Speaker 1: From Schwartz Media. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven AM.
Speaker 1: Cyclone Alfred should never have tracked as far south as
Speaker 1: it did, yet in March it tore through Brisbane, the
Speaker 1: Gold Coast and the Northern Rivers, affecting four million people.
Speaker 1: One of them was climate scientist and IPCC lead author
Speaker 1: Joel Gurgis. She says the storm's freak southward drift, driven
Speaker 1: by record warm oceans, shows the climate crisis is outrunning
Speaker 1: politics today. Joel Gergis on how far governments have fallen
Speaker 1: behind their climate promises and the bold action Australia must
Speaker 1: take before the next disaster strikes. It's Thursday, June twenty six,
Speaker 1: so Joel, welcome back to seven am.
Speaker 2: Hi Ruby, it's nice to talk to you.
Speaker 1: Likewise as we speak, Joel, though, you are, I believe
Speaker 1: having repairs done on your house after Cyclone Alfred hit
Speaker 1: back in March, So could you take me back to
Speaker 1: that time. It must have been a scary moment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it sure was.
Speaker 2: I mean I live in northern New South Wales, which
Speaker 2: is well outside of the usual tropical cyclone built and
Speaker 2: it's really really rare to have a Category two system
Speaker 2: drifts so far outside of the tropics, and I actually
Speaker 2: had to look up Queensland government websites for information on
Speaker 2: how to prepare for approaching cyclone as we don't usually
Speaker 2: get these systems so far south. And as a scientist,
Speaker 2: it's really really disturbing to understand that the world as
Speaker 2: we know it's really starting to change in ways that
Speaker 2: really now feel really dangerous, and it's like life as
Speaker 2: we know it is slipping away, and yet most people
Speaker 2: don't realize it until it literally crashes through your own
Speaker 2: front door.
Speaker 1: And so your house, would I be right in saying
Speaker 1: then it would not have necessarily been built to withstand
Speaker 1: this kind of storm.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So areas north of around Bunderberg in Queensland are
Speaker 2: built to withstand cyclones. So while areas that are located
Speaker 2: further south still need to be able to handle strong winds,
Speaker 2: they aren't built to the same standards of those in
Speaker 2: places like northern Queensland where cyclones are a known risk.
Speaker 2: So we ended up having to board up all of
Speaker 2: our east facing windows with thick plywood as the glass
Speaker 2: was starting to flex in the really strong winds as
Speaker 2: a cyclone approached. It was terrifying.
Speaker 3: A very good morning you all across Australia.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the special edition of Weekend Today, live from
Speaker 1: southeast Queensland, where cyclone Alfred has started to make.
Speaker 2: Land Luckily, the category two system weakened before it made landfall,
Speaker 2: as we go to where it has now dropped it
Speaker 2: to a category one and it's right now over Morton.
Speaker 1: Bay, fifty five kilometers northeast of Brisbane and heading towards
Speaker 1: Briby Island.
Speaker 2: But because it was really slow moving, the coat was
Speaker 2: really relentlessly battered by destructive winds and waves and really
Speaker 2: heavy rainfall for nearly a week. And the beaches are
Speaker 2: a mess around here, and so many large habitat trees
Speaker 2: which is really important for wildlife, actually came down in
Speaker 2: the storm and it's going to take years for the
Speaker 2: landscape to recover. And as you might imagine, these sustained
Speaker 2: strong winds brought down power lines, huge trees fell onto
Speaker 2: people's properties, including my neighbor across the road, and water
Speaker 2: just blew into every single tiny gap in the windows,
Speaker 2: seals or in the roof, I mean our roof fleeked,
Speaker 2: and the damage in the ceiling of the room that
Speaker 2: I'm talking to you in right now it's still under repair,
Speaker 2: and as you might imagine, it's been a total nightmare.
Speaker 2: But I'm not alone. I mean, there are around four
Speaker 2: million people that were affected by Cyclone Alfred, and so
Speaker 2: many people are still battling it out with their insurance
Speaker 2: companies to get started on their repairs. Yeah, so it's
Speaker 2: been a really tough time.
Speaker 1: So tell me more about the reasons that we are
Speaker 1: seeing cyclones drifting further south like this, and as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: staying in the area longer.
Speaker 2: What we saw with Cyclone Alfred is really consistent with
Speaker 2: what we expect as the planet continues to warm, so
Speaker 2: as ocean temperatures get hot, our tropical cyclones will begin
Speaker 2: to drift further south of these historically defined cyclone zones.
Speaker 2: And that's exactly what we saw. And while most people
Speaker 2: understand that, you know, when we burn greenhouse gases, that
Speaker 2: extra heat gets trapped in the atmosphere, not everyone really
Speaker 2: appreciates that the majority of the heat is actually absorbed
Speaker 2: by the ocean. And in twenty twenty four, which was
Speaker 2: the world's warmest year on record and global temperatures reached
Speaker 2: one point six degrees above free industrial levels, we saw
Speaker 2: extraordinary heat observed through the global oceans. So in the
Speaker 2: Coral Sea where Alfred actually began its life, that area
Speaker 2: actually recorded its warmest summer on record, and ocean temperatures
Speaker 2: are around about a degree warmer than average. And so
Speaker 2: while the damage was extensive, I really do think it
Speaker 2: could have been a lot worse than It's probably a
Speaker 2: matter of time until it is, so I see it
Speaker 2: really as a preview of what's to come as the
Speaker 2: planet continues to.
Speaker 1: Warm, and what other dama are we seeing as oceans
Speaker 1: get warmer.
Speaker 2: Since twenty twenty three, we've actually seen a mass coral
Speaker 2: bleaching event that's damaged eighty four percent of the world's
Speaker 2: coral reefs.
Speaker 3: Once vibrant coral reefs have lost their colors in what
Speaker 3: scientists say is part of the worst global bleaching event
Speaker 3: on record.
Speaker 2: So that's a really hard number to get your head around,
Speaker 2: and it's catastrophic.
Speaker 3: Impacting more than eighty countries and territories.
Speaker 2: Here in Australia, the Ningalu Coast, it's a World Heritage
Speaker 2: area in northwestern Australia which is known for its pristine beauty.
Speaker 2: It's quite a remote area and that area this summer
Speaker 2: succumbed to the worst coral bleaching in its history, and
Speaker 2: researchers who are working in the area had sort of
Speaker 2: seen Ningolo as a bit of a hope spot because
Speaker 2: of its unexpected resilience to marine heat waves. And actually
Speaker 2: when they went down and did their underwater surveys, the
Speaker 2: reports of people emerging from the water bailing their eyes out,
Speaker 2: And I really do understand this feeling. It's truly heartbreaking
Speaker 2: to be living through this era of irreversible destruction, particularly
Speaker 2: when we know there are things we can do to
Speaker 2: minimize the damage. And really, until the Albanezy government introduces
Speaker 2: nature laws that effectively criminalize the fossil fuel industry's continued
Speaker 2: desecration of country, we will lose more and more of
Speaker 2: our precious places, even in the most remote last as
Speaker 2: the last refuges like Ningaloo.
Speaker 1: After the break? What John Howard and the Labor Party
Speaker 1: have in common when it comes to fighting climate change? Joelle,
Speaker 1: Let's talk more about the Labor government. They're well into
Speaker 1: their second term now, so how would you assess its
Speaker 1: approach to addressing the climate crisis.
Speaker 2: Look, I feel like Labor is in a really conflicted position.
Speaker 2: They want to be seen to be doing something about
Speaker 2: climate change, but they don't really want to address the
Speaker 2: cause of the problem, which is the burning of fossil fuels.
Speaker 2: And the truth is is that Labour's now approved twenty
Speaker 2: seven fossil fuel projects since it was first to lect
Speaker 2: did in twenty twenty two. And as we all saw recently,
Speaker 2: the first act of the newly appointed Environmental Minister Murray
Speaker 2: Watt was to conditionally approve the extension of operations of
Speaker 2: Australia's largest oil and gas production area off the Kimberley
Speaker 2: Coast from twenty thirty out to twenty seventy. The upgrading
Speaker 2: of Woodside Energy's Northwest Shelf gas processing plant, which isn't
Speaker 2: too far from Ningaloo, paves the way for the development
Speaker 2: of other fossil fuel projects off the remote Kimberley Coast.
Speaker 2: So although governments like to claim the moral high ground
Speaker 2: on its sort of climate credentials, talking up its commitment
Speaker 2: to renewable energy and green manufacturing, the Woodside decision is
Speaker 2: proof of Labour's allegiance to fossil fuel companies until the
Speaker 2: bitter end, and unfortunately it's entirely inconsistent with what the
Speaker 2: science says we need to do to stabilize the Earth's
Speaker 2: climate to really try and minimize the harm to human
Speaker 2: societies and ecosystems. So, no matter how people want to
Speaker 2: rationalize it, the physics doesn't actually care about politics. These
Speaker 2: changes are going to play out whether or not we
Speaker 2: understand the science of climate change. And the fact is
Speaker 2: that every ton of carbon, no matter where it's burnt,
Speaker 2: will remain in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, and
Speaker 2: that locks in higher levels of global warming that will
Speaker 2: commit the world to irreversible changes and really stretch the
Speaker 2: limits of human adaptation.
Speaker 1: Let's talk a bit more about the science, because according
Speaker 1: to the government, Australia is on track to reach its
Speaker 1: Paris targets. And the official data shows that Australia's emissions
Speaker 1: have been dropping since two thousand and five and in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four were twenty seven percent below two thousand
Speaker 1: and five levels. So are we on track in that regard?
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a really interesting question. I mean, the
Speaker 2: Australian government has a long history of relying heavily on
Speaker 2: the land sector to demonstrate progress towards reducing emissions, but
Speaker 2: at the same time they're continuing to export vast amounts
Speaker 2: of coal and gas to the rest of the world,
Speaker 2: and so it's a John Howard era approach to reducing emissions.
Speaker 2: It's true the latest greenhouse gas emissions figures for December
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four, that quarter, it shows that Australia's emissions
Speaker 2: are still increasing despite this reported overall decline of twenty
Speaker 2: seven percent since two thousand and five. But if you
Speaker 2: drill down a bit further, these figures rely heavily on
Speaker 2: low integrity carbon credits that underpin the government's Safeguard Mechanism
Speaker 2: offset scheme. So by planting some trees or avoiding deforestation,
Speaker 2: the government claims that we're more than halfway to reaching
Speaker 2: that forty three percent reduction that's needed by twenty thirty.
Speaker 2: But when you remove the inflated contribution of the land
Speaker 2: sector and just count actual emission reductions across all polluting sectors,
Speaker 2: Australia's emissions have only fallen by two point eight percent
Speaker 2: since two thousand and five. So obviously this falls well
Speaker 2: short of meeting the government's legislative target of forty three
Speaker 2: percent reduction that we need by twenty thirty. But essentially
Speaker 2: the Safeguard mechanism allows our largest industrial polluters to buy
Speaker 2: these carbon credits to balance out their emissions instead of
Speaker 2: actually requiring them to reduce the huge volume of carbon
Speaker 2: they're dumping into the atmosphere for free. And actually, when
Speaker 2: we look back to the global stock take which was
Speaker 2: conducted at COP twenty eight, it showed that current policies
Speaker 2: are on track to reduce emissions by just two percent,
Speaker 2: not that forty three percent that is needed by twenty thirty.
Speaker 2: And the reason why we're collectively failing is because governments
Speaker 2: like Australia have policy loopholes that allow this to continue.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned that you would like to see the
Speaker 1: Albanezy government introduce laws that criminalize the fossil fuel industry
Speaker 1: in cases where it causes damage to the country. So
Speaker 1: tell me more about what that would look like.
Speaker 2: Look, I think it's a very simple concept of polluter pays.
Speaker 2: The basics are that eighty percent of emissions come from
Speaker 2: the burning of coal, oil and gas, and the remaining
Speaker 2: twenty percent comes from changes in land use, so things
Speaker 2: like deforestation. So until we get to the root cause
Speaker 2: of the problem, we're going to continue to see the
Speaker 2: problem get much worse and the fossil fuel industry and
Speaker 2: countries like Australia particularly are gambling heavily on carbon capture
Speaker 2: and storage to work. But when you actually look at
Speaker 2: the detail around that, organizations like the United Nations Environment
Speaker 2: Program have reported that around eighty percent of CCS projects
Speaker 2: over the past thirty years have failed, and currently operational
Speaker 2: CCS plants can only offset around about zero point one
Speaker 2: to two percent of global carbon emissions. That's one tenth
Speaker 2: of one percent of global emissions. So operations would need
Speaker 2: to be scaled up roughly eight hundred times to offset
Speaker 2: current global emissions. So I really see this as just
Speaker 2: another delay tactic to keep the fossil fuel industry alive
Speaker 2: for longer. And as I mentioned those fundamentals is that
Speaker 2: it's the burning of fossil fuels that is continuing to
Speaker 2: warm our planet. So until we address that root cause
Speaker 2: of the problem, things are going to get worse. If
Speaker 2: you do look at what is happening globally, the world's
Speaker 2: consumption of fossil fuels climbed to a record high last year.
Speaker 2: We have Trump calling to boost oil drilling even more
Speaker 2: now with what's happening in a run, So does it
Speaker 2: feel to you like the global moment for change where
Speaker 2: there was any form of consensus on acting on climate change,
Speaker 2: that that moment has passed us by. Look, it's certainly
Speaker 2: a grim time. I'm not going to lie to you.
Speaker 2: It is a moment where it's complex. But when we
Speaker 2: stop and we zoom out, I mean, human history is
Speaker 2: littered with walls and unrest and this is probably going
Speaker 2: to go on until the end of time. But the
Speaker 2: world scientific community has been warning for years that high
Speaker 2: levels of global warming are going to make life intolerable
Speaker 2: for people and ecosystems. The world has already warmed by
Speaker 2: one point two degrees since pre industrial times, and current
Speaker 2: policies have us on track for essentially three times that
Speaker 2: warming by the end of this century. And I actually
Speaker 2: think it's really hard for people to truly comprehend upon us.
Speaker 2: One of the key conclusions from the IPCC six Assessment
Speaker 2: report is that every fraction of a degree matters, And
Speaker 2: just because we're currently off track to achieve the goals
Speaker 2: of the Paris Agreements to limit warming to under two degrees,
Speaker 2: it doesn't mean that we abandon these goals. In fact,
Speaker 2: we really need to redouble our effort and our resolve
Speaker 2: and given that everything that's at stake, giving up really
Speaker 2: isn't an option, even though the situation often feels really futile,
Speaker 2: because the truth is is that we know what we
Speaker 2: need to do and we just have to have the
Speaker 2: political courage to do it. I read a really nice
Speaker 2: piece by Western Australian writer Tim Winton and he said
Speaker 2: that the science is clear on this and the morality
Speaker 2: should be too, And I really do think it's as
Speaker 2: simple as that.
Speaker 1: Joel. Thank you so much for your time today. Thanks Ruby.
Speaker 1: Also in the news today, more than one hundred Australians
Speaker 1: have been airlifted out of Israel aboard an Australian military
Speaker 1: jet after the country's airspace was opened amid a cease
Speaker 1: fire between Iran and Israel. Treasurer Jim Chalmers says there
Speaker 1: are still thousands of Australian citizens who have registered to
Speaker 1: evacuate Iran and Israel, and that the Department of Foreign
Speaker 1: Affairs and Military are working to ensure that they can
Speaker 1: be safely removed from the danger zone. And journalist Antonettatoff
Speaker 1: has been awarded at least seventy thousand dollars after the
Speaker 1: Federal Court found that she was unlawfully terminated by the
Speaker 1: ABC amid complaints about her views on Gaza. The court
Speaker 1: found the broadcaster contravened the Fair Work Act by terminating
Speaker 1: her employment as a casual broadcaster for ABC Radio Sydney
Speaker 1: for reasons including that she held a political opinion opposing
Speaker 1: Israel's military campaign. A further hearing has been ordered to
Speaker 1: determine if the ABC should pay any additional financial penalty
Speaker 1: under the Fair Work Act. I'm Ruby Jones. This is
Speaker 1: seven AM. Thanks for listing h