Al Gore on climate and Trump – the whole speech

Pearls and Irritations

Al Gore

Readers may have seen mainstream media coverage of former US vice-president Al Gore's speech at San Francisco Climate Week on 21 April. We think it is worth reading in full.

Al Gore Former US Vice President Al Gore is the founder and chairman of The Climate Reality Project, a nonprofit devoted to solving the climate crisis, a founding partner and chairman of Generation Investment Management, and a co-founder of Climate TRACE.

“It is abundantly clear, after only three months and one day, that the new Trump administration is attempting to do everything it possibly can to try to halt the transition to a clean energy future and a deep reduction in the burning of fossil fuels. 

The climate crisis is a fossil fuel crisis, basically 80% of it.

Many of you here today have likely felt the chilling effect of the policies and the rhetoric coming from Washington, DC, and what the effect has been on businesses and investors and far beyond.

The Dow Jones, of course, today fell another thousand points, and since Donald Trump’s inauguration it’s gone down 6000 points.

But while the most visible impacts of what the new administration is doing may be in the market for stocks and bonds, that’s not the only thing that he has caused to crash.

The trust market has crashed.

The market for democracy has taken a major hit.

Hope is being arbitraged in the growing market for fear.

Truth has been devalued and confidence in US leadership around the world has plummeted.

We are facing a national emergency for our democracy and a global emergency for our climate system.

We have to deal with the democracy crisis in order to solve the climate crisis.

The scale and scope of the ongoing attacks on liberty are literally unprecedented. With that in mind, I want to note before I use what is not a precedent, I understand very well why it is wrong to compare Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich to any other movement. It was uniquely evil, full stop. I get it.

But there are important lessons from the history of that emergent evil, and here is one that I regard as essential. 

In the immediate aftermath of World War II, a small group of philosophers who had escaped Hitler’s murderous regime returned to Germany and performed a kind of moral autopsy on the Third Reich. 

The most famous of the so-called Frankfurt School of Philosophers was a man named Jurgen Habermas – best known, I would say. 

But it was Habermas’ mentor, Theodor Adorno, who wrote that the first step of that nation’s descent into Hell was, and I quote, “the conversion of all questions of truth into questions of power". 

He described how the Nazis, and I quote again, “attacked the very heart of the distinction between true and false".

The Trump administration is insisting on trying to create their own preferred version of reality. They say Ukraine attacked Russia instead of the other way around, and expect us to believe it! At home, they attack heroes who have defended our nation in war and against cyberattacks as traitors.

They say the climate crisis is a “hoax” invented by the Chinese to destroy American manufacturing.

They say coal is clean.

They say wind turbines cause cancer.

They say sea level rises just create more beachfront property.

Their allies in the oligarchic backlash to climate action argue that those who want to stop using the sky as an open sewer, for God’s sake, need to be more “realistic” and acquiesce to the huge increases in the burning of more and more fossil fuels (which is what they’re pushing), even though that is the principal cause of the climate crisis.

You may not be surprised to learn that this propagandistic notion of “climate realism” is one that the fossil fuel industry has peddled for years.

The CEO of the largest oil company in the world, Saudi Aramco, has said, “We should abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas.”

His colleague, Exxon CEO Darren Woods, has claimed that “the world needs to get real. … The problem is not oil and gas. It’s emissions".

The American Petroleum Institute says that we need “a more realistic energy approach” – one that, you guessed it, includes buying and burning even more oil and gas.

So, allow me to put this question to all of you: What exactly is it that they want us to be realistic about?

Their twisted version of “realism” is colliding with the reality that humanity is now confronting.

The accumulated global warming pollution (because these molecules linger there on average about 100 years and it builds up over time), is trapping as much extra heat now every single day as would be released by the explosion of 750,000 first generation atomic bombs blowing up on the Earth every single day!

Is it realistic to let that continue?

Is it realistic to think that if we opt out of taking action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, we’ll be able to just wish it away and continue with business as usual? Well, Mother Nature makes a pretty good case against that argument. Every night the TV news is like a nature walk through the Book of Revelation.

Is it realistic, for example, to continue stoking the risk of wildfire in California, after what has already happened to so many communities in Northern California? And just look at the devastation caused by the Los Angeles wildfires in January.

Is it realistic to tell homeowners around the world that the global housing market is expected to suffer a US$25 trillion loss in the next 25 years? Fifteen percent of all the residential housing stock in the world if we do not change what we’re doing? Is that realistic in their view?

Is it realistic to continue quietly accepting 8.7 million deaths every single year from breathing in the particulate co-pollution that also comes from the burning of fossil fuels? That is the number of people who are already being killed. 

According to health experts, it is, and I quote, “the leading contributor to the global disease burden". When you’re burning coal, oil and gas, it puts the heat trapping pollution up there and it puts the particulate and PM 2.5 pollution into the lungs of people downwind from where the facilities are burning the fossil fuels.

Is it realistic, in their view, for governments to manage a billion climate migrants crossing international borders in the remainder of this century? 

That’s how many the Lancet Commission estimates will be crossing borders in the decades to come, if we continue driving temperatures and humidity higher and making the physiologically unliveable regions of the world vastly larger by continuing to put 175 million tonnes of man-made heat-trapping pollution into that thin shell of the troposphere surrounding the planet. 

You know what that blue line looks like, that thin blue shell is blue because that’s where the oxygen is. And it’s so thin, if you could drive a car straight up in the air at highway speeds, you’d get to the top of that blue line in five to seven minutes.

That’s what we’re using as an open sewer. Is that realistic? I don’t think it is.

We’ve already seen, by the way, how populist authoritarian leaders have used migrants as scapegoats and have fanned the fires of xenophobia to fuel their own rise to power. And power-seeking is what this is all about. Our Constitution, written by our founders, is intended to protect us against a threat identical to Trump: someone who seeks power at all costs to get more power. 

Imagine what the demagogues would do as we continued toward a billion migrants crossing international borders. We could face a grave threat to our capacity for self-governance.

Is it “realistic” to continue inflicting the financial toll that the climate crisis is taking on the global economy? According to Deloitte, climate inaction will cost the economy US$178 trillion over the next half-century. And is it realistic to miss out on the economic opportunity that we could seize by going toward net zero? Over that same period, climate action would increase the size of the global economy by US$43 trillion.

A question with particular relevance in nearby Silicon Valley: is it realistic for the semiconductor industry to experience losses of up to 35% of annual revenues due to supply chain disruptions caused by the stronger and more severe cyclonic storms and supercell storms?

Is it realistic to continue with a system of financing that leaves the entire continent of Africa completely out? Right now, the entire continent of Africa, fastest-growing population in the world, has fewer solar panels installed than the single state of Florida in the US. 

That’s a disgrace in the make-up of our financial system. But Africa has three times as many oil and gas pipelines under construction, and preparing for construction to begin, than all of North America. It is ridiculous to allow this system to continue as it is. How is that realistic? Or fair? Or just?

Is it realistic for us, all of us here, to consign our children and grandchildren to what scientists warn us would be Hell on Earth in order to conserve the profits of the fossil fuel industry? The predictions of the scientists 50 years ago have turned out to be spot-on. 

Their predictions just a few decades ago have turned out to be exactly right. Should not that cause us to listen more carefully to what they’re warning us will happen if we do not sharply and quickly reduce the emissions from burning fossil fuels?

Is that unrealistic to listen to a proven source of advice?

This newfound so-called climate realism is nothing more than climate denial in disguise. It is an attempt to pretend there is no problem and to ignore the reality that is right in front of our faces.

What’s never present in any of this so-called “realism” is any credible challenge whatsoever to the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC. They never address that. They just wish it away and say, “Oh it’s unrealistic to actually do anything about it.”

I wish we could wish it away, but we cannot.

The harsh reality is that the fossil fuel industry has grown desperate for more capital. They’re seeing their two largest markets wither away: electricity generation, number one and transportation, number two. They’ve been losing their share of investment in the energy market to renewables and so they’re panicked.

That explains why they are so aggressively using their captive policymakers to block meaningful solutions. Of course, as you know, they’re much better at capturing politicians than they are at capturing emissions. They’ve grown very skillful at that.

They are the wealthiest and most powerful industry lobby in the history of the world. They make the East India Company look like a popcorn vendor. They are the effective global hegemon.

They have used their war chests and their legacy network of political and economic power to block any reductions of fossil fuel emissions – whether at the international conferences that we call the COPs, the Conference of Parties in the UN process, or at the global negotiations for a plastic treaty. They blocked anything there, too.

Why? They’re losing the first market of electricity generation because 93% of all the new electricity generation installed worldwide last year was solar and wind. They’re losing that market steadily. Use of EVs is rising dramatically. They say they’ve slowed down. Well, we just got the new figures – an 18% increase year-on-year here in the US. In many countries, it is much faster than that.

And so, their third market – they’re telling Wall Street that they’re going to make up all of the expected lost revenue in their first two markets by tripling the production of plastics over the next 35 years.

Well, we might have a word to say about that. Is that realistic? Because we’ve already found — the scientists say — that some seabirds are manifesting symptoms like Alzheimer’s disease from the plastic particles in their brains and they found that it crosses the blood-brain barrier in humans, and the amount has doubled just in the last decade.

Do we really want to continue that?

It’s crazy, but they are blocking action at both of these international forums and they’re blocking action in the deliberations of nation-states, even in states and provinces, and even at the local level. Anywhere in the world where there is an effort to pass legislation or regulations that reduces the burning of fossil fuels, they are there with their money, with their lobbyists, with their captive politicians, blocking it as best they can.

And the solution is what you’re doing here at Climate Week here in San Francisco. We have got to rise up and change this situation.

That’s also why they are ballyhooing ridiculously expensive and hilariously impractical technologies like building giant mechanical vacuuming machines to suck it back out of the atmosphere after they put it up there. Could that someday be a realistic part of the solution?

Perhaps, perhaps. But not now! Not even close.

They use it as a bright, shiny object to distract attention and say, “see this, see this, this could be so miraculous, we don’t have to stop burning fossil fuels at all! We can actually continue to increase the burning of fossil fuels because look at this bright, shiny object. We’ve got this vacuuming machine”.

Well, CO2 is 0.035% of the molecules in the air. You’re going to use an energy-intensive, ridiculous, expensive process to filter through the other 99.965% of the molecules? It’s absolutely preposterous.

In reality, the Sustainability Revolution is powering more and more of our global economy. It has the scale and impact of the Industrial Revolution and is moving at the pace of the Digital Revolution.

By the way, in Texas, which used to have a free market for energy, more than 90% of all their new electricity generation last year was solar and wind. And, you know, they’ve got captured politicians there. 

They’re pushing legislation in Texas to legally require any developers of solar and wind to spend time and money developing more oil and gas before they’re given permission to develop renewables.

That’s not realism, that’s pathetic.

That is a sign of desperation.

They don’t trust the free market. They’re just relying more and more on the politicians who will jump when they tell them to jump and ask how high when they tell them to jump again.

So, around the world, the market is transforming. Since the Paris Agreement, the cost of solar has dropped 76%. The cost of wind is down 66%. The cost of utility-scale batteries is down 87%.

In 2004, when Generation was founded, it took a full year for the world to install one gigawatt of solar power. Now it takes one day to install that.

And it’s not just renewables. We’re seeing the Sustainability Revolution rapidly take hold across the rest of the global economy from transportation, to regenerative agriculture, to circular manufacturing, and so much more.

So, as we gather here to kick off Climate Week and as we gather on the eve of Earth Day, we have to treat this moment as a call to action. So, I’m here not only to respond to the invitation for which I’m grateful… I’m here to recruit you.

Many of you are already working on this, but those of you who are not, I’m here to recruit you. We need you. This is the time and this is a break glass moment. This is an all hands on deck moment.

Now is the time to look at every aspect of your businesses, your investments, and your civic engagement to determine whether or not you can contribute even more to solving the climate crisis.

It’s easy to adopt our own versions of climate realism to say the challenge is too great. Some people worry about that. To say that our individual role is too small to have an impact. Some use that as an excuse: if the government won’t act, what can any of us do about it?

Well, just as the climate crisis does not recognise borders, it does not either recognise delineations between the duty of government and businesses and all significant participants in the global economy.

Climate change is already affecting your life and work and will more so through disrupted supply chains, increased liability, changes in consumer demand, and more.

This is a moment when we all have to mobilise to defend our country. And remember, the antidote to climate despair is climate action. It was in this city in the 1960s that Joan Baez first said that the antidote to despair is action. And we need to remember that now.

And during a time when people were tempted to despair in the struggle for civil rights in this country, Martin Luther King said something about overcoming the forces that try to discourage you and halt progress. He said this: “If you can’t fly, run. If you can’t run, walk. If you can’t walk, crawl. But by all means, keep moving.”

And that’s where we are.

Every one of the morally based movements in the past had periods when advocates felt despair. But when the central choice was revealed as a choice between right and wrong, then the outcome at a very deep level became foreordained.

Because of the way Pope Francis reminded us we have been created as God’s children.

We love our families.

We are devoted to our communities.

We have to protect our future.

And if you doubt for one moment ever that we as human beings have the capacity to muster sufficient political will to solve this crisis, just remember that political will is itself a renewable resource.”

Links

• Al Gore: Action on climate is 'unstoppable', despite recent shifts in US policy
• Scientist raises questions about Al Gore-founded global climate pollution database 
• Al Gore Knew Stopping Climate Change Would Be Hard—But Not This Hard 
• Why Al Gore Is Shifting His Climate Activism Abroad 
• We'll stop climate change, but 'how soon' is the life-and-death question - Al Gore 
• The amazing impact of Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project

Five priorities for the next parliament if we want a liveable Australia

The Australia Institute - Polly Hemming

Climate and nature crises won’t pause while politics plays out.

The environment doesn’t care who’s in government — but Australians should. If we want to avoid catastrophic climate and biodiversity collapse, the next parliament has a clear path forward.

Here are five urgent, evidence-based actions ready to go.

1. No new fossil fuel projects

Australia’s fossil fuel projects are already contributing to climate change. New projects will add to the impact.

Every new fossil fuel project locks in emissions for decades. Every year we delay deeper cuts, we shrink our chances of a liveable future.

Australian governments continue to approve coal and gas developments, and there are around 100 more ‘under development’ according to government sources.

Australia does not need to approve new gas and coal projects for energy. In fact, most of Australia’s gas and coal is exported to other countries. But no matter where in the world it is burned, it still contributes to the climate change Australians want to avoid.

Despite the narrative that the fossil fuel industry is critical to the Australian economy, it actually contributes very little in terms of revenue and employment and is heavily subsidised. In 2024–25, Australian governments provided $14.9 billion worth of spending and tax breaks to assist fossil fuel producers and major users. This is money that could be spent on health, education, and clean energy.

To put it simply, the fossil fuel industry’s political influence in Australia is far greater than its economic significance.

New fossil fuel projects exist only on paper. Ending approvals now would be no different to past decisions Australia has made to ban harmful industries like asbestos, whaling, and engineered stone — clear steps to stop known damage before it grows worse.

2. Treat environmental protection as national security issue – because it is

Biodiversity loss is a global crisis comparable to climate change in its severity.

Australia has a particularly poor track record of safeguarding biodiversity. Invasive species, land clearing and climate change have resulted in substantial habitat loss.

The cost of restoring and protecting the environment has been estimated at $1–2 billion a year, with one estimate placing it as high as $16 billion a year for extensive restoration of bushfire-damaged areas.

To be clear, this is not a lot. The Australian Government arbitrarily allocates over 2% of Australia’s GDP to defence spending as a ‘policy target’, receiving record funding of AU$55.7 billion in 2024–25. This is an arbitrary spending choice driven by political preference, not need.

A safe environment is critical to human health. It is a national security issue — there is a far stronger argument for spending billions of dollars on it than war toys. As former Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg noted, “Everything is affordable if it’s a priority.”

Australia does not need complicated, flawed market-based systems to address biodiversity loss. Direct, sustained funding — investing straight into farmers, Traditional Owners, and communities — is faster, fairer, more effective, and delivers real economic returns.

Other countries, such as Costa Rica, New Zealand, and Germany, have shown that direct investment models work. Australia has had successes in Landcare, Indigenous ranger programs, and targeted bushfire recovery funding,  demonstrating that when public investment is sufficient and sustained at a national scale, the environmental returns are real and lasting.

3. End native forest logging

Despite widespread public opposition and a collapsing economic case, native forest logging still continues across parts of Australia. Each year, tens of thousands of hectares of native forest are logged, with operations still active in New South Wales, Tasmania, and on private land in Victoria — often under outdated agreements that prioritise extraction over conservation.

Protecting our native forests can play a very significant role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and protecting critically endangered species like the Leadbeater’s Possum, Greater Glider, Swift Parrot and koalas.

The logging industry is not bound by Australia’s environment protection laws and can clearfell publicly owned native forests without even having to comply with Australia’s national environment legislation, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC Act).

Polling by The Australia Institute shows that seven in ten Australians (69%) support an end to native forest logging on public land across Australia.

The native forest logging industry has collapsed in most Australian states. Where it survives, it is kept afloat by government subsidies. It now costs more to keep the native forest logging industry alive than it would to end it — despite the benefits that ending it would deliver.

The federal government has the power to intervene by applying national environment laws, removing exemptions under the EPBC Act, or refusing export approvals for native forest products. The tools are already there — it’s a choice not to use them.

4. End the free ride for polluters

Polluters — particularly fossil fuel companies and industries driving deforestation, industrial agriculture, and mining — are directly responsible for climate change, biodiversity loss, and negative health impacts.

At present, the cost of this damage is overwhelmingly paid by the public, not the industries responsible

The Australia Institute’s Climate of the Nation 2024 shows that Australians want greater accountability from the private sector, particularly when it comes to taking responsibility for environmental damage and making a fair economic contribution to Australia.

The “polluter-pays principle” is a concept of environmental law that requires the party responsible for producing pollution to bear the costs of the damage they cause. When properly implemented, it reduces pollution, incentivises cleaner practices, and raises public revenue to fund environmental and social programs. A vast majority of Australians (70%) support the implementation of a polluter-pays mechanism in Australia.

Australia’s own carbon price, introduced in 2012, raised around $6.6 billion in its first year and was projected to generate $24 billion over four years. The revenue was almost entirely recycled: over half funded direct payments and tax cuts for households, with additional support for business transition and clean energy investment.

Australian experts, including organisations like the Superpower Institute, have developed detailed models for updated carbon pricing that the next parliament could adopt. These proposals are designed to drive down emissions, raise revenue, and ensure that industries causing environmental harm contribute fairly to Australia’s future resilience.

5. Plan and build for a different Australia

Climate adaptation — preparing for and managing the unavoidable impacts of climate change — is no longer optional. Even if emissions were cut to zero tomorrow, decades of accumulated global warming are already locked into the system, driving more extreme weather, biodiversity loss, inequality and public health threats.

Adaptation funding is a core responsibility of good governance, and essential if communities, economies, and ecosystems are to be protected in a warming world.

Australian governments have recognised the need for climate adaptation in principle for over a decade — but in practice, adaptation has been fragmented, underfunded, reactive, and inconsistent across levels of government.

Fifty per cent of Australians think the Australian Government is not doing enough to prepare for and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

A basic first step would be to release the 2023 Office of National Intelligence Climate Risk Assessment report — Australia’s own classified advice on the external risks of climate change. 

It’s been two years. Australians deserve to know the facts and understand the scale of the threat to their security.

Other countries offer clear models Australia could follow. 

• The Netherlands has built world-leading flood defences and long-term adaptive water management strategies. 
• New Zealand’s National Adaptation Plan sets clear risk priorities and actions across sectors. 
• Denmark has integrated climate adaptation into urban planning with green infrastructure to reduce flood risk. 

These examples show that serious, coordinated investment in resilience is possible — and that it pays off economically and socially.

Links

• Gas: The Facts
• Coalition for Climate Ambition
• Coal Mine Tracker
• Hunter Valley Mine Watch
• Gas & Coal Watch
• HeatWatch

As the world cooks, why have our political leaders gone cold on global warming?

Sydney Morning Herald - Nick O'Malley National Environment and Climate Editor

Pope Francis was entombed on Saturday in a simple wooden coffin in accordance with his wishes. He is remembered by millions as the “people’s Pope” after a lifetime of advocacy for the poor and disenfranchised.

In climate circles, Francis is remembered for Laudato Si, his second encyclical letter to the faithful, subtitled “On Care for Our Common Home”. It is a 184-page treatise lamenting climate change and the destruction of the earth and its environmental systems in support of reckless consumerism.

Illustration by Joe Benke

Its publication in 2015 helped secure the 2016 Paris Accord, signed by almost every nation on earth, which pledged to hold global warming to less than two degrees and as close as possible to 1.5 degrees. 

But it had other political impacts. It drove what is sometimes referred to as the “Francis effect” in the US, hardening the views of right-wing Catholics against his papacy, including his calls for climate action. 

Their support helped Donald Trump secure his second term, which he is using to dismantle climate action domestically and to disrupt it internationally.

An anti-Francis faction is now seeking to make the Vatican great again with a right-wing pope. 

“The hope is to have a pontificate that concentrates more on Catholic issues, such as pro-life and family, rather than climate change and immigration,” Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis, a German aristocrat and a prominent member of a right-wing push Europe and the US, told Politico this week.

Born in Argentina, Francis never returned to his country of origin throughout his papacy. 

Despite Francis’s climate advocacy, Argentina is now led by Javier Milei, a right-wing populist and climate sceptic who flirts with abandoning the Paris Accord.

On Monday, Canada reinstalled Mark Carney as prime minister. Carney is a former governor of the central banks of Canada and England, but in climate circles he is known for an address made at Lloyds of London in 2015, often referred to as his “tragedy of the horizon” speech.

The first action of the reinstalled Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney was to ditch the country’s carbon tax.
Credit: AP

He warned global financial institutions that climate change presented a real and overwhelming economic threat. 

Though its impacts would be most devastating to future generations, it could be addressed only by our own. This was the tragedy.

The speech is credited with catalysing a tectonic shift in the view of the financial sector to climate risk. 

Carney’s advocacy would later help secure the Glasgow Climate Pact at 2021 world climate talks, accelerating actions to achieve the Paris goals. 

Optimists believed that the financial sector’s engagement would serve as a bulwark against backsliding politicians. Banks, insurance companies and even the fossil fuel giants came on board with ambitious investment and emission reduction targets of their own.

But on becoming prime minister, Carney’s first act was to dump Canada’s unpopular carbon tax. 

“This will make a difference to hard-pressed Canadians, but it is part of a much bigger set of measures that this government is taking to ensure that we fight against climate change, that our companies are competitive, and the country moves forward,” he said. 

Even for Carney, the political reality trumped the climatic one.

So what happened?

Climate change was a preoccupation of the late Pope Francis. Credit: AP

In the years between Glasgow and Carney’s election, the world had taken a dark turn. 

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused an energy crisis. Europe, threatened with shortages, turned back to gas and coal. Global recovery from the economic crisis caused by COVID-19 supercharged emissions.

China, despite its staggering success in the vast deployment of renewables, stimulated industries that demanded steel, concrete and in turn, coal power.

While the wealth – and numbers – of billionaires exploded, middle classes were battered and populism surged. Conservative political movements surged, backed by fossil fuel lobbyists determined that their industry might extend its limited lifespan.

In Australia, the Coalition prepared for this weekend’s election by developing a policy to replace coal-fired power stations with nuclear, which it claims will allow it to meet mid-century Paris targets (but not interim targets Australia has agreed to), but which the Australian Climate Change Authority estimates will lead to an extra two billion tonnes of carbon emissions by prolonging the life of coal power. It’s a policy backed by Australian miners.

Writing in these pages earlier this year, Christopher Pyne praised Dutton’s nuclear gambit as ingenious, not because he believed that a nuclear power plant would ever be built in Australia – he doesn’t – and not because it will cut any emissions – it won’t – but because he had “united the Liberal party room” in support of it.

It is a “gem” of a policy, wrote Pyne, perhaps inadvertently highlighting the psychic difference between those who would govern, and those who are governed.

Labor has plans to replace coal power faster by accelerating the deployment of gas-backed renewables, batteries and hydro. But it, too, backs the expansion of Australian exports of fossil fuels. 

Like Carney’s Liberals, it is determined not to provide its opposition with an angle of attack. It has addressed the politics and fudged the physics.

Meanwhile, the terrible costs of climate change mount rapidly. 

The past 10 years are the hottest on record and the past two are the hottest of those. 

In Australia, the average temperature is already 1.5 degrees higher than it was in 1910. 

According to a study published by Nature, the economic impact of climate change between 2000 and 2019 totalled $US2.86 trillion, averaging $US143 billion annually.

In the face of the obvious and dangerous changes to their world, the overwhelming majority of people want more climate action, 89 per cent of them according to a new study published in Nature.

But the Australian election campaign, like the Canadian before it, and the US before that, shows that politicians understand that even if people want climate action, what they want first is relief to their immediate financial circumstances.

Even though they can see that the tragedy is deepening, and the horizon is shrinking.

Links

• Why Australia’s most prominent climate change deniers have stopped talking about the climate
• Climate change and the Federal Election: everything you need to know
• Our monumental moment: 10 practical policies to help the next Australian Government cut climate pollution
• Election Policy Scorecard: How do the biggest parties measure up on climate policy?
• Climate Crossroads: Progress, Politics and a Pivotal Election
• 2025 Australian federal election: experts explain the key issues

The Cities Climate Change Could Make Unliveable - Lethal Heating Editor BDA

Around the world, major cities are hurtling toward a future where soaring temperatures, rising seas, collapsing infrastructure, food shortages, and civil unrest could make daily life unrecognisable — or impossible.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned the Earth is heading towards increased temperatures of more than 3C.
This will have catastrophic effects for life on Earth.
The areas shown in red on the globe will become uninhabitable by 2100, because of extreme heat, rising seas or tropical cyclones.
The height of the red bars on the map show the current population now living in each of these future uninhabitable locations.

Cities Most at Risk
Some cities face extreme risks from rising seas, intense heat, flooding, and economic collapse. 

 

Risk Level	Cities
🔴 Critical Risk	Miami, New Orleans, Venice, Jakarta, Dhaka, Basra
🟠 High Risk	New York, Cairo, Lagos, Phoenix, Delhi, Houston
🟡 Moderate Risk	Los Angeles, Bangkok, Karachi, Manila, Buenos Aires

Legend

• 🔴 Critical Risk: Severe threats from rising seas, extreme heat, frequent flooding, civil unrest, or economic collapse.
• 🟠 High Risk: Major impacts highly likely without significant interventions.
• 🟡 Moderate Risk: Noticeable impacts increasing but still somewhat manageable in the short term.

Note: Climate risks are evolving rapidly, and city-specific vulnerabilities may increase with time if global emissions are not significantly reduced.

Coastal Cities Facing Rising Seas

In Miami, Florida, the threat isn’t a distant forecast. "Sunny day flooding," where tides swamp streets even without rain, is already a regular occurrence (Washington Post). Sea level rise, compounded by stronger hurricanes and a collapsing insurance market, could force an exodus from one of America's fastest-growing metro areas.

Across the Atlantic, Venice, Italy is fighting a losing battle against the water that made it famous. Despite the installation of a $6 billion flood barrier system known as MOSE, frequent high tides continue to inundate the city (Reuters).

Jakarta, Indonesia faces a twofold disaster: rising seas and a sinking city. Over-extraction of groundwater has caused Jakarta to subside by up to 10 centimeters a year (National Geographic).

Heatwaves, Water Shortages, and Economic Collapse

Inland, extreme heat is turning modern life into a survival challenge. In Phoenix, Arizona, 2023 set records with 31 consecutive days over 110°F (43°C) (New York Times).

Delhi, India is grappling with life-threatening temperatures that could soon reach "wet-bulb" conditions — combinations of heat and humidity fatal to humans without cooling (Smithsonian Magazine).

Water scarcity threatens political stability too. Cairo, Egypt is feeling the effects of a shrinking Nile River (Al-Monitor).

In Basra, Iraq, summers regularly top 120°F (49°C), while saltwater intrusion into the Shatt al-Arab River has poisoned farms and drinking water (Middle East Institute).

Flooding, Food Insecurity, and Civil Unrest

Dhaka, Bangladesh faces chronic flooding and dangerous heatwaves, making it one of the world’s most vulnerable megacities (Al Jazeera).

In Lagos, Nigeria, repeated flooding threatens homes, transportation, and food supply chains (The Conversation).

Even cities accustomed to rebuilding are stretched thin. Houston, Texas is facing climate-fueled hurricanes and rising insurance costs (Bloomberg).

 Conclusion: Early Warnings for the World

These cities are early warning systems. Climate change is not a slow, linear problem — it’s a force multiplier, accelerating financial collapse, humanitarian crises, and migration pressures. 

Without drastic global action to cut emissions and invest in adaptation, a future where millions are displaced by the collapse of once-great cities is not just likely. 

It's already starting.

Links

• Regional fact sheet - Australasia (pdf)
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Australia: Where do the major parties stand on climate change? Turns out they're worlds apart

ABC News - Climate Reporter Jo Lauder

 

Where do the major parties stand on climate change?

As the election campaign draws to a close, it's safe to say both major parties have been quiet on climate change.

Energy policies have featured prominently, which of course carry consequences for climate change, but beyond generalities, climate has been under-represented.

The last election was dubbed by many "the climate election", which saw the teal independents ride a wave of climate frustration into parliament, and a promise from Anthony Albanese to "end the climate wars".

Once again, the independents and Greens have been advocating for stronger climate action, and in the event that Australia has a minority government after May 3, climate change would be a key focus of any negotiations.

During its last term, Labor passed a number of significant reforms, especially focusing on speeding up the transition to renewables.

Many of these policies are under threat if the Coalition wins the next election, promising to scrap or weaken them significantly.

"They have rejected every single policy that's gone through the parliament that would improve tackling climate change. They've just rejected it," Climate Council CEO Amanda McKenzie said.

"There is not a single policy there to cut climate pollution. So what that says to me is they are hell bent on continuing the climate crisis getting worse and worse."

Tony Wood, the Grattan Institute's energy and climate director, said everything the Coalition announced so far would either slow down or curb emissions reduction.

"I think we're at one of those points where what happens at this election will have enormous consequences, not just for the energy system, but also for our emissions more generally."

The Coalition’s climate platform consists of using nuclear energy to decarbonise the electricity grid, despite its own modelling indicating it will result in higher emissions between now and when any reactors would come online.  

What has Labor done for the climate?

CEO of the Climate Council, Amanda McKenzie. (ABC News: Supplied)

Labor has made inroads in its last term of office on the regulatory and policy framework that could guide Australia's transition to a green economy, the often unsexy work of climate progress.

Some of the changes introduced under the last government include: new laws so that Australia's biggest corporations have to disclose their climate risk and actions; strengthening the regulation of Australia's biggest polluters; and introducing emissions standards for cars sold into the country.

At the same time, it continued to approve new coal and gas projects, disappointing climate advocates such as the Climate Council's CEO, Amanda McKenzie.

"It's sort of two sides of the one coin. You've got to grow the good stuff and you've got to stop the bad stuff. We've been doing a lot of the growing the good stuff," McKenzie said.

"We need to continue doing all the good stuff around the clean energy, but we need to work hard on replacing fossil fuels and exiting fossil fuels from our system much more quickly."

Climate policies matter because they send strong signals to investors and companies about the path Australia is on, and also offer the structure for how Australia could bring down emissions across the economy (whether they do lower emissions remains to be seen).

While most of the focus has been on energy in this election, these policies are firmly in the Coalition's crosshairs.

"This is a really interesting fork in the road. And I've never seen a situation where we've had such a divergence of proposals from the two sides of politics," Tony Wood said.

Cleaning up our transport emissions

Transport makes up more than 20 per cent of Australia's total emissions. (ABC News)

Last week, the opposition leader confirmed that if elected, he would end a popular tax break for electric cars aimed at reducing the cost of switching to electric.

The car industry told the ABC the policy has driven a spike in EV sales and reversing it would increase the cost for Australians of going electric. 

The benefit allows people to lease an electric car through a novated leasing arrangement without paying fringe benefits tax. It's intended to boost the number of electric cars coming into the second-hand market in a few years when the leases end.

Dutton has promised to scrap the penalties under the new fuel efficiency standards, weakening them significantly as there would be no consequences if car makers flout the rules.

Set to come into effect this July, the fuel efficiency standards ensure car makers supply Australia with more-efficient petrol cars and more hybrid and electric cars, which are cheaper to run and better for the climate.

Such regulations are standard in most countries around the world, with Russia being one of the only developed countries without one.

The policy works by setting an emissions limit for each manufacturer on all the cars it sells cars into the Australian market. It means the car companies can still sell any higher-polluting cars they want, but will have to offset them with more efficient models.

Car makers are only fined if they go over their cap for three consecutive years, but Dutton wants to scrap the penalties altogether.

"The policy that Dutton has proposed would totally undermine the new vehicle efficiency standards," the Climate Council's Amanda McKenzie said.

"That policy is intended to reduce climate pollution [by] more than 300 million tonnes. So that pollution would still [go] in the atmosphere."

Australia has been dubbed a "dumping ground" for inefficient cars that can't be sold elsewhere.

Transport now makes up almost 23 per cent of the country's emissions, and — with the exception of the pandemic — have continued to rise steadily as Australians opt to drive heavier, dirtier SUVs and fly more domestically.

The Greens helped pass the legislation last year, at the same time stating they hoped the pollution limits would be reduced further.

Standing with the world on climate targets

The climate pact aims to limit global temperature increase to well below 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels. (ABC News)

Australia has a target of a 43 per cent emissions cut by 2030, promised by Labor at the last election and legislated by parliament.

The Coalition is critical of Australia’s 2030 target. After statement made in an election debate by shadow minister for climate change and energy, Ted O’Brien, the Coalition had to clarify that it was still committed to the Paris Agreement.  

In a statement to the ABC, the Coalition campaign said it wouldn’t set any targets in opposition “but we will be required to do so in government” and cast doubt on Australia’s ability to hit the current 2030 target.

“The emissions reduction targets we set from government will consider the impact on the economy, the trajectory of emissions, and our own policies,” the statement read.

Trump 2.0 targets climate action President Donald Trump has wasted no time dismantling climate policies and promising a new era of fossil-fuel dominance.

Under the Paris Agreement, countries are meant to increase their ambition, not weaken policies, so it's unclear what the consequences would be if the Coalition watered down the targets.

"We think this is a really important election in terms of where it is in timing, because 2030 is very close for major investment. If we start veering off moving towards that target, it's really hard to get back on track," Grattan's Tony Wood said.

In the last term of parliament, the teal independents supported the government in passing its 43 per cent target, while at the same making it clear that they wanted it to be higher. Independents such as Monique Ryan, Zoe Daniel and David Pocock want to see a target of a 60 per cent emissions reduction by 2030.

The teal Independents have called for more ambitious climate targets. (Reuters: Simon Dawson)

The Greens want to see Australia adopt a 75 per cent target for 2030, which is what the Climate Council is advocating for.

In government, Labor held off announcing a 2035 target until it receives advice from the independent Climate Change Authority.

Swapping fossil fuels for clean energy

 

Renewable energy is rapidly increasing, with a pipeline of projects under construction. (ABC News)

Australia's 2030 climate target hangs on decarbonising the electricity sector first, which can then help other areas like transport and industry reduce their emissions.

Australia has a target of getting to 82 per cent renewable energy by the end of the decade. Currently, around 40 per cent of the electricity system is already renewable, and there is a pipeline of projects already under construction or in the planning stages.

The independent Climate Change Authority reported to the government last year that emissions need to start falling faster if Australia is to hit that 2030 target.  

Regardless, the Coalition’s plans to flood the market with gas, as it’s been described, and to also build taxpayer-funded nuclear power plants would both diminish renewables investment, according to energy experts.

Gas policy has devil in the detail President Donald Trump has wasted no time dismantling climate policies and promising a new era of fossil-fuel dominance.

Under the nuclear pathway, renewable energy would only supply around 54 per cent of Australia's energy mix, a small increase from the current 40 per cent.

"What the opposition has put together over the last few months has been a series of policies that would generate a very different mix of electricity generation," the Grattan Institute's Tony Wood said.

"In government, a Coalition government would slow down the move to renewables and the transmission that goes with that. It would extend the life of coal-fired power stations somewhat, and it would introduce more gas generation into the mix so that the system remains reliable until we then had nuclear."

According to the Clean Energy Council, capping renewables at 54 per cent would forego $58 billion of new private investment in large-scale solar and wind projects and Australia would reach the cap in another four years.

Director of the Energy Program at Grattan Institute, Tony Wood. (ABC News: Sean Warren)

"What's happening now is considerable uncertainty and flip-flopping is not good at all for investment," Wood said.

"We already know that the uncertainty around offshore wind and the uncertainty around some renewable projects has meant that people say, 'well, we better stop, right?'"

In its statement to the ABC, the Coalition referred to modelling from Frontier Economics that shows electricity sector emissions will be lower in the middle of the century.

“... emissions in the Coalition’s plan will drop below Labor’s before 2050, and will generate fewer emissions in 2050 and beyond.”

But because CO2 emissions remain in the atmosphere, overall, the modelling shows far higher cumulative emissions for the Coalition’s plan.

That modelling also only accounts for the electricity sector and assumes there's a slower uptake of other clean technologies and a smaller economy overall. 

The Climate Change Authority estimates a nuclear policy would add two billion tonnes of climate pollution by delaying the transition. The modelling that forms the basis of the Coalition plan also has much higher emissions.

Using 'green' money for more gas

 

The Coalition proposes to include gas projects in the Capital Investment Scheme. (ABC News)

The Coalition has focused on gas this election more than the nuclear policy it spent most of last year pitching to voters. In his budget reply speech, Peter Dutton promised to open up the Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS) to allow gas projects.

The CIS is a government program to boost renewables investment by underwriting major projects, taking some of the financial risk out for investors.

It applies to clean power generation (wind, solar) and storage and has so far secured 32 gigawatt of capacity by 2030.

This policy has allowed the government to secure renewable projects into the grid as the country's ageing coal power stations retire, and to plot a trajectory for how Australia's dirtiest sector — electricity — will reduce emissions.

Labor's plan for the electricity grid still involves some gas, and it has refused to address the issue of Australia's gas export industry despite calls from climate experts.

Holding the dirtiest 200 to account

 

The Safeguard Mechanism aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from Australia's largest industrial facilities. (ABC News)

The safeguard mechanism policy is the groaning machinery that underpins much of Australia's climate response, but thanks to its complexity, it is often overlooked and under-acknowledged.

First introduced under former Liberal prime minister Tony Abbott, it sets the rules for how much Australia's dirtiest facilities can pollute each year, and was reformed and strengthened in the last parliamentary term.

It covers just over 200 facilities across industries like mining, manufacturing, waste and gas, which account for almost a third of Australia's emissions.

"The safeguard mechanism is the only policy that we have that regulates fossil fuel pollution from industry. So it's a really important piece of our policy mix," the Climate Council's Amanda McKenzie said.

Each facility has its own cap for annual emissions, called a baseline, which decline at five per cent each year to 2030, plus there's an overall limit or "hard cap" on the emissions across all facilities.

Importantly, the safeguard is set in legislation, so while a sitting government can make some changes, there are fundamental tenets that can't be altered without a vote in parliament.

Australia's key climate policy faces an uncertain future Some business and climate groups have voiced their support for keeping one of the federal government's key climate policies in place, with the Coalition yet to commit to its future.

Last month, the AFR newspaper reported that a Coalition government would look at "relaxing" the mechanism, which it voted against strengthening in the last term of parliament.

Amanda McKenzie said the safeguard mechanism was already a flawed policy, allowing polluters to buy or trade offsets to meet their targets.

"It's not a strong enough policy … it includes offsets, which enable companies to have a get-out-of-jail-free card when we need genuine reductions in pollution. So what we'll be advocating for in the next term is to strengthen that piece of reform."

Data from the first year of the revamped safeguard mechanism has just been released and has found that 60 per cent of the facilities used offsets to meet their targets.

Plugging in our future energy system

 

Rewiring the Nation aims to modernise and upgrade Australia's electricity grid. (ABC News)

The Rewiring the Nation policy helps fund the construction of transmission lines needed to move renewable electricity around the system.

Transmission projects have become a sensitive topic politically, with some people in regional Australia, where most of these projects run, mounting opposition to them.

The Coalition latched onto these concerns, and said that its nuclear policy would alleviate the need for as many transmission projects as electricity generation would remain centralised at the existing coal power stations.

“Renewable energy deployment will still grow responsibly under the Coalition’s plan, but we will avoid the massive overbuild required for Labor’s plan,” the campaign told the ABC.

But energy expert Tony Wood says these projects will be needed before the Coalition's nuclear power stations would start running.

"They are becoming critical to maintaining the current reliability of the system," he said.

"As we find the coal-fired power stations becoming less reliable as they get older, the need to be able to move electricity between states when something does go wrong in one state becomes really important," Wood said.

"I think a Coalition government would be faced with some quite difficult challenges if they were to seriously try and slow down the building of some of those transmission lines."

The roll-out of transmission projects has sparked backlash in the regions. (Supplied: EnergyCo)

Wood says that Australia won't be able to connect enough renewables to meet its other targets without speeding up the transmission rollout.

"We haven't been building the necessary transmission to connect the expansion of renewable energy, wind farms, and solar farms, which have to be built in places we've never had generation before. So to connect those generators to the main grid needs more transmission."

What could happen to climate after the election

The world is already halfway through what climate experts call the critical decade. In Australia, there are several climate issues that are likely to be prominent in the next parliamentary term.

Labor dumped its plans to introduce a federal environmental protection agency before the election, and held off on proposing a climate trigger into the national environmental laws.

The election will have a significant impact on how Australia tackles climate change over the coming years.   (Supplied: Spyrakot)

Currently, major developments can be assessed and rejected if they impact the surrounding ecosystems, threatened species, waterways, but not if they have a significant climate impact.

"It's 2025 and we don't have any way of stopping projects on a climate basis," Amanda McKenzie said.

The Australia Conservation Foundation ranked the major parties and key independents on their climate and environment policies, and gave the Coalition just 1/100, while Labor was rated 54/100.

"Labor scored points for its work on the clean energy and clean manufacturing transition and its strong stance against costly, thirsty, risky nuclear power, but lost points for its commitment to expanding the climate-wrecking coal and gas industries," ACF lead Kelly O'Shannassy said.

If it wins, Labor wants to host the major UN climate conference next year alongside Pacific countries as host, which will ratchet up the pressure on Australia to outline its position on fossil fuels.

In a statement to the ABC, climate minister Chris Bowen said that acting on climate change is in the national interest, calling its reforms “overdue”.

“Australians don’t want to see more tired, frustrating climate wars, that only see us miss the economic opportunities of the global push towards Net Zero." 

How Australia faces the climate challenge over the next three years will be different depending on the outcome on May 3. If there is a hung parliament, climate policies will be a strong negotiating point with the teal independents and the Greens.

As Grattan's Tony Wood points out, three years is a long time in a world that's changing fast.

"If the current government was to be re-elected for another three-year term, that would almost make it impossible for the coalition's nuclear plan, as they've described it, to actually be implemented. It would be too late," Wood concluded.

"The renewables would be built. The transmission line, hopefully, would be built. The coal-fired power stations, some of them would have shut down. So this is a really interesting fork in the road."

Links

•  Australia's key climate policy faces an uncertain future
• Federal Coalition commits to dumping 2030 climate target as it pursues nuclear power
• What can we actually learn from the Coalition's nuclear power modelling?
• The world reaches a historic tipping point thanks to 'the most rapid change since the Industrial Revolution'
• How much Climate 200 has donated to 19 independents
• What do Labor, the Liberals, the Nationals and the Greens stand for?
• Find out how your views line up with the major parties with Vote Compass