Ian Dunlop

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.

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.

Climate tipping points in the Antarctica, the Arctic and the Amazon are at risk of being reached before or at the current level of global warming of 1.2 degrees Celsius, requiring a “major rethink” of global climate goals and the action necessary to achieve them, according to a recent report.

This extract examines the “net zero 2050” (NZ2050) scenarios produced by the central bankers’ Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) and finds they are not adequately addressing the real risks and uncertainties of climate change.

In Lewis Carroll’s words: “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”

But we do know: it is net-zero emissions by 2030, not 2050.