Writer
David Spratt
David Spratt has been Research Coordinator for the Breakthrough National Centre for Climate Restoration (Melbourne) since 2014. He was co-founder of the Climate Action Centre (2009-2012). He blogs at climatecodered.org on climate science, existential risk, IPCC reticence, the climate emergency and climate movement strategy and communications, and is regular public speaker.
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The Albanese government has created a climate vacuum, and we will pay the price
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. Continue reading »
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Shock as warming accelerates, 1.5°C is breached faster than forecast
If there was shock and awe last week when the Copernicus Climate Change Service announced that global average warming over the last twelve months — February 2023 to January 2024 — had exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius (°C), it was likely because too many people had succumbed to the predominant but delusional policy-making narrative that holding warming Continue reading »
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Towards an unliveable planet: Climate’s 2023 annus horribilis
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. Continue reading »
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Humanity’s new era of “global boiling”: Climate’s 2023 annus horribilis
For climate change, 2023 was an “unprecedented” year, “absolutely gobsmackingly bananas” and “scary” and “frightening”. And that was what climate scientists said! The UN Secretary General called it the year in which humanity crossed into a new climate era — an age of “global boiling”. Continue reading »
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COP28 a “tragedy for the planet” as Stockholm Syndrome took hold
Up to 100,000 people — most of whom derive their professional status and income from climate-related politics, advocacy and business — flew into Dubai for the COP28 annual global climate policy-making event, the Conference of the Parties under the United Nations’ climate convention. And the result? Continue reading »
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The Paris Agreement is dead. Australia must change its strategic priorities
As COP28 flounders, the Paris Agreement is dead, and the imperative for emergency action has never been greater. This demands a fundamental change to Australia’s strategic priorities. Continue reading »
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COP-out: Why the petrostate-hosted climate talkfest will fail
After a succession of record-breaking months of record heat including 1.8°C in September, global warming for 2023 as a whole will likely tip 1.5°C, with 2024 even hotter as the effect of the building El Nino is felt more fully. Already hundreds of thousands have died and millions displaced, primarily in countries least responsible for Continue reading »
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Did Penny Wong really just suggest China is an ‘existential’ threat?
The Australian Government has a big problem with its security narrative. Preparing for a putative war with China is the nation’s top security priority, while the government’s knowledge of the growing existential threat of climate disruption and their security consequences remains a closely-guarded secret. Continue reading »
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Fatal mistake: Intergenerational report misleads on climate risks
The Australian Government’s public analysis of climate risk, our greatest threat, is dangerously misleading. The Intergenerational Report 2023 (IGR) is a prime example. By dumbing down the implications of climate change with simplified economic models, the IGR and similar reports are institutionalising the global failure to face climate reality. Continue reading »
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Are we failing to see the wood for the trees on climate risks?
Extreme climate impacts are exploding in this year’s Northern Hemisphere summer. We urgently need to understand how climate disruption will affect Australians: their safety and well-being in the face of ever-more-extreme climate events, the viability of public and private infrastructure, communications and logistical systems, challenges to food security, and much more. Continue reading »
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Are Australia’s climate–security risks too hot to handle?
The Australian government is keen to talk about defence, big submarines, China and national security. And renewable energy, big batteries, electric cars and big hydrogen. But put the two together — security and climate — and an odd thing happens. Continue reading »
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IPCC: a gamble on earth system failure
The fact that the IPCC incorporates in its core business risks of failure to the Earth system and to human civilisation that we would not accept in our own lives raises fundamental questions about the efficacy of the whole IPCC project. If low risks of failure are taken as a starting point, “net zero 2050” Continue reading »
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The Dominoes are falling fast. We face a climate emergency
The belated release of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority’s “Reef snapshot: summer 2021-22” has exposed the Federal government’s insistence that the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is not endangered as the lie it has always been. Continue reading »
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Climate Change: will the financial system survive?
One of the few bright spots in an otherwise dismal global response to the escalating climate crisis has been the preparedness of financial market regulators to force their regulated institutions to face up to the implications of climate risk. Continue reading »
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The net zero emission illusion
With Covid, the government has shown itself manifestly incapable of leading or managing its core responsibilities, beset by corruption and secrecy. The climate challenge is far greater than Covid, and there are no vaccinations or quarantine against climate impacts, which from now on will increase inexorably in the absence of decisive leadership. Continue reading »
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Net-zero emissions by 2050: leadership or climate colonialism? (Canberra Times Nov 2, 2020)
How fast does Australia need to reduce greenhouse emissions to play its fair part in responding to the global climate emergency? Continue reading »
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What must climate and energy policy really achieve?
The Australian Government is dangerously out-of-touch as climate change accelerates and a cascade of tipping points risks unstoppable global warming. Continue reading »
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When climate risks are so high, short term actions matter most
Many carbon budgets are based on an under-estimation of warming to date, and the path of future warming. And all such budgets either ignore, or underplay, the loss of carbon from long-term stores — such as the melting of permafrost — which are already active processes. Continue reading »
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As warming approaches 1.5°C, a carbon budget for the Paris targets is delusional
There’s a lot of talk about how much “carbon budget” (new emissions) are allowable to keep global heating to the Paris target of 1.5°C. The reality is that over the last year, global average warming was already close to 1.5°C, based on a true, pre-industrial baseline. Continue reading »
