David Spratt

Whilst the global impact of climate disruption is rapidly accelerating, and the last, record-breaking year has been extraordinary, public concern in Australia about it is waning, and the government bears much of the responsibility.

So is the climate system, for all practical purposes, now close to a 1.5°C trend?  If CMIP6 is to be taken at face value, the answer is yes. And the data now seems consistent with those models.

The heat and extreme climate records of 2023 shocked scientists. So where are we heading? Given current trends, the world will zoom past 2°C of warming and the Paris climate goal of limiting warming to 1.5-2°C.

With devastating extreme heat and storms and floods, 2023 was the first year 1.5°C warmer than the 1850-1900 baseline, and both Antarctic sea-ice loss and record northern hemisphere sea-surface temperatures were way beyond the ranges projected by climate models.

What credence should be given to the most recent summary report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)? To do that, you need to separate the science from the politics that pervades the IPCC processes.

In summary, emissions still have not peaked and are unlikely to be significantly lower in 2030 than 2020; warming of 1.5°C is likely this decade; and the emissions trend and reduction commitments are currently nowhere near keeping warming to 2°C.