Of course, it is possible that in a fit of pique Abbott might install a diesel generator, or perhaps a coal-fired boiler, to fuel the ministerial wing of Parliament House. But surely he wouldn't waste taxpayers' money on a purely symbolic gesture. That would be like using taxpayers' money to subsidise a rail line to the Adani/Carmichael coal mine through a "Northern Australia Fund" exclusively for projects the banks don't think are viable. Oh, wait.

The ACT government's ambitious plans to invest in public transport, source all of Canberra's electricity from renewable sources and divest its investment portfolio of fossil fuel stocks is a portent of the seismic shifts taking place around the world.

Most new capacity installed around the world in 2014 was renewable. Little wonder the smart money is starting to shift away from carbon. Just as huge parts of Africa are jumping from having no phones to having mobile phones, large parts of the world are jumping from having no electricity to having renewable electricity.

The cost of coal makes little difference to the average electricity bill in Australia. Generation of the electricity accounts for only 39 per cent of the bill in the ACT, less in other states. Marketing and retail costs make up 18 per cent, while the poles and wires costs account for a remarkable 43 per cent. Just as many countries will avoid ever having to incur the cost of rolling out a copper wire phone network, so too many countries will avoid the cost of rolling out the kind of electricity grid that soaks up so much of our monthly electricity bills.

Put simply, if you were starting with a blank sheet of paper in 2015, and you had the choice between steam engines or renewable energy, the smart money would be on the latter. But don't take my word for it: when Adani, the Indian energy company behind Abbott's favourite coal mine, spends its shareholders' money providing energy to poor communities, it does so using renewable energy. It's much cheaper.

Believe it or not, Canberra can be thought of like a greenfield site in a developing country. Since the year 2000, Canberra's population has grown by 68,000, and it is expected to grow by a further 250,000 by 2050. The thousands of people who now live in Braddon and Lyneham are effectively living in a greenfield site awaiting redevelopment. Gungahlin was a greenfield site, and the hundreds of thousands of new residents who will move to Canberra in the coming decades will also live in greenfield sites.

The question facing Canberra's government is little different from the question facing cities in Asia, Africa and other rapidly growing parts of the world: given the direction and pace of technological change, the evidence about the effect of burning coal on human health, and the evidence about climate change, what kind of infrastructure will best serve my city's residents in the coming decades?

Coal-powered steam engines have provided Australians with vast quantities of electricity over the past 100 years. Politicians with a penchant for the past like to talk about how our economy is based on "cheap" energy from these antiquated machines, but what they rarely mention is that the power stations and and original poles and wires were funded by taxpayers, not market forces. Indeed, taxpayers continue to pick up the tab for the health costs associated with the particulate pollution that inevitably comes from mining and burning coal. Our electricity system was only privatised after the public sector first solved all of the engineering and financial challenges.

Just as Australia's energy system was planned by the public sector around coal, our transport system was designed by the public sector around cars. While convenient in small cities, cars become a barrier to convenience when large cities try to rely heavily on them. While few would argue that the rapid growth of Gungahlin has had a significant effect on peak-hour congestion, there are many who argue that putting an extra 124,000 cars (that's in line with population growth projections) on Canberra's roads in the coming decades will work out just fine.

The simple fact is no one wants to live near a coal-fired power station and no one wants Canberra's traffic to wind up like Sydney. But whether Canberrans can work together to solve such problems, or will be divided while we ignore them, will be decided by that most derided of activities: politics.

Politics is like a hammer. It can be used to build something or to destroy something. At the turn of the 20th century, Australia engaged in a remarkable act of politics. Rival states, and competing economic interests chose to broadly agree on the desirability of building a federated commonwealth. Great deeds require great politics.

A little over a century later, our politicians would rather pick a fight than solve a problem. After Labor responded to Joe Hockey's challenge for a mature debate about tax by proposing to limit tax concessions for superannuation, the Prime Minister said there would be no new taxes. For the next two terms.

At last week's reform summit, there was across-the-board support for scrapping stamp duties and introducing a land tax, a policy switch the ACT government recently began. But the "business leaders" who demand tax reform have been silent in their praise for the ACT government and silent in their criticism of the Canberra Liberals, who remain committed to scrapping a reform the summit just called for.

The world will change dramatically in the next 50 years, just as it has done in the past 50. The issue is not whether there will be change, but the direction and pace of that change. Public and political debate can either unite people around big causes, or it can divide people along arbitrary demographic and cultural lines. The former is essential for big reforms; the latter inevitably prevents them.

The ACT government is leading the country when it comes to energy policy, transport policy and tax reform. It is making the kind of big, long-term decisions that a rapidly growing population and a rapidly evolving technological environment require. The renewable capacity it is building will still be powering Parliament House long after the current government and the current pettiness about climate policy have vanished, like the fights about rail gauges that once dominated our national debate.

If the business leaders calling for reform were serious, they would be singing the praises of the ACT government and calling on other states to follow suit. But in Australia today, business leaders simply don't praise Labor governments. Yet they call on others to work together. Don't hold your breath.

Richard Denniss is chief economist at the Australia Institute.

Twitter: @RDNS_TAI