You could barely believe that there is a climate crisis going on. In the same week that climate scientists suggested the world will exhaust its remaining carbon budget within two years, carbon bombs are being set off left, right and centre, or allowed through regulatory hurdles on the promise of buying dodgy offsets.

The climate news is grim, and the world seems to be sleepwalking towards catastrophe. The carbon budget to keep average global warming at an average of 1.5°C is nearly exhausted, and will almost certainly be so by 2028.

Our trajectory, according to Climate Change Authority chair Matt Kean, has the world on track for at least 2.8°C of warming. It’s likely to be more. And given that Europe is already experiencing temperatures of 46°C — in June — and the Mediterranean sea temperature is 5°C above average, one can only imagine with dread what that might look like.

Fanatics in the White House

In the US, the fossil fuel fanatics in the White House have been busy trying to dismantle every federal clean energy incentive they can find, stop funding for scientific research and climate in particular, and open up the country for more oil and gas.

Over the weekend, the Senate Republicans added more clauses to the spending bill being pushed through by Donald Trump, ending EV rebates three months earlier than previously flagged, and setting impossible deadlines for large scale wind and solar projects, even those under construction, to access credits.

Elon Musk expressed his shock and horror over the new developments, but as  Electrek points out, this should be no surprise. Trump promised such measures to the fossil fuel industry if they stumped up US$1 billion for his re-election campaign, which they did.

Musk, of course, also bankrolled that campaign with more than US$270 million and presumably read the prospectus.

Not much bedda at home

Australia may have dodged a bullet by rejecting at the recent poll the Peter Dutton-led Coalition, which appeared to have no other significant policy position other than to follow in Trump’s footsteps, and to do  What Gina Says.

The new Queensland LNP government government, however, is giving a taste of what a Dutton government might have looked like.

They have hoorayed coal, scrapped the previous government’s zero emissions vehicle plan, and promise to rip up both the state’s renewable targets and its interim emissions target, defund the Environmental Defenders Office, and change the planning rules in such a way it will be  incredibly hard to get any new large-scale wind and solar projects built.

All this while, in the north of the state, some of the country’s and the world’s leading ocean scientists gathered in Cairns last week to mourn the fragile and vulnerable state of one of the state’s greatest treasures, the Great Barrier Reef.

Queensland is Australia’s most coal-dependent state, and sadly looks destined to remain so for another couple of decades. Leading the pushback against renewables is planning minister Jarrod Bleijie, a name with an unfortunate reminder of the Bjelke-Petersen era.

That remains relevant because of the shocking scale of land clearing that took place while Joh Bjelke-Petersen and his cronies ruled the roost. It was so bad the Australian government used it as a benchmark so it could claim it has cut emissions ever since, even though on an industrial basis it has done no such thing.

Bleijie has been particularly pleased with himself, and has made triumphant social media posts about the cancellation of one  major wind project that was previously approved. Which prompted us to see what else he is up to. It turns out he quite fancies himself as an Elvis impersonator. We present the evidence without further comment, tempting as it is.

Watt’s up with that?

At the federal level we like to tell ourselves it ain’t so, but things are hardly better. Another Queensland politician, Senator Murray Watt, has taken over as environment minister and has already declared that the country’s new nature laws he is responsible for developing won’t include climate factors.

Quite how Watt imagines that nature is divorced from climate impacts beggars belief. Perhaps he should have gone to Cairns and the Ocean conference. He says he is relying on other instruments such as the Safeguards Mechanism, but most analysis tells us this is a chimera, yet another ruse to pretend that emissions are being cut, when in fact they aren’t.

Perhaps Watt should also watch Sir David Attenborough’s new documentary Oceans, which highlights both the perilous state of the world’s oceans, and Queensland’s own Barrier Reef, and also points to the opportunity for repair, if only politicians like Watt understood the link between nature and climate and actually Did Something Useful.

Watt appears to have been summoned from central casting in Labor’s machine room to do Albanese’s dirty business. Never has an Australian Government had such an emphatic mandate for strong climate action, but will it seize it? It doesn’t look promising: This is a government, apart from a few notable exceptions, that is scared of its own shadow.

Bigger and bigger climate bombs

Watt has already set off one major carbon bomb by approving the Woodside North West Shelf expansion within just two weeks of taking office.

Activists suggest that this is not a good look for a country wanting to host the next UN climate talks. But maybe it’s a pre-requisite. After all, the last two COPs have been held in the UAE and Kazakhstan, both chin deep in fossil fuels and hardly the paragons of climate action.

Brazil, the host of this year’s COP30 at Belem, even astounded the global community by auctioning — in the midst of the interim climate talks that were just held in Bonn — the rights to extract oil and gas leases in 172 areas, including 47 near the mouth of the Amazon River.

Climate Home News reported on the astonishing scenes and the pathetic attempts at greenwashing.

“In Rio de Janeiro, the auction unfolded live on camera. The national anthem was played and a room of men in suits from around the world sat down to begin the bidding. An introductory video showed a plant being watered with bare hands while a caption advertised incentives to reduce the greenhouse gases from oil production.”

A press statement from 350.org picked out two saboteurs: the president of national oil company Petrobras, Magda Chambriard, who last month  copied Donald Trump’s “drill baby drill” slogan, and Brazil’s mines and energy minister, Alexandre Silveira, who has  said Brazil “should not be ashamed of being oil producers”.

Environmentalists described the auction as an “act of sabotage”, while ClimaInfo  research estimates that, when burned, the oil and gas from the blocks being auctioned off would release 11 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide. That’s more than Woodside’s NW Shelf expansion. The carbon bombs just get bigger and bigger.

Oceans, oceans, oceans

In the meantime, if you haven’t yet watched Attenborough’s Oceans documentary please do, and invite your local MP, particularly if their names as Jarrod or Murray. We love playing in the ocean, mostly on its surface, on boats, kayaks, and surfboards. Rarely do we spend much time looking at what’s below.

What lies beneath is absolutely stunning, and so important to what happens above, and on land. The oceans have absorbed an estimated 90% of energy from global warming so far.

That has largely disguised the damage we are doing, but maybe not for long. The combined impact of climate change and the rapacious exploitation is putting the ocean, and our world, at risk.

Attenborough’s message is one of hope because — given the chance — he says the oceans can repair themselves, and act as a massive carbon sink. His final message is to urge the world to sign up to the High Seas Treaty, which would see 30% of the world’s oceans protected from fishing and other rapacious activities.

That treaty needs 60 countries to come into effect. So far it has 50, and a conference attended by Watt in Nice last month failed to gather the extra ratifications needed.

The countries that have ratified include nearly all the vulnerable Pacific island states that Australia hopes to platform if it gets to host the climate COP. Australia signed the treaty in 2023, along with many others. But has it ratified it? No. That’s about as useless as giving Gina Rinehart a solar panel, and not plugging it in.

Republished from Renew Economy, 30 June 2025

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.