PLEA Network

12 November 2024, Pearls & Irritations: America first, Earth last: Australia’s security now needs a climate focus. There’s a new, stark reality we must face: Donald Trump’s victory will push the Earth system further down a perilous path towards three degrees Celsius of global warming or more, with catastrophic consequences for human civilisation and the environment. This moment requires clarity about the existential nature of the climate threat to humanity’s future; and a collective commitment to decisive action, because time has run out for slow, incremental policy change. With global leaders gathering at the 29th annual UN climate policy-making meeting in the petrostate of Azerbaijan, the born-again climate denialist President Trump will cast a long shadow over proceedings. His denialism will trigger others to do less. Trump will soon preside over the world’s leading fossil-fuel producing nation, and his stance on climate — to supercharge fossil fuel development, slash pollution regulations and pull out of the Paris Agreement — is the antithesis of what’s required. It will push up US emissions by four billion tons by 2030. His agenda absolves governments of climate responsibility, and is a direct assault on global efforts to prevent and mitigate the crisis. An informal alliance of climate-denying, politically authoritarian petrostates including the United States now looms. But effective climate action requires unprecedented global cooperation, rather than conflict, and courageous political leadership: a collective architecture for survival and the political architects who make it their primary purpose in public life. Climate is the biggest threat to Australians’ future, and security dependence on an alliance with a country whose government will be climate denialist, authoritarian and increasingly antidemocratic is a nostalgic illusion. Read more here