Australia joins the industrial arms race

Digging and shipping have turned Australia into one of the world’s richest nations. The country mines its vast reserves of everything from iron ore and coal to lithium and gold, and exports them. Yet as the threat from climate change grows more urgent, it faces job losses in the fossil-fuel sectors that made it rich. To make up for that and to stave off industrial decline, Australia is joining the ranks of governments around the world spending billions to build green industries.