions to problems. This week: climate change.

Australia should become a world leader in solar electricity generation, both on rooftops and on a larger scale.

We have sunshine falling on vast areas of land that are too hot and dry to be productive in other ways, and we have the scientists and engineers to develop and apply the best available technology for electricity generation and storage.

The federal government needs to facilitate the shift from fossil fuels to solar for most of our electricity generation, and we could become an exporter to Singapore.

Once we have abundant clean and cheap electricity, we can shift to electric cars. That will leave meat and dairy as our major source of greenhouse gas emissions.

It will be more difficult, politically, for the government to do something about that — but the way people are switching to plant-based foods means that it may happen anyway.

Peter Singer is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University.