Malcolm Turnbull's innovation statement failed to put the renewable sector front and centre, with innovators and investors in effect being told that this is one area where the ideas boom is not welcome, writes Ben Oquist.

The Paris climate change discussions are dominated by targets. What percentage of reduction of emissions, off which baseline, is required to reach which temperature target? What pledges would help the world get to a safe climate? Is 2 degrees warming too much, as a growing body of evidence says 1.5 degrees or 350 parts per million is needed for a safe climate?

But of course it is not targets that will ultimately count - it is specific measures that will decrease emissions.

Meanwhile, we have a Prime Minister pursuing a big innovation agenda. However, a Prime Minister on the side of innovation will of course have to be on the side of renewable energy.

What used to be 'alternative technology' in the 1970s and 1980s is mainstream now. Witness the constant stream of optimistic projections about solar, wind and other clean tech coming from mainstream financial analysts: Lazard, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, Goldman Sachs, KPMG.

Disruptive innovation is not the future, it's the present, and it is transforming the energy market right here, right now.

Solar has taken the energy industry by storm in the past five years, in a classic case study of capitalist creative destruction. Multi-billion dollar coal stocks like Peabody Coal are plummeting in value, and major energy utilities such as E.ON are splitting their renewables assets off from their toxic old fossil fuel assets, to protect the former and retain healthy growth.

As energy insiders are starting to say, if solar was evolution, storage is revolution. Storage technologies plus internet-enabled computing are the killer app in the war against fossil fuels and climate chaos. The emerging internet of energy allows millions of 'prosumers' (producer-consumers) to be making, storing, trading and exporting power to the grid, 24/7. This continuously balancing, decentralised, smart grid is the 21st century's answer to the old paradigm of baseload.

Malcolm Turnbull's innovation agenda has never been a comfortable fit with a dependence on coal. An old industry reliant on digging up black rocks and burning them under cauldrons for power is surely an industry ready to be 'disrupted' by photovoltaic, smart-grid and battery revolutions.

Regardless of what is decided in Paris, Australia has recently reached a new climate consensus of sorts. Labor, Liberal and Greens all agree that 2 degrees at most is required. And like the leaders of the G20, all parties support decarbonising the economy with Bill Shorten's new net zero emission by 2050 and Mr Turnbull's call for the world to do the same this century.

Labor has been highly critical of the Government's 26-28 per cent targets, not just for their modesty but for the lack of any credible policies to meet them. And now that Shorten has outlined a possible 45 per cent target, the Government is pressuring Labor over what measures will be used to meet them.

A smart innovation agenda would back up targets with action and specific measures on renewables and battery storage.

Before the ink dries on commitments made in Paris, the focus will move from 'what' to 'how'. Both Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten face a great challenge in staring down powerful interests if they are to back target commitments with the necessary actions. As climate policy shapes up to be a major election issue, once again, scrutiny over actions will increase and no leader will be able to hide behind an empty target for long.

Turnbull's innovation statement failed to put the renewable sector front and centre. Is it because renewable energy and the battery revolution are already disrupting coal? The Prime Minister, and his Cabinet, continued to steadfastly refuse to consider the call made by the President of Kiribati, Anote Tong, who has led the campaign for a moratorium on new coal mines.

The International Energy Agency has made it clear that a 2 degree limit means keeping between two-thirds and three-quarters of the word's fossil fuels in the ground. There simply won't be room for the emissions from coal mines like the 2 billion tonne Adani Carmichael mine, which the government has recently re-approved.

The stakes are massive and the longer Australia sits on the sidelines, the more we lose out. Even if Paris fails and renewables have to compete against fossil fuels without ongoing policy support, they will be worth trillions in the medium term. Trillions with a T, not Billions with a B. Bloomberg New Energy Finance's highly credible 'Energy Outlook 2015' says the global post-subsidy renewables market will be worth about US$8 trillion to 2040.

A government that continues to unquestionably support coal is inherently anti-renewable energy, and also innovation. Backing coal sends a terrible signal to innovators and investors in renewable energy, telling them that this is one area where the ideas boom is not welcome.

Ben Oquist is the executive director of The Australia Institute. Follow him on Twitter @BenOquist.