Resolving global warming and poverty are both pressing and urgent

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roding the conditions that lead to poverty and instigating steps the slow global warming are humanity’s most pressing and urgent problems.



Jonathan Symons.

Resolving one without tackling the other is socially irresponsible and any workable solution can only be arrived at through an intense, and honest, rethinking of human behaviour.

A Friend of The Conversation and a lecturer in International Relations at Macquarie University, Jonathan Symons, shares his thoughts about the use of coal, renewables and poverty – read his story: “Coal isn’t good for humanity, but renewables aren’t the only answer to energy poverty.”

Pledges without R&D back-up carry little weight

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aking a pledge to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is one thing, understanding how to do it is another.

Jonathon Symons and Barry Brook explore this dichotomy in today’s edition of The Conversation.

Brook, the Professor of Environmental Sustainability at University of Tasmania, and Symons, a Friend of The Conversation, is a lecture in International Relations at Macquarie University.

They say: “Mitigating climate change means reducing the carbon intensity of economies, with the goal of displacing fossil fuel use. Virtually every serious analysis of climate change has concluded that technology policy must be used to accelerate the pace at which low-emissions innovations are brought to market”.

Their story - “What’s missing from our climate pledges? Low-carbon R&D” – discusses the importance of research and development and the need to include it in discussions at the United Nations climate talks in Paris later this year.

Misunderstanding the 'critical decade' on national television

The idea that this is the “critical decade” in relation to combatting climate change is broadly misunderstood.

Prof Lesley Hughes.

Just last night (June 17), the co-director of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, Kirsty Albion, appeared on national television and was asked that if was the “critical decade” how much had the climate worsened in that time.

What the questioner didn’t seem to understand that it is not so much about the actual worsening of our climate, rather how we should be using this “critical decade” to change our behaviours to slow the worsening effects of climate change.

The idea of the critical decade was discussed onThe Conversation  through an article headed: “Updating the state of Australia’s climate”.

Author, the head of department of Biological Sciences at Macquarie University, Prof Lesley Huges, said: “It is the Critical Decade to get on with the job of tackling climate change.”