Trade Minister Andrew Robb may have pulled off the deal of the century with China just as our prospects for our coal exports have never looked bleaker.

At his briefing for what is now affectionately to be called ‘Chafta’, or the Chinese Australian Free Trade Agreement, the Minister said it would give us the opportunity to boost our export of services. Services make up 80 per cent of our economy but only 15 per cent of our exports.

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China is already our largest services market with exports close to $7 billion last year. Our coal exports accounted for $9 billion. But it’s in the name of protecting them that Tony Abbott has been on a crusade to stop demonising the commodity and indeed saying it is good for humanity. The Greens and Labor go so far as to accuse him of looking after the industry’s vested interests at the expense of the planet.

At the end of the G20 summit the Prime Minister claimed that China would rely on coal for 80 per cent of its energy generation up to 2030. This optimism is problematic. He was trying to give a less hostile context to the surprise deal sealed in Beijing between China and the United States to significantly cut their carbon emissions and increase their renewable energy within 15 years.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott and China’s President Xi Jinping. Photo: Getty

While US President Barack Obama sees the agreement as vital in encouraging the world’s nations to begin doing something substantial to curb humanity’s contribution to climate change at next year’s Paris conference, China has other motives. It wants to ensure its energy security is, as far as possible, independent of imports and it wants to have cleaner air. At his joint news conference with Obama, President Xi Jinping was happy to endorse the need for all nations to pull their weight to stall global warming.

Sceptics like the Republican senate leader in Washington, Mitch McConnell, dismissed the deal as a fraud claiming that China was really doing nothing and would keep increasing its emissions to 2030 and beyond.

‘Wrong!’ says Professor John Mathews, who has studied what Beijing is up to. Far from doing nothing, he writes in The Conversation that “China will be building the world’s largest renewable energy system over the next 16 years”.

“In terms of electric power generation, China generated over 1000 terawatt hours of electricity from water (hydro), wind and solar sources in 2013 which is comparable to the entire power generation combined of France and Germany.”

Mathews cites the Chinese Energy Bureau which says coal consumption will peak in 2020 and start declining from then. It will be replaced by increasingly cheaper renewables, gas and some nuclear.

In other words, the salad days for Australia’s coal industry are ending. When you also factor in declining prices for our other commodities like iron ore, the broader Chafta could be an economic life saver.

Andrew Robb is convinced it is. He says the scope of China’s trade openness in the deal “is the most significant with any developed country by a long shot”.

WA’s Liberal premier Colin Barnett came away from Obama’s call to arms speech at Queensland University on Saturday convinced Australia has to do more than what the Abbott government is offering to reduce our emissions. He sees gas a cleaner alternative. The outlook for the billions of tonnes he has to sell is probably brighter than for coal.

But with the enormous advances in renewables affordability and technology – new generation batteries, for example – probably means the long-term future for our economy is not in commodities.

It is in the hands of our farmers, educators, lawyers and other service providers thanks to the agreement signed on Monday in Canberra.

Paul Bongiorno AM is a veteran of the Canberra Press Gallery, with 40 years’ experience covering Australian politics. He is Contributing Editor for Network Ten, appears on Radio National Breakfast and writes a weekly column on national affairs for The New Daily. He tweets at @PaulBongiorno