Australia could fall apart under climate change. But there is a way to avoid it

Four years ago in December 2015, every member of the United Nations met in Paris and agreed to hold global temperature increases to two degrees Celsius, and as close as possible to 1.5C.

Four years on from the Paris Agreement, the best that
we can hope for is holding global temperature increases
 to around 1.75 degrees Celsius.

The bad news is that four years on the best that we can hope for is holding global increases to around 1.75C. We can only do that if the world moves decisively towards zero net emissions by the middle of the century.

A failure to act here, accompanied by similar paralysis in other countries, would see our grandchildren living with temperature increases of around 4C this century, and more beyond.

I have spent my life on the positive end of discussion of Australian domestic and international policy questions. 

But if effective global action on climate change fails, I fear the challenge would be beyond contemporary Australia. I fear that things would fall apart.

Read the ABC News story, first published on The Conversation, by Ross Garnaut - “Australia could fall apart under climate change. But there is a way to avoid it.”