Humanity stands at a fork in the road when it comes to dealing with the climate emergency and failure to act risks catastrophe.
Climate scientist and conservationist Professor Tim Flannery doesn't hold back in his latest book on climate change, The Climate Cure: Solving the Climate Emergency in the Era of Covid-19.
Named Australian of the Year in 2007 in recognition of his work in trying to combat climate change, he notes that since then humans have emitted about a quarter of all the greenhouse gases ever.
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The book urges Australia's government, and governments around the globe, to take the lessons learned and successes gained from the Covid-19 pandemic and apply them to action on climate change.
“Climate change is very, very similar, the problems we face today have their roots in greenhouse gases that were released 20, 30 years’ ago, so there is a lag time,” he told Nine to Noon.
The Australian government’s response to Covid was swift and guided by science, he says.
"Come the middle of March, when infections were doubling every four days, the government finally acted, and acted decisively and we avoided a catastrophic first wave of Covid.
“Well climate change is a bit like that we’re now at that crossroads where either we act now, or we delay yet again, and then we will face unavoidable catastrophe because the climate system is a bit like Covid, it can get out of control.”
At the time when the government was listening to science and acting with urgency on the pandemic it was dragging its feet on the greater threat of climate change, he says.
“This is truly extraordinary because our government declared a pandemic in Australia 12 days before WHO (World Health Organisation) did, we stopped flights from China in late February, it was one of the first nations on the planet to do that. So those early actions set us up very well to deal with the problem.
“But at the same time that was happening, we’d just come through a catastrophic bushfire season where ten times more forest burnt than it had at any point in Australia’s past.”
While state governments are acting there remains a lack of urgency at the Federal level, Flannery says.
“In New South Wales the conservative government just laid out a $A32 billion investment plan for clean energy which was supported by the far right, by the National Party as well as by the opposition Labor Party.
“So, we know that these things are popular we know they have to be done, and yet we still cannot get movement at the federal level in Australia.
“There are probably 25 climate sceptics in the conservative party who are holding a nation of 25 million to ransom.”
A gas-fired Covid recovery is being pursued in Australia, despite the need to reverse emissions.
“We are at a point where we know we cannot afford to release more greenhouse gases. We are at a very serious risk of tipping over into an irretrievable and unstable climatic state.
“We’ve invested nearly $80 billion in gas over the last decade.”
Australia is a resource economy and yet “exquisitely vulnerable” to climate change.
“For us it is a really pointed decision, very difficult, we are almost emblematic of the world’s situation as a whole.”
He believes lessons from the response to Covid are cause for optimism on climate change.
“This nation of ours we have had a literal baptism of fire with these mega-fires that we saw over the black summer.
“We’ve got to shift pretty quickly from dependence upon greenhouse gas exports to something much, much cleaner.
"We can do that we know the pathway is there. But we do need to make that sacrifice we do need to get on that pathway otherwise I really fear for the future of my country.”
The problem is still solvable, he believes.
“We know if we burn 8 percent less a year for the next decade we will be well on the way to a cure, so that’s the first action.
“It’s hard, a bit like a lockdown, but it pays off.”
Australia must also build capacity to deal with the problems it faces now, he says, through heatwave deaths and bush fire smoke inhalation, he says.
The third piece in the puzzle is the search for a kind of climate vaccine.
“We have to look for the equivalent of a vaccine.
“A search for drawdown; so as David Attenborough said we have to strengthen the natural systems of our planet, we have to protect our forests and our oceans, let the trees grow and soak up the carbon.
“We have to look at ways of capturing carbon out of the air and putting it into the earth’s crust.”
He remains hopeful that the world is finally waking up to the catastrophe it faces.
“For a number of reasons I’m hopeful. I do see this global shift in the corporate world, in the government, we are seeing renewed action
“We will really know next year at that Glasgow (COP26) meeting if by that stage we are all lined up to start cutting those emissions by 8 percent a year and start investing in adaptation.
“But everything hangs in the balance right now, the government needs to put this front and centre as business does because we are out of time.”
