Australia’s Regional and Industrial Future

This book promotes a critical and analytical view of what the emerging new Cold War and climate change mitigation mean for Australia’s struggling regions and dwindling manufacturing industries. The authors argue that Australia’s push for regional energy and decarbonisation cannot be understood in isolation from an increasingly militarised industrial policy and the challenging Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States (AUKUS) relationships with the United States and the United Kingdom. They connect issues of industrial transformation to growing geopolitical tensions and international policy developments exacerbated by climate change.

The book facilitates a critical evaluation of claims that are made for the job-creating potential of renewable energies and expanded sovereign defence capabilities. It will also consider what AUKUS and the build-up of an Australian defence industry mean for Australia’s attempts to decarbonise its economy and the importance of the ‘greening’ of the AUKUS military-industrial complex.

Written by a team of academic and union researchers, the book will be of great interest to a diverse range of researchers and students, including those in geography, sociology, international relations and business management.