Considering the culprits behind the climate crisis

This week, 193 world governments will begin putting pen to paper on the world’s first agreement to keep global warming below 2 degrees. This agreement is a huge symbolic blow to the fossil fuel industry, but it will remain symbolic unless politicians cut their ties with the culprits behind this climate crisis – the fossil fuel industry.

Right now, the impacts the Paris accord is designed to stop are unfolding at a terrifying rate. Record-breaking temperatures robbed the Arctic of its winter. The Great Barrier Reef is perishing in front of our eyes. February was the hottest month recorded to date. Last year, bushfires in Western Australia raged so fiercely that they created their very own weather system.

We always knew this would happen if we didn’t wean ourselves off fossil fuels. It was always assumed we had more time – that the impacts of climate change would be felt in a hypothetical future. But recent evidence shows we’re out of time – the planet is now entering uncharted territory. Much of what will happen next is already out of our hands.

Despite the crisis unfolding around it, the current Australian government seems determined to ignore the role it has to play in preventing the planet from cooking.

Six months ago, Australia agreed to the Paris deal. Yet, since then, Australia has reapproved one of the world’s largest coalmines, opened a new research centre for the fossil fuel industry, cut funding for renewable energy, cut funding for climate research. The bewildering list goes on and on.

Read The Saturday Paper story - “The links between big polluters and politicians.”