Authoritarianism is undermining climate action – and time is running out

 

Climate emergency briefing: Impacts, risks and key actions 
for Australia in the age of authoritarianism 
is published today by the Breakthrough 
National Centre for Climate Restoration. 

by David Spratt, first published at Pearls&Irritations

The global rise of authoritarianism is weakening climate governance just as warming accelerates and tipping points draw near. This failure now poses a direct threat to our future.

Authoritarianism is stalking nations and global institutions, often allied with climate scepticism and denial. This has weakened climate governance, most notably in the United States. In Russia and the Middle East oil and gas producers, climate denial-and-delay and authoritarianism co-mingle.  And climate barely rated a mention at Davos this year.

Climate hot takes on 2025

 by David Spratt, first published at Pearls&Irritations

• ClimateGenn podcast:  2025 In Climate Review: AMOC, Overshoot & Emergency Briefings with Guest David Spratt

Scientific evidence in 2025 showed global warming accelerating faster than expected, while emissions continued to rise and climate policy lagged dangerously behind physical reality.

Climate warming is a field of fast-changing physical realities – in many cases beyond scientific expectations – and gob-smacking new flood and heatwave and fire extremes, month after month, enhanced by a heating climate. And we are now ending a year when climate denial reached new peaks in the American Presidency and within our home-grown Liberal-National-Party coalition.

Fossil-fuel carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are expected to increase by 1.1 per cent in 2025 to reach a record high; the global average concentration of CO2 rose by 3.5 parts per million which was the largest increase since modern measurements started in 1957; and it is projected that fossil fuel emissions by 2050 will be barely lower than today, according to the 2025 Production Gap report (see diagram).  In fact, both oil and gas supply are projected to continue rising till 2050.

Leading from behind: How governments and advocates in Australia avoid the new climate reality

 

Taken together, governments now plan even higher levels of coal production to 2035, and gas production to 2050, than they did in 2023. Planned oil production continues to increase to 2050. Source: Production Gap report 2025

by David Spratt

[This is an extract from Climate catastrophe: Is rapid cooling now essential?, published by Arena.]  

‘To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticise power, because there is no basis on which to do so’, wrote Timothy Snyder, a historian of Europe and fascism, in On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (2017). ‘If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights’, he added.

And one of those great spectacles is climate politics, and the fossil fuel industry’s deep pockets.

According to Minister Chris Bowen, climate is a good news story of wind, solar and batteries, and jobs, clean hydrogen and Australia as a clean energy superpower. Ask him about faster-than-forecast physical impacts, accelerating warming and imminent tipping points, and he will respond that Australians don’t want bad news or climate fear. The pattern is very clear in Bowen’s speeches, media and parliamentary performances (Spratt, D., ‘The Albanese government has created a climate vacuum, and we will pay the price’, Pearls and Irritations, 25 July 2024).

Australia’s climate assessment fails on sea-level rise risks and vulnerable communities

 by David Spratt, first published at Pearls&Irritations

Australia’s first climate risk assessment has the stated purpose of guiding adaptation responses to protect people and property in a  heating climate, but what happens if the reality is worse than some low-ball projections of future risks?

Australia has just released its first-ever National Climate Risk Assessment, and some big numbers drew fairly predictable media coverage: First climate risk assessment finds 1.5m Australians at risk from sea level rise by 2050, No Australian spared and Apocalyptic report a ‘wake-up call’ on climate impacts: PM.

The global heating emergency and preventing 2°C by 2040: What's the plan?

 by David Spratt

We know where we are heading: towards a planet that will be unlivable for most people, as the human systems built up over centuries collapse. This is not news.  Nor is the evidence that we have reached 1.5°C and that, with accelerating warming, the world will hit 2°C around 2040. 

On present indications — with the fossil fuel giants and petrostates on the offensive — emissions will decline only slowly to 2050, as a number of reports on the "production gap" have indicated.  

Yet by 2°C or more, and perhaps even before then, there is the prospect of a "Hothouse Earth" scenario, a threshold in which a cascade of system changes makes warming self-sustaining, leading to conditions hotter than any experienced over the last few hundred thousand years by modern humans.

So cooling the system is must now be a key task, and that is the focus of coming online conference: The global heating emergency and preventing 2°C by 2040: What's The Plan? organised by the The Healthy Planet Action Coalition.

Podcast: Climate risk realism and the case for cooling to a livable planet

 

Listen to the podcast

by David Spratt

Recently I had the opportunity to join Arjana and Kathy from MEER podcasts to discuss climate risk realism and the case for cooling to a livable planet. We cover climate risk, tipping points, and the case for surface-based, and reversible cooling alongside deep decarbonization.

You can list on:

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTQ-xjgtA5E
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/10RnCFsCUJrUqJksynlPKM  
• Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/meer-podcast/id1735135001
• RSS: https://rss.com/podcasts/meer/2223406 

Chapters:
00:00 Intro & state of the climate 
09:23 Timelines, policy realism & trade-offs 
17:38 Risk, overshoot & stability 
26:25 Cooling options & evaluation 
35:20 Try this 
37:36 Myth vs Measurement 
42:17 Closing & resources 

MEER (surface-based cooling) develops frugal, reversible, surface-based cooling to reduce heat stress and balance Earth’s energy—alongside emissions cut:  https://www.meer.org/ 

 

 

 

 

 

A climate-first foreign policy is essential for Australia and regional security

Adm Chris Barrie (Rtd) launches the report. Parliamentarians attending the launch and supporting the report include MPs Sophie Scamps, Nicolette Boele, Monique Ryan, Allegra Spender, Kate Chaney, Helen Haynes, Zali Steggall and Andrew Wilkie, and Senators David Shoebridge and David Pocock.

  

by Australian Security Leaders' Climate Group, first published by Pearls&Irritations

A group of high-profile Australians, including Admiral Chris Barrie, have released a critical new foreign policy plan in the wake of climate change.

For too long, government policy processes have left climate action to energy or environment ministries. That separation is no longer viable. Climate change is an existential threat that demands a whole-of-government — and whole-of-foreign-policy — response.

Such a response should recognise that climate disruption is a key expression of the breakdown of the Earth’s complex physical-biological systems and of the human systems which rely on them.

Decision-makers should recognise that climate change is only one among a number of existential threats which now confront humanity as a result of our unsustainable management of the planet, all of which must be addressed, though climate arguably requires the most urgent action.

Australia’s first National Climate Risk Assessment has been a long time coming

by David Spratt

The Australian Government’s soon-to-be-released first National Climate Risk Assessment (NCRA), which will be focused on domestic climate risks, has received some recent media coverage here and here.  Here is the story on the long evolution of the NCRA and what to expect.

Australia has never had a comprehensive climate risk assessment.  It has been a glaring omission because such assessments are a necessary basis for efficacious climate mitigation and adaptation policymaking.

In 2021, the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group (ASLCG), a group of former defence and security leaders, proposed to the Labor opposition (and the Morrison Government) that a comprehensive climate risk assessment be undertaken as a matter of urgency, and this was included in the ALP’s 2022 election platform. The case was made in an ASLCG report, Missing in action.

Climate intervention in the thick present

 

by Anni Pokela, first published at operaatioarktis

Anni Pokela is a founding member of, and srategist for, the Finnish group Operaatio Arktis, a youth-led project that works for preserving Arctic Sea ice and preventing the crossing of Earth's tipping points. This is the text of a speech she delivered  at St. John's College, Cambridge as part of the Arctic Repair Conference in June 2025.

About 4 years ago, I was being escorted to a police van for protesting with Extinction Rebellion Finland. We had closed down a main road in central Helsinki and demanding that the Finnish Government hasten their climate action.

I had previously not been at all into the climate movement or environmentalism. As a teenager I felt like maybe that wasn't trendy enough or punk rock enough – and then came Extinction Rebellion. They spoke about climate impacts in a way that I'd never heard before. They were really concrete about it: they talked about death tolls and diseases and the horrible violence we are facing. 

 

And so to this day I think the fear of death is what inspired me into climate action. Pretty self-centered and grim, now that I think about it.

 

But my point is that I didn't feel climate anxiety. I felt climate grief, and climate rage. I wanted to have a kid in the future, and I was so angry because I felt like that had been taken away from me. It wasn't hope that got me to act. It was despair.

Will Australia's first National Climate Risk Assessment be more omission than commission?

 

by David Spratt, first published at Pearls&Irritations

The Albanese Government will soon deliver Australia’s first domestically-oriented National Climate Risk Assessment, which was due in December 2024. Will it describe the full spectrum of climate risks Australians will face in the future, or be marred by a poor approach to risk analysis, bureaucratic incompetence and a limited vision?

In mid-2022, shortly after assuming office, the Albanese Government ordered a climate and security risk assessment, in line with a pre-election commitment. The analysis was undertaken by the Office of National Intelligence and delivered to the government in late 2022. It focused on the region and did not specifically cover domestic risks. Since then, the government has barely said a word about the ONI findings or about climate-security risks, has not released the analysis in any declassified form and has indicated it does not intend to do so.

The 1.5 degrees climate advocacy conundrum

Breakthrough has just released a new discussion paper, Warming has reached 1.5°C. What does that mean for climate advocacy? This blog is part 3 of the paper, on the 1.5 degrees Celsius conundrum.

by David Spratt

1.5°C has become the policy-making target 

Until 2015, climate-policy making and advocacy was focused on the 2°C goal, which was seen as appropriate to “prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system” (Article 2 of the UNFCCC). As an aside, how was 2°C ever considered a reasonable goal? Answering that question — it wasn’t science-based, but first proposed by an economist — may provide insight into why 1.5°C isn’t either. 

At the Paris COP in 2015, the overarching goal adopted was to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and pursue efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels”. Since the Paris Agreement, the focus of advocates has been 1.5°C.

How bad can climate damage get? Worse than you imagine

By David Spratt, first published at The Canberra Times

How bad can climate damage get? Worse than you imagine, if Australians’ recent experience of more extreme weather and natural disasters — driven by a hotter climate — are an indication, because the past is no longer a reliable guide to the future. 

Civil engineer Alan Hoban says flood maps around Australia drastically underestimate the impact climate change will have on rainfall due to conservative assumptions about how fast rainfall intensity will increase. “Very few flood maps in south-east Queensland, or even Australia, yet account for these changes,” he says. 

James Hansen and the scientific contest about accelerated warming: 2025 is the crunch year

by David Spratt, first published at Pearls and Irritations

The record-breaking warming years of 2023 (1.5°C) and 2024 (1.6°C) were above expectations and shocked scientists. Their responses and the subsequent research are a good example of how quickly the physical reality is changing, driving new and contested understandings.

In late 2023, as global and ocean temperatures soared, the most upfront assessment came from Zeke Hausfather: “Staggering. Unnerving. Mind-boggling. Absolutely gobsmackingly bananas.” It was a widely-shared view, with responses such as “unprecedented” and “frightening”. “We’re not as aware of what’s coming as we thought we were,” said Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick of the University of NSW.

As well, the decline in Antarctic sea-ice extent was much greater than model projections, leading Walt Meier of the National Snow and Ice Data Center to exclaim: “It's so far outside anything we've seen, it's almost mind-blowing.” The same was true for North Atlantic sea surface temperatures (SSTs), which were literally off the chart.

Is AUKUS a priority when climate change - which should be the focus - is about to upend our region?

By Adm. Chris Barrie (Ret.), first published at The Canberra Times and Pearls and Irritations

Global security alliances are in turmoil, and Australia needs to critically  rethink its defence and foreign affairs policies.
I have watched with alarm as Donald Trump and the Republican administration upend traditional alliances. This is the harshest wake-up call since the Fall of Singapore in 1942. Trump may be gone in four years, but the Republican Party and America's political landscape are being fundamentally changed. 

An immediate concern is the future of the American-built nuclear-powered submarines due from the early 2040s through to the late 2050s under AUKUS. There is an increasing likelihood that the US will never build us the submarines, as Trump administration officials have made clear. 

Government refuses to articulate ‘frankly terrifying’ security risks

 by David Spratt, first published at Pearls & Irritations

The Albanese Government has jammed itself by trying to not talk about the greatest threat to Australia’s future, but has now opened itself to the charge of playing politics with security issues.

The absurdity was on full display in a front-page story last weekend, when The Saturday Paper reported that the government gave a secret briefing on 9 December last year to a number of Teal and independent members of parliament on the contents of the Office of National Intelligence assessment of climate-related security risks — one which the government had classified and refused to release in a declassified form for two years.

Collision Course: 3-degrees of warming & humanity's future video

 

by David Spratt

On 11 February, more than 250 people joined me for an online discussion on  the findings of Collision Course, the latest report by the Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration.  The event was part of the National Sustainability Festival 2025.

Watch the Collision Course webinar

The event unpacked the stark realities of a world shaped by 3 degrees of global warming, and offered a stark examination of the profound risks to humanity, ecosystems, and the foundations of global stability.

As the planet approaches unprecedented climate thresholds, the risks intensify—not only for extreme weather events but for cascading systems failures that threaten food security, infrastructure, health, and geopolitical stability. Collision Course delves into the interconnected challenges of such a future and asks the pressing questions:

• What does life look like under 3 degrees of warming?
• How close are we to these scenarios, and what are the tipping points to avoid?
• Most critically, what actions can still be taken to alter this trajectory?

The forum shed light on the accelerating climate risks and the bold, systemic transformations required to restore a safe climate. Combining scientific insight, policy critique, and an emphasis on actionable solutions, the event aimed to inspire a deeper understanding of humanity’s climate future and catalyze the urgent changes needed to ensure safety and stability.

Read or download the Collision Course report

The world is heading towards 3 degrees Celsius of warming. Will humanity have a future?

 

The world is heading towards 3 degrees Celsius of warming.  Will humanity have a future? 

Join me for an online discussion on Tuesday 11 February at 7.30pm. It's free and you can book at events.humanitix.com/collision-course/tickets.  It is part of the National Sustainability Festival 2025.

This thought-provoking forum will explore the findings of Collision Course, the latest report by the Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration. This event will unpack the stark realities of a world shaped by 3 degrees of global warming, offering a clear-eyed examination of the profound risks to humanity, ecosystems, and the foundations of global stability.

Is Catherine King’s third Tullamarine runway approval valid? No, if climate impacts are included

Air travel is just about the fastest-growing source of climate-heating greenhouse gas emissions.  So the Australian government would be stopping the planned worsening of these emissions, due mainly to optional, conspicuous consumption? Well, no actually.

 by Mark Carter, first published at Pearls&Irritations

On 10 September 2024, federal aviation minister Catherine King gave Melbourne Airport the go-ahead to build a third runway.

Eighteen months earlier, on 10 February 2023, Melbourne Airport’s owner, Australia Pacific Airports Melbourne (APAM) submitted its draft Third Runway Major Development Plan to the Minister, for her approval. 

The federal Airports Act specifies what APAM needed to include in its Plan, along with the procedure the Minister is required to follow in assessing the Plan. 

Climate and security risks? Shhh, says the Albanese Government

 by David Spratt, first published at Pearls&Irritations

The Los Angeles fires have again demonstrated the need for a steely-eyed approach by governments to climate risks, ensuring that the assessment of those risks is up-to-date, considers the plausible worst-case scenarios, and is made widely available so the public understands what we are facing.

But the Australian Government’s work-in-progress National Climate Risk Assessment appears to be sinking fast, leaving us ill-prepared.

You can’t get to the solution to a problem if you don’t first elaborate the question. That is why risk assessments have become such a big thing in business, at all levels of government, for community-based organisations… and even at my local tennis club, where one is to be done yearly.

But not if you are the Albanese Government, which has blithely set about its climate policy agenda — renewables, batteries, EVs and the grid, all well-mixed with a large expansion of Australia’s coal and gas industries — without ever understanding, or explaining to Australians, the basic question: what is the nature of the threat to be mitigated, and how does their policy contain that threat?

Mobilise as if our lives depend on it

by David Spratt

This article appears as the concluding section of Collision Course: 3 degrees of warming & humanity's future, recently published by Breakthrough.

“The problem is that the status quo is a suicide. Those (Paris) commitments, even if fully met, would lead to an increase in temperature […] above 3 degrees which would mean a catastrophic situation.”
— UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, May 2019

Download the report

In 2005 James Hansen, sometimes dubbed the “godfather” of modern climate research, warned that humanity was “on the precipice of climate system tipping points beyond which there is no redemption”. Nineteen years later, we are heading for eye-watering social and ecological disruption, and civilisational collapse.  Cities and regions and nations will drown and desertify. There will be an unrelenting global food crisis. Billions will be displaced and the global economic and governance systems of contemporary society will not work. 

In practical terms, the world has reached 1.5°C of global heating, the rate of warming is accelerating and will likely continue on that path for several decades, especially given the failure so far to bend the emissions curve down fast. That means 2°C by 2040 or shortly after, and the emergence of vast zones of unlivable heat two decades after that on the present course of grossly inadequate action. Tipping points have been passed or are close at hand for some of the biggest elements of the climate system, including polar ice sheets and vast forest and permafrost carbon stores; and system inertia and hysteresis make preserving and restoring those systems very challenging. Scientists are increasingly alarmed that we may be heading towards AMOC collapse by mid-century.