Support for action surges, majority say we face climate emergency

by David Spratt

In the first-ever poll of its kind, new research from The Australia Institute (TAI) has found that a clear majority of Australians agree the nation ‘is facing a climate emergency’ requiring emergency action and that, in response, governments should “mobilise all of society” like they did during the world wars.

It is an extraordinary finding that shows public sentiment is well ahead of the major political parties, and ahead of the large climate advocacy organisations.

Is the Australian Public Service fit-for-purpose to handle existential climate risk?

by Ian Dunlop and David Spratt, first published at Pearls and Irritations

Credit: One World House

The first duty of a government is to “protect the people”, their safety and well-being. Nowhere is this duty more important than in addressing climate change, which now constitutes a near-term existential threat to human civilisation. It is an open, and pressing, question whether the Australian Public Service (APS), and particularly the intelligence services, currently have the capacity to properly consider and assess the climate threat to the people of Australia, and to offer sound advice on action to minimise that threat.

Battle for climate emergency action starts on the Home Front

 Former Australian defence and security experts say if we are serious about national security then we must decarbonise our economy within a decade.

A new powerful and eye-opening short documentary series presents some of Australia's former security, defence and political leaders who warn us that climate change is 'a catalyst for conflict' and a 'threat multiplier' as it fuels instability in the world’s most vulnerable regions.

Existential risk, Neoliberalism and UN Climate Policymaking (2)

On the current high-emissions scenario (RCP 8.5), most of the tropical zone experiences many months each year of deadly heat, beyond the capacity of humans to survive in the outdoors. Source: Global risk of deadly heat

International climate policymaking has failed to avoid a path of catastrophic global warming. Two often-overlooked causes of this failure are how climate-science knowledge has been produced and utilised by the United Nation’s twin climate bodies and how those organisations function.
Part 2 of 2 | Read Part 1.

by David Spratt

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) produces science synthesis reports for the primary purpose of informing policymaking, specifically that of the UNFCCC. This may be termed “regulatory science” (as opposed to “research science”), which Sheila Jasanoff describes as one that “straddles the dividing line between science and policy” (9) as scientists and regulators try to provide answers to policy-relevant questions. In this engagement between science and politics, say Kate Dooley and co-authors, “science is seen neither as an objective truth, nor as only driven by social interests, but as being co-produced through the interaction of natural and social orders”.

Existential risk, Neoliberalism and UN Climate Policymaking (1)

International climate policymaking has failed to avoid a path of catastrophic global warming. Two often-overlooked causes of this failure are how climate-science knowledge has been produced and utilised by the United Nation’s twin climate bodies and how those organisations function.
Part 1 of 2 | Read Part 2.

by David Spratt

It is now widely understood that human-induced climate change this century is an existential risk to human civilisation. Unless carbon emissions are rapidly reduced to zero, it is likely that global warming will either annihilate intelligent life or permanently and drastically curtail its potential.
While policymakers talk about holding warming to 1.5°C to 2°C above the pre-industrial level—a very unsafe goal given that dangerous climate-system tipping points are being activated now at just 1°C of warming—by their lack of action they are in fact setting Earth on a much higher warming path that will destroy many cities, nations and peoples, and many, if not most, species.