Australia is in peril. Do we truly grasp the impact of a warming planet – in particular, what it will mean for our sunburnt country? As temperatures rise, the climates of our capital cities will change. The sea will rise, and we will see increased fire and drought.
In this powerful essay, Joëlle Gergis, a leading climate scientist, depicts the likely future in vivid and credible detail. Working from the science, she discusses the world’s and Australia’s efforts to combat climate change. She outlines how far Australia is from keeping its promises to cut emissions. She takes aim at false solutions and the folly of ‘adaptation’ rather than curbing fossil fuel use. This is an essay about government paralysis and what is at stake for all of us. It’s about getting real, in the face of an unprecedented threat.
‘How many disasters does it take to wake people up to the fact that Australia’s climate is becoming more extreme, with today’s destruction set to be dwarfed by things to come? Do people realise that adapting to climate change won’t be possible in some parts of the country?’ Joëlle Gergis, Highway to Hell
This essay contains correspondence relating to Quarterly Essay 93 Bad Cop from Niki Savva, Thomas Mayo, Lachlan Harris, Mark Kenny, Robert Wood, Paul Strangio, and Lech Blaine
Sobre el autor
Joëlle Gergis is an award-winning climate scientist and writer. She served as a lead author for the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report and is the author of Humanity’s Moment: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Sunburnt Country: The history and future of climate change in Australia. Joëlle also contributed chapters to The Climate Book by Greta Thunberg, and Not Too Late: Changing the climate story from despair to possibility, edited by Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua.