The futility, if not counter-productivity, of the cities lecturing the regions on climate was emblemised in the disastrous anti-Adani caravan of climate activists led by Bob Brown through North Queesnland which only hardened the scepticism of the coal miners.

So, as I watched the messy compromise this week between the Liberals and Nationals, I had a horrifying reflection. Barnaby Joyce is right. Or at least, the Nationals leader is right about one thing: we need to solve this for the regions first.

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At that moment, I wished I had a time machine and could have gone back a decade to influence the course of Australia’s climate debate. Imagine if a comprehensive climate support package for the regions had been offered proactively in 2007 to then deputy Nationals leader Joyce rather than extracted by five-minutes-to-midnight brinkmanship by now Deputy Prime Minister Joyce.

What if we had made the welfare of the affected workers and regional communities our first priority from the start. And rather than fighting about the politics of climate change, imagine we had spent the past 10 years retraining those workers, offering financial assistance, investing in their regional communities and developing new industries to create good jobs for them and their children.

Imagine if all the companies making commitments to transition to clean energy over the past few months had also made companion pledges to support the workers and communities affected by that transition. Imagine if we had framed the clean energy transition as an economic opportunity for the regions from day one and shown genuine empathy for the affected communities.

Over the years many governments have made overtures to the regions and implemented policies to support workers affected by the energy transition. But it was always about minimising their collateral damage, rather than ensuring affected workers were better off and putting them at the heart of the plan.

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The great shame is that this was possible. The clean energy opportunity for the regions is real if we choose to capitalise on it. Research released last week showed that many of the jobs in the new clean energy industries are in hydrogen production, renewable energy, batteries, green metals and mineral processing using clean energy are just some of the opportunities that can create tens of thousands of new jobs in Australia’s regions.

There are many visionary ideas being discussed worldwide about to achieve such a “just transition”. These include the ACTU’s proposal to create a new government authority to mastermind our climate transition strategy at a national level. This group could – and should – set smart policies that help us not only survive the coming transition but ensure Australia thrives. Perhaps we could call it ClimateKeeper.

Andrew Charlton is a managing director at Accenture, adjunct professor at Macquarie University and co-director of the e61 Institute for economic research. He was an economic adviser to Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd.

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