Change is often hard. The renowned twentieth-century inventor Buckminster Fuller said, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” The genius of Saul Griffith’s vision is that it doesn’t seek to destroy or detract from what Australians know and love. He departs from the notion that the only way to improve our energy use is to use less. Instead, he proposes a more democratic energy system that provides cheaper, more reliable and more secure energy to Australian households and businesses. All while avoiding the damage to our health, climate and economy caused by burning fossil fuels.

The scale of the change warrants feeling daunted and despairing at times. Just a week before the release of The Wires That Bind, the international scientific community issued another stark warning. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Synthesis Report, described as a “survival guide to humanity,” is the most reviewed document in human history. The message from scientists is as clear as it is unsurprising: we must act now: catastrophe is just around the corner. It’s easy to hear this warning and feel frustrated. Many Australians have been listening to our leading scientists say the same thing for decades. We know we’re embarking on this enormous task to reduce the damage to our climate at the eleventh hour.

It’s easy to find reasons for the lack of long-term vision and leadership in Australian politics – the 24-hour news cycle, social media, three-year election cycles, the list goes on. And we’ve all suffered as a result. Many of our leaders have been happy to be weathervanes on issues, rather than articulating a vision and making decisions in the best interests of all Australians and our long-term future. Others have incited culture wars and constructed straw-man arguments when political winds start to blow in a direction that doesn’t suit them or their donors. This culminated in the Morrison government arguing it didn’t even have a duty to protect Australian children from the harms of climate change.

But the fact that we are starting from behind is not a reason to lose hope. It is the reason to move faster. A benefit in starting late is that we can learn from the experiences of others. Saul brings precisely this kind of experience, having had significant involvement with the US Inflation Reduction Act. In Australia, we can move faster by avoiding the mistakes of others, adopting models proven to succeed and rolling them out at pace and at scale.

Reducing emissions is not the only reason to increase the speed of electrification. The changes Saul proposes would also bring substantial cost-of-living relief. On his calculations, households that make the switch will save upwards of $3000 a year, every year. The key to unlocking savings is for governments to provide affordable, accessible finance and remove the regulatory hurdles that stand in the way of electrification. Public finance is already provided in many areas where public good is identified – infrastructure and higher education are prominent examples. Applying this to household electrification would allow many households to afford the upfront cost and then use the cost savings to pay back the loans and still benefit from electrification. Governments must also be careful to ensure that finance is available to everyone, regardless of their circumstances. A model for this already exists in the way that HECS is structured. This could be adopted and modified to increase the speed of electrification.

But incentives and access to affordable finance will not work for everyone, and we must ensure no one is left behind. The benefits of electrification must extend to renters, people living in apartments and people in social housing. If we get this right, the greatest benefits of electrification will flow to those in our low-income households, who spend a higher proportion of their income on energy bills and suffer more from the health and wellbeing issues that come from energy poverty.

The “miracle of rooftop solar” is a model of what is possible if we get the settings right. A combination of government investment, rebate schemes for early adopters and improving regulations to streamline the installation and accreditation process has led to us having some of the cheapest rooftop solar in the world. The scheme has had bipartisan support since John Howard introduced the photovoltaic rebate program in 2000. Politicians know that cheaper energy is a vote-winner.

The political realisation that electrification will reduce energy costs is coming. But at this point, as is so often the case, the electorate is ahead of governments. Our communities see the Australian solar miracle and understand that electrification can build on that success. In The Wires That Bind, Saul describes the impressive work of Electrify 2515, a community campaign to increase the speed of electrification in neighbourhoods north of Wollongong. And we’re seeing groups pop up elsewhere. A passionate group of Canberrans has formed Suburb Zero to push for faster and more ambitious electrification in the ACT. The Suburb Zero campaign was launched on a Friday evening in mid-April in a packed theatre of more than 600 people. The organisers are a diverse mix of energy experts, community advocates, parents, neighbours and friends. They have been collecting surveys, door-knocking, letterboxing thousands of houses, setting up stalls, putting up posters and talking to their friends and colleagues.

The work of groups such as Electrify 2515 and Suburb Zero shows the best in our democracy and the desire Australians have to step up and make the most of this opportunity. The suburb-wide pilot projects they’re advocating provide an opportunity to increase the speed at which we find solutions to technical and regulatory issues that will inevitably arise. Successful pilots would serve as proofs of concept and inspire suburbs and regional towns across the country to electrify.

We’re seeing the politics of climate change shift rapidly. People in communities across the country are realising that the challenge of decarbonising our economy presents households with huge opportunities. But even now, with climate action on the agenda at all levels of government, we’re going to have to keep ratcheting up our ambition, set big goals and go faster than is comfortable. There is always risk in change, but the risks we face if we fail to seize this opportunity to transform our energy systems and decarbonise our economy mean we have little choice. The Wires That Bind shows us the power of collective action. Households can make a difference when it comes to reducing our emissions, but we need political leadership to remove obstacles, help scale that effort and install the right policy settings for the rest of our economy.

Saul Griffith shows how electrification can help address two of the most pressing challenges we face: climate change and the cost of living. The opportunity is here. We can make this happen.

David Pocock