The crowd of about 200 people heard Newcastle University's Geoff Evans blame companies and interest groups for holding back the region's chances of becoming carbon neutral.

"[Corporations] have had a stranglehold on the Hunter for decades," Professor Evans said.

"We have a chance to become a Silicon Valley of renewable energy."

The professor told the Climate Action Newcastle's Beyond Coal forum that the Hunter was one of the worst contributors to Australia's greenhouse gas emissions, and that coal-fired power stations had to be phased out.

"We are to climate change what Afghanistan is to heroin," he said.

"That's not a moral economy, that's an unsustainable economy."

Professor Evans rejected lobbyists' suggestions that weaning off coal would cause catastrohpic unemployment in the Hunter, saying the chance to explore clean and renewable technologies would provide thousands of local jobs.

Matthew Wright, from the Beyond Zero Emmissions think tank, backed the professor by saying the Hunter could support molten salt solar plants.