The world is leaving coal behind, and it’s up to startups to pick up the economic slack

There’s change on the horizon. It may not happen quickly or dramatically, but the coal and mining industries are in decline, and if we’re not able to adapt, their absence could leave a $54 billion hole in the economy, and see hundreds of thousands of jobs lost.

It’s a climate-change issue, but even if you take the environmental argument out of it, the market is changing. It’s becoming gradually evident that we will not always be able to rely on international demand for fossil fuels.

According to the Minerals Council of Australia, coal is our second-largest export, after iron ore.