Climate crisis

August 1, 2025

Chris Young has helpfully reminded us of the splendid analysis of our climate crisis, Too Hot to Handle: The Scorching Reality of Australia’s Climate-Security Failure, published 15 months ago by the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group. Presumably that analysis was too acute and its ramifications too compelling for the government to acknowledge publicly and respond to with a coherent set of policies.

But this sobering dose of reality is what the nation needs as panic sets in about the cost of shifting from fossil-fuel power generation to the transmission of clean energy. There’s no doubt that cost is daunting and increasing, but it needs to be seen against the price of delay and denial. The human and social cost of more frequent and ferocious floods, storms, fires and droughts far outweighs that of the energy transition. Soaring insurance fees are the canary in the coalmine.

It’s time our leaders wised the nation up about the disparity between the short-term pain of moving to clean energy and the debility we will suffer by not swallowing our medicine.