2016 is promising to be a happy new year. The remarkable achievement of 196 nations signing up to the successor of the Kyoto protocol means the first ever year with a global agreement to end the old ways of pumping heat-trapping carbon pollution into our atmosphere and oceans.

Now the hard and exciting work begins.

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Transitioning the economy to ensure a pollution-free future throws up enormous opportunities. Commercialising new technologies, improving our productivity by wasting less energy, building mass-transit networks and providing farmers with new income streams from carbon markets are just a taste. Entrepreneurs can see these opportunities and are already working hard to make these prospects a reality.

It became clear to me during the Paris climate talks that business, local governments and civil society are leading the transition and politicians are playing catch up. This century will belong to those nations whose political leaders display the courage and vision to transition to zero carbon economies. They will do this because they can see that far from simply posing a cost to their economy, it is a pathway to future prosperity.

Political leaders will either deploy the policy settings that unleash these opportunities in the new economy, or they will do nothing for fear of upsetting the dominant industries of today. Doing nothing is always the easiest political option, but it means saying farewell to many of the brightest ideas, jobs and investment that will leave our shores to more supportive commercial environments.

My home state of Victoria is a prime example of how if we choose to do nothing, we miss out on jobs and investment despite being perfectly placed to lead Australia’s transition to a clean economy.

Right now, 85% of Victoria’s homes and businesses are powered by brown coal, the dirtiest form of energy on earth. These power stations are old (their average age is 42 years), inefficient and operating well past their expected life. They are the old polluting Datsun Sunny on a highway of 21st century electric cars.

Victoria’s power stations are not just a drag on our environment, they are holding back jobs in the clean economy. For years governments have been told by the independent energy market experts that there is too much electricity in the system. Despite the assurances made when the Liberals and Labor joined together to slash the renewable energy target, clean energy construction is stagnant because the market is oversupplied with dirty power. Without a price on carbon pollution, brown coal will be the last to exit the market.

Through a staged timeline for Hazelwood’s closure we could remove a massive 13% of the state’s total pollution in one hit. This effect would be to open up space for new clean energy construction while injecting the skills and training that the new economy brings to Victoria’s workforce. If we set down a pipeline of clean tech projects and a detailed transition plan for workers in the coal industry, then much of the hard work is done.

The higher we set our clean energy and climate targets, the more investment and entrepreneurs we attract to help us reach them. It’s just another example of how the environment and the economy are moving in the same direction. The old false dichotomy of “jobs versus the environment” is well and truly redundant.

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Attending the climate negotiations in Paris allowed me the opportunity to witness first-hand how this economic shift is unstoppable. The number of people, institutions and investors is huge and growing so the only question left is whether Australia wants to ride this wave or whether we’ll watch from the carpark.

There is a dawning realisation among Australians that responding to catastrophic global warming is no longer a brake on our economy. With the world acknowledging that there is no long-term future for coal and other fossil fuels a carefully planned transition that quarantines risk and protects workers will give us an unshakeable platform to build the jobs-rich clean economy that will define the 21st century. But we need to start now.

As the nation ponders the new year, our political leaders are faced with a momentous choice. If we choose to keep the settings on auto pilot, as we did with last month’s mid-year budget, then Australia will find itself with a 19th century economy bumbling along in a 21st century world. Alternatively we can embrace the change and set Australia up for greater prosperity and wellbeing than ever before.