CSIRO reminds our leaders that it’s the climate science that counts

When federal energy and climate minister Chris Bowen did the breakfast TV and radio rounds on the morning that Labor’s historic Climate Change Bill was introduced to Parliament, the Seven Network’s Sunrise program was on the list.

Bowen told host David Koch that it was “an important bill… it enshrines our climate change reduction, our emissions reduction targets, our climate change targets in law, which is really important.”

And he noted that the Bill commits the government to produce an annual report on its progress on meeting the target of a 43% reduction on emissions from 2005 levels and what more it needs to do into the future.

“We want to hold ourselves and future governments to account,” Bowen said.

“Okay,” says Kochie. “So if you don’t get it, are you told you’ve been a very naughty boy or are there penalties or what happens?”

It’s a fair, if annoyingly phrased question. And while Bowen did his best to answer it while staying on message – something about voters and investors holding the government to account – he missed a golden opportunity to get to the nub of the issue.

What will happen if countries like Australia – economically and politically stable, spoiled for resources, punching above its weight in scientific R&D – miss their not-even-properly-Paris-aligned climate targets is more of the same, only much faster and much, much worse.

More floods, more fires, longer and more extreme droughts, more global food shortages, more deadly heatwaves, more frequent and devastating consequences of increasingly dangerous climate change.

As it happens, this is the clear message from another important Australian document that also made its public debut on Wednesday: the CSIRO’s once-in-a-decade Our Future World report that identifies seven global “megatrends” shaping the challenges and opportunities for the coming 20 years.

This time around, the number one megatrend on the list compiled by Australia’s premier science agency is, terrifyingly, “Adapting to a changing climate” – not climate action, but adaptation. Get used to it, because it’s already happening.

“Extreme and unprecedented weather events are increasing in their frequency and scale of impact,” the report says.

“Current climate forecasts predict that we are likely to experience extreme weather conditions that exceed the bounds of historical norms and concurrent climate hazards are likely to compound the overall climate risk for sectors and regions.

“Adapting the healthcare system, critical infrastructure and settlement patterns to climate change and extreme weather conditions will become a growing reality for many countries in the years and decades to come.

“This megatrend speaks to the new ways of operating that organisations and communities will need to adapt to in the face of a changing climate.”

Grim.

Thankfully there is hope, too. CSIRO’s megatrend number two – “Leaner, cleaner and greener” – is all about the “cutting-edge innovations that aim to do more with less, achieve carbon neutrality, reduce biodiversity loss and address the global waste challenge.”

This megatrend, says the report, “explores the opportunities pushing us towards a more sustainable horizon and the importance of science, technology and innovation in helping organisations to operate within much tighter envelopes.”

And the tightest envelope of all is the global carbon budget. If we can’t slash emissions fast enough and deep enough with all of the tools we already have at hand to avert dangerous, irreversible climate change, then not much of anything else matters.

“Australia is at a pivotal point,” says CSIRO chief Dr Larry Marshall. “There is a tidal wave of disruption on the way, and it’s critical we take steps now to get ahead of it.

“But these challenges also tell us where the most powerful innovation can be found, when we see a different future and leverage science to create it,” he adds.

“Australia has the highest wind and solar capacity of any developed nation and a wealth of critical energy minerals – we can be a leader in feeding the world’s hunger for clean energy.”

Labor and Bowen do a good job of talking up the undoubtedly enormous opportunities available to Australia in the shift to net-zero emissions.

But they would do well to remind themselves and the electorate – and Kochie – about why we’re setting these science-based targets in the first place. And that the consequences of missing them don’t bear thinking about.