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The Sustainable Hour no. 567 | Transcript | Podcast notes
This week’s Sustainable Hour begins with a tribute to Jane Goodall, whose final public words urged us all to “spread the word” and act with compassion for future generations. Her voice sets the tone for an episode that dives deep into the National Climate Risk Assessment and what it means for Geelong and Australia.
Our guest is Neil Plummer, climatologist, Geelong Sustainability board member, and former head of Climate Services at the Bureau of Meteorology.
Neil explains the growing urgency of Australia’s climate risks and how communities can prepare, adapt, and act with purpose. The federal government’s new risk assessment reveals that by 2050, more than 1.5 million Australians could face sea-level rise and flooding – a number that may double by 2090.
Neil also explains what rising heat, bushfire risk, and drought mean for the Geelong region, and why adaptation must become a core part of planning, not an afterthought. Geelong Sustainability’s ‘Climate Safe Rooms’ project offers practical solutions for creating cooler, safer spaces in homes as extreme weather intensifies.
Geelong Sustainability is working towards a thriving and resilient community taking urgent action on climate change together. It exists to build a powerful community movement for a just transition to a net zero future.
As part of its work, Geelong Sustainability analyses and reports on what the science and impacts means for the Geelong region, and this includes the recently published National Climate Risk Assessment.
→ You can find local information for Geelong, Surf Coast and the Bellarine Peninsula in the Barwon Climate Projections 2024
→ Geelong Sustainability’s Submission to the Select Committee on Information Integrity on Climate Change and Energy
By 2050, more than 1.5 million Australians are projected to live in areas at high or very high risk of sea level rise and coastal flooding if populations remain as they are today.
Nationally, over 1 million residential buildings are already in very high-risk areas, with exposure increasing sharply in regions like northern Queensland, where nearly half of all homes could be in very high-risk areas by mid-century.
Around 16% of small businesses are currently located in above-average climate risk areas, a figure expected to rise to 20% by 2030 (an additional 92,000 businesses), with particularly high exposure in the Northern Territory (64%) and northern Queensland (60%).
The climate crisis is not just physical. Neil speaks about the growing stress and anxiety, especially among young people – and the need for stronger partnerships between sustainability groups and the health sector.
“We need to move beyond good intentions to purposeful action,” says Neil – quoting his wife Jo.
That message becomes the refrain of this week’s new featured song, Prepare For Impact – blending poetic urgency with scientific truth. It transforms Neil’s and Jo’s words into a danceable call for decisive, purposeful climate action.
. . .
- Global perspective: Swedish climate scientist Johan Rockström warns of the ocean’s tipping points and potential collapse of key circulation systems, while American climate action mobiliser Bill McKibben highlights the clean-energy revolution now reshaping our world.
- Doctor’s voice: Professor Nicholas Talley of Doctors for the Environment calls Australia’s continued fossil fuel expansion “totally unethical” – a challenge to every citizen and policymaker.
- Closing song: Starting From Today – a reminder that hope begins with personal action and collective courage.
The Hour ends with a familiar reminder from The Sustainable Hour team: “Be the difference – and be risk aware.”
“[The National Climate Risk Assessment Report] is a scary read. It requires a national wake up call. And you know, the fact that these neighborhood centres are key to building local resilience, we need government to step up with funding and support for these extending to workplaces, workplace health and climate, and safety to make sure that everyone gets home from work safe. The protection for workers around these extremes, particularly heat, work needs to be put into there. Our health system is going to be put under more pressure, so funding to ensure hospitals and health services in our region are ready to cope with what we’ll see more from.”
~ Neil Plummer, Geelong Sustainability
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We at The Sustainable Hour would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we are broadcasting, the Wadawurrung People. We pay our respects to their elders – past, present, and emerging, and extend that respect to all First Nations people.
The traditional custodians lived in harmony with the land for millennia, nurturing it and thriving in often harsh conditions. Their connection to the land was deeply spiritual and sustainable. This land was invaded and stolen from them. It was never ceded. Today, it is increasingly clear that if we are to survive the climate emergency we face, we must learn from their land management practices and cultural wisdom.
True climate justice cannot be achieved until Australia’s First Nations people receive the justice they deserve. When we speak about the future, we must include respect for those yet to be born, the generations to come. As the old saying reminds us: “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.” It is deeply unfair that decisions to ignore the climate emergency are being made by those who won’t live to face the worst impacts, leaving future generations to bear the burden of their inaction.
“The Indigenous worldview has been marginalised for generations because it was seen as antiquated and unscientific and its ethics of respect for Mother Earth were in conflict with the industrial worldview. But now, in this time of climate change and massive loss of biodiversity, we understand that the Indigenous worldview is neither unscientific nor antiquated, but is, in fact, a source of wisdom that we urgently need.”
~ Robin Wall Kimmerer, weallcanada.org
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JANE GOODALL
| Mike O’Sullivan wrote in his weekly newsletter The Levelling: This week’s note is not about economics nor geopolitics but rather the inspiring Jane Goodall, who very sadly passed away in California this week. I’ve come to know her in the last five years as a trustee of the JG Legacy Foundation, and to add to the great mountain of tributes to her, can attest that she was a remarkable person, which is something we can say of too few figures on the world stage. Jane was much better known in the Anglophone world than elsewhere, but the contribution of her research is felt internationally. To those who are less familiar with her life, in her early 20’s Jane saved up enough money to travel to Africa to pursue her ambition of studying wildlife (chimpanzees). After a period working with the famous paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey, she won his support for a solo research trip into the Gombe reserve in Tanzania to study chimps (though her mother came along to keep her company). There is a very good BBC documentary on Jane’s work in Gombe. This research became her life’s work and changed the way the scientific community regarded animals and the ways in which they were researched. An early National Geographic article by Jane, authored in 1963, is worth a read, not just because it gives a sense of her patience and intrepid curiosity, but for what it teaches us about the relationship between animals and humans, and the revelation (it was at the time) that animals are social, emotional creatures. The flip side of this thought is that many humans are only a thin veneer away from the behaviour of chimps, and in a world where the law of the jungle is re-asserting itself, there are more and more displays of what we could call primate type behaviour. Jane Goodall had many qualities – she was, I think very tough, brave and firmly believed in the causes she pioneered and supported. She travelled everywhere – in the past week she went from Bournemouth to New York and then California and was supposed to come to Cork at the end of this month. Though she was welcomed in the very top echelons of world society, she was most certainly not materialistic, save for a weakness for good whiskey. If I could sum her up, and draw lessons from her life to today’s world, I feel she was otherworldly in respects of her life story, comportment, and influence. Without over-moralising her life, there are at least two observations to make. The first, given that my inbox is full of tales of the de-humanisation of society – collapsing demographics, job markets deflated by AI, diminished social interaction between young people and other angsts created by social media, is of how Jane is a role model. In this context, Jane Goodall is an example to young and old of a life well lived, and one that has mattered. Two of her qualities that I would stress that can inform people today, are her intellectual curiosity and courage. The second remark, which is all the more obvious, is that the causes Jane pioneered and the values she personified, are increasingly the exception than the rule. USAID budget cuts will lead to deaths in Africa, conservationism and the cause of the environment are no longer fashionable causes though arguably they are more vital than ever. In politics, there is a narrative that ‘bad things are happening’ without meaningful opposition, serious counterarguments, and meaningful leadership. One of Jane’s noteworthy statements was ‘The biggest danger to our future is apathy’. The analogies to the political and corporate worlds are obvious. I would like to finish this note by encouraging readers to dip into the story of Jane’s life (again sites like National Geographic are good), and the various projects that she has inspired like Roots and Shoots the movement that helps young people impact their communities, the Jane Goodall Institute and then the Jane Goodall Legacy Foundation, which will soon start to fund the projects that Jane cared about. Have a great week ahead, Mike |
CLIMATE
Johan Rockström: “The ocean will determine our future”
→ Read more on Forbes.com
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CLIMATE IN THE NEWS
Climate breakdown has reached mainstream news:
The above screenshots are all from the frontpage stream on Microsoft News on 7 October 2025
(which is the standard news provider on millions of Microsoft Edge browser users).
→ IOP Science – 7 October 2025:
Climate hazard experience linked to increased climate risk perception worldwide
“Billions of people are already living with the impacts of climate change. As these experiences accumulate, we may see rising demand for climate action. But without political leadership and media that connect the dots, those experiences alone will not drive the transformation we need.”
→ The Guardian – 8 October 2025:
Media and political attacks on Australia’s emissions targets ‘straight out of the climate obstruction playbook’, expert says
“Prof Christian Downie points to the Business Council of Australia and News Corp newspapers as examples of deliberate obstruction.”
→ The New Daily – 2 October 2025:
PR firms are spreading climate misinformation on behalf of fossil fuel companies. Could Australia stop them?
“Have you heard offshore windfarms kill whales? (They don’t.) Or that electric vehicles catch fire more often than petrol cars? (It’s the opposite.) Perhaps you’ve heard “natural” gas is clean? (It can be worse than coal.) This is what climate misinformation looks like. These claims are common, influential and damaging. They’re often spread for a reason: To slow the uptake of clean alternatives to fossil fuels. Unfortunately, they are shaping public opinion.”
Climate chaos is coming for us.
~ Alex Steffen
“Where heat, floods, storms, brittleness and loss are the thickest, I fear people will get trapped in places with dwindling options, waiting for a revival that’ll never come. The more we let the crisis grow, the less we do to respond, the more people.
Now, all of this brittleness could explode in a catastrophic reckoning, triggering the collapse of civilization. The more likely scenario is the steady wearing down of these systems’ capacities to serve us. Outcomes we now take for granted get more expensive, less reliable, slower to achieve.
So, just at the moment we find ourselves thrown back on our own resources to ready ourselves for climate chaos, our capacity to do that preparation is slowly deflating. And many policy decision being made right now, especially in the US, are worsening the leak.
We live in an increasingly transapocalyptic world, where the futures of people in different places are fast diverging. A lot of us get this, at least on a gut level. But I don’t think most of us understand how fractal this effect can be…
We look at climate refugee camps and billionaire bunkers and imagine ourselves in a sort of secure middle zone — with the power to respond if and when the crisis becomes unignorable. But the nature of this crisis is to chip away at our capacities to act before its severity compels us to act.
The things we imagine ourselves ready to do when needed — relocate, harden our homes, change our careers, shift our retirement plans — may not be options when the time comes. Competition for the climate-savvy version of what we have now may force us to accept something less than that.
A shortage of opportunities (created by decades of inaction and worsened by corruption and stupidity in government now) forces people to compete, and the distorting effects of that scramble for safety put more pressure on all sorts of systems already under growing strain. The result?
We’re in a worse position than we were last year:
Lost progress on climate/sustainability.
Destabilizing policy shifts, catastrophic budget cuts, sabotaged international agreements
Growing unmitigated brittleness
Erosion of interconnected system capacities
Unproductive conflict over opportunities
That list goes on.
Not everything is bad news — incredible people are showing up every day to do the science, improve governance, accelerate solutions, build out what works and so on.
What we COULD still do, if we gain the willpower, is awe inspiring.
We could, still, rapidly decarbonize our economy, protect ecosystems, ruggedize all these brittle human systems, help the millions falling behind and build inclusive communities in safer places at unprecedented speeds.
This is within our power, even if it feels less and less within our grasp.
In the meantime, we need to find ways to help ourselves, our families and friends and neighbors navigate a world where both climate action and climate response are (mostly) failing.
As the crisis gets worse, it’s going to simultaneously get harder for us to meet it. Harder, but not impossible.
We can learn to develop strategies to steer the people we care about through these daunting challenges.
I write about and teach personal climate strategies.
If you’re serious about learning, my upcoming personal climate strategy workshop might be for you.
alexsteffen.thinkific.com/courses/personal-climate-strategy-workshop
→ More thoughts on societal brittleness and personal capacities:
alexsteffen.substack.com/p/how-long-will-your-window-stay-open
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Climate Risks Are Here in Geelong and the Surf Coast:
Communities Need Adaptation Action
Media release from Geelong Sustainability on 2 October 2025
The release of Australia’s first National Climate Risk Assessment (NCRA) confirms the climate shocks long warned of by disaster-impacted communities. For the Greater Geelong and Surf Coast regions, the NCRA shows that the average number of extreme fire risk days each year is expected to double as global warming rises to between 2 and 3°C.
“Here in Geelong and the surrounding region, we are already feeling the impacts of a changing climate. Families in poorly insulated rental homes are suffering through sweltering summers and farmers are facing extended droughts that are likely to destroy livelihoods. Everyone deserves a safe home, secure work, a strong community, and a ready health system so we can survive and thrive through more extreme heat, floods, fires, and droughts that climate change is fuelling.”
— Neil Plummer, Geelong Sustainability Board member and climatologist
The NCRA shows that climate hazards are cascading, compounding, and current — and that “addressing underlying disadvantage” is essential to reduce their impacts. Low-income households in our region face the greatest risk, as they often live in poorly insulated homes that heat up dangerously in summer.
“We support some of the most disadvantaged regions in Australia, often serving as the only point of contact in many remote and rural areas, and the risk assessment is a scary read, but it’s also a national wake-up call. Neighbourhood Centres are key to building local climate resilience. We need the government to step up with funding and support, so our communities aren’t left to carry this burden alone.”
— Liz Bonner, President of Australian Neighbourhood Centres and Houses Association
According to the Climate Change Authority, back-to-back disasters cost the Australian economy $2.2 billion in the first half of 2025 alone. By 2050, extreme weather events are projected to cost more than $35 billion a year — more than $1,000 per person.
Local Climate Impacts in Greater Geelong and Surf Coast region:
- Heatwaves: The average number of days each year experiencing severe or extreme heatwave conditions are expected to increase by 50 to 100% at 3°C global warming.
- Extreme Fire Risk: The average number of days each year with extreme fire risk is expected to double as global warming rises to between 2 and 3°C.
- Sea Level Rise: All Australian coastal regions will see an increasing number of communities at risk from sea level rise and compounding coastal hazards by 2070 and 2090. This trend is apparent even for low future temperature scenarios, as sea levels will continue to rise even if global warming stabilises.
Local Solutions Needed
Geelong Sustainability is a member of the Renew Australia for All alliance. Together, we are calling on the Federal Government to fund and deliver climate adaptation at the scale required to ensure a climate safe future. For the Greater Geelong and Surf Coast region, this means:
- Healthy Homes: Retrofitting and upgrading homes so people are safe in extreme heat and storms, including support for renters. We need affordable insurance solutions for our homes now.
- Resilient Communities: Dramatically increasing disaster funds so local councils and organisations can deliver community-led resilience, preparedness, response and recovery work.
- Safe Work: New Workplace Health and Safety regulations to protect workers facing heat, smoke, and extreme weather, so everyone gets home from work safe.
- Resilient Health System: Funding to ensure hospitals and health services in our region are ready to cope with climate-driven emergencies.
“The National Climate Risk Assessment confirms what we’re already witnessing in our communities: climate extremes are putting lives at risk — especially for vulnerable groups such as older Australians, people with disabilities, and those living with chronic illness. Our Climate Safe Rooms program is a proven, practical solution that helps vulnerable households stay safe, healthy, and comfortable during extreme heat. We urgently need federal funding to expand this life-saving initiative and ensure every at-risk household has access to a safe, climate-resilient space in their home. This is about protecting lives and building climate resilience where it’s needed most.”
— Jane Spence, CEO, Geelong Sustainability
Germany’s climate risk assessment creates security headlines
“Anyone thinking security must also think climate.”
When the German government’s National Interdisciplinary Climate Risk Assessment was published on 12 February 2025, the media’s emphasis was on one striking narrative: climate change is now a core security threat. Leading outlets framed the release as “a turning point” – a national risk that Germany’s intelligence and defence establishments must grapple with now.
From the first news flashes, journalists seized on the idea that Germany’s own intelligence apparatus – notably the Federal Intelligence Service – was classing climate change among its top external threats, side by side with Russia, cyberattacks, terrorism, and China.
Headlines declared “climate as a security risk,” emphasising that “anyone thinking security must also think climate.”
Media outlets also zeroed in on the cascading, compounding nature of the risks: a heatwave could overburden health systems; flooding could knock out infrastructure; destabilisation abroad could trigger migration and geopolitical spillovers back into Europe. The messaging was stark: climate risks are interconnected and cannot be siloed into “environmental policy” alone.
In many stories, the surprise was how fast climate change had moved from the fringes to the core of strategic thinking. One German news summary insisted that “climate policy is security policy,” with the new report making that link explicit. Opinion pieces warned of political knock-on effects: that ambitious climate reform might provoke backlash, stress governance, or widen social divides – making domestic politics itself vulnerable.
Even in shorter news bulletins, the imagery was vivid: broken infrastructure, heatwaves, resource pressure, migration floods. The media treated the report as a wake-up call. As one outlet put it, the new assessment “links climate change with Germany’s national security” in a way that can no longer be ignored.
German media framed the government’s climate risk report as more than a scientific document. It became a story of national security recalibrated. The most reported shock wasn’t a new data point, but the institutional shift – that climate change was being named as a peer to traditional state and non-state threats. And the deeper concern journalists flagged was that the dominoes set in motion by climate – from political backlash to global instability – might arrive sooner than expected.
→ Nordic Sustainability on Linkedin.com – 6 October 2025:
Your guide to climate risk and the new era of Net-Zero targets
“This month, we take a closer look at climate risk. Climate impacts are increasingly seen as financial in nature, changing investor priorities and corporate strategy. This shift exposes the limits of traditional risk models, which often fall short in capturing the complexity of climate-related disruption.”
What's stopping us? 🤷🏻♀️ The #climatecrisis can provoke overwhelming emotions… Fear, anger, grief – and sometimes numbness or shutting down. If we’re not equipped to process these emotions, we will struggle to take the action needed. [1/4]
— Inner Climate Response Alliance (ICRA) (@innerclimate.bsky.social) August 25, 2025 at 7:31 PM
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What will we find beyond the brink?
| Beyond the Brink Imagining the Possible in a World Unraveling FREE ONLINE EVENT Thursday 13 November 2025 10:00-11:30 AM U.S. PST Imagining a better future is an act of bravery—especially considering all the challenges we face in the present. But as difficult as it can be, envisioning a brighter future can be the key to real, transformative change. During this event, we’ll explore how: • A vision for a better future is critical for navigating the Great Unraveling • To align dreams of the future with real-world action today • Even unimaginable, generational struggles haven’t stopped marginalized communities from working towards a better future → REGISTRATION IS FREE Everyone who registers will be entered into the drawing to win one of five copies of Rob’s new book: How to Fall in Love with the Future, and get access to resources mentioned during the event. When you donate at least $5 you’ll also receive the event recording. |
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Transcript of The Sustainable Hour no. 567
Jane Goodall:
Every single one of us matters. Every single one of us has some role to play.
Jingle:
The Sustainable Hour. For a green, clean, sustainable Geelong: The Sustainable Hour.
Tony Gleeson:
Welcome to The Sustainable Hour. We’d like to acknowledge that we’re broadcasting from the land of the Wadawurrung people. We pay tribute to the elders – past, present, and those that earn that great honour in the future. We’re broadcasting from stolen land, land that was never ceded, always was and always will be First Nations land. The land that the Wadawurrung people have nurtured, as well as their communities, for millennia before it was stolen. In doing that, they have accumulated a great amount of ancient wisdom – ancient wisdom that we are going to need as we face up to the climate emergency.
Jane Goodall, speaking at Planetary Healthcheck 2025 conference on 23 September 2025:
Good afternoon, everybody. And here I am, honoured to be here. Wonderful to know the science that backs up what many of us have been talking about for years. It’s unfortunate that some prominent people don’t believe the science. We have to save nature. I care passionately about animals, wildlife and domestic, but I also care passionately about our children. Children are coming into a world that we have messed up horribly, and we owe them all the help that we can give them. They need to be educated about the problems, but they need stories of hope. So if we all care as we do about the future of this beautiful planet and life on it, then we need to work to help our children, to make the world a better place for them. Because right now, when I see a small child full of life and joy, and I think of what’s going to happen if we don’t take action now to give them a future, then it’s a bit of a tragedy. So let’s work together now and spread the word so that the whole world is working together to make this a better place. Thank you.
Mik Aidt:
Jane Goodall, speaking at the Planetary Health Check conference in New York. Only a little bit more than a week ago, and she is now sadly no longer with us. But we are here, The Sustainable Hour is here – to spread the word, as she said. It is about spreading the word, isn’t it? We will be talking about planetary health checks and Geelong health checks in the climate perspective today.
Before we do that, let’s hear a little bit about what’s been happening elsewhere out there in the big world, Colin Mockett OAM. What kind of news do you have for us this week?
COLIN MOCKETT’S GLOBAL OUTLOOK:
Thank you, Mik. Our roundup this week begins in Ankara where talks between Australia and Turkey about who’s going to host the UN conference have again stalled. Now, we’ve covered these talks a couple of times before because as they’ve been going on for the past year and the UN, which is the official host, has no structure to vote or even choose the next host nation for each annual COP summit, 2026 COP. They leave it for the nations themselves to work out. Now talks between Turkey and Australia, both sides are unwilling to change their positions. So mediators have been called in and the mediators’ current suggestions are that the COP could be shared between the two nations. But even that would be awkward because Australia has already promised to share its Adelaide Summit.
If it’s held in Australia, it’s going to be held in Adelaide with South Pacific nations that are most threatened by climate change. So if the peacemakers get their deal, tens of thousands of delegates would be flying between Turkey, Adelaide and nations like Fiji, PNG and the Solomon Islands for the two-week spread of conferences in November 2026. And that certainly can’t be good for global emissions.
Last year’s COP29 in Abazaidjan attracted more than 65,000 people. That’s astonishing, but that includes protesters and journalists and the oil lobby, the fossil fuel lobby, which sent more delegates than anybody else. If the same sort of numbers are attracted in 2026, COP31, that’s the one that’s shared between Australia and Turkey in the South Pacific, that’ll generate 260,000 tonnes of emissions from air flights alone. Now that’s a calculation of scientists, that’s not me working it out. All of this is to talk about how to reduce emissions. And Turkey has formed when it comes to this sort of thing. It used a similar tactics in 2021 to hold up the UK’s bid that wanted to host COP26 in Glasgow.
It was reported at the time that the British government had to promise to hold a Turkish investment conference in London and then back Turkish candidates for several UN positions before Turkey dropped out and cleared the way for Glasgow to go ahead. Now we will continue to monitor the Stouse but my guess is that they’ll still be negotiating when COP30 begins in Belém, Brazil, on November the 10th.
Now to a new report that was released this week that compared the climate change values of the world’s two largest carbon emitters, that’s China and the USA. Now this report looked at them both historically and currently. It was compiled in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s historic rant to the UN last week when he called climate change ‘the world’s biggest con job’.
And then 24 hours later, China’s President Xi Jinping announced to the same gathering his nation’s commitment to reduce its emissions by at least 7 to 10 per cent by 2035. Now, funnily enough, it was Xi’s announcement that brought disappointment and disapproval from the world’s media. We just took the fact that Trump was ranting away and left it alone at that. It’s quite ridiculous.
But this new report puts it all into perspective. The media tends to focus on this year’s flow of greenhouse gas emissions, it said, and that adds to the existing huge stock of gas that’s already in the atmosphere. And this has been building since the Industrial Revolution. Clearly, the science says, if the stock of atmospheric gases is already too high, any annual addition is bad. We should be reducing our annual addition as soon as possible.
But it’s the huge stock of gases in the atmosphere that’s already there that’s doing the damage now. And when we look at which countries contributed to the stock of gases, it’s big rich countries. The US is far ahead of any of the others in this regard, followed by the rich nations of Europe and ourselves with our exports. We affluent nations’ efforts over the past 200 years to make ourselves rich has created the climate disturbance that we’re experiencing now.
The poor countries during those same 200 years, and this includes China, contributed almost to the problems. Yet today the report states China is the country that’s doing most to move to renewables. Its figures show that since 2020, China’s solar capacity has almost quadrupled. Its wind capacity has doubled. It achieved its 2030 renewable energy target six years early. True, this momentum on clean energy is occurring at the same time as more coal-fired power stations are being built in China. But they are all replacing old ones, causing no increase in coal-fired power. Actually, they are more efficient than the ones they’re replacing.
In the first half of this year, coal-fired generation in China fell by 3.4 per cent compared to last year’s first half. The figures show that China’s climate pollution appears to have peaked late last year and has dropped quite a bit in the first half of this year. If this is maintained, it would be five years ahead of the Chinese government’s expectations.
And this would be, as the Climate Council says, a major milestone in the world’s shift to clean energy. It’s also worth remembering that China is the global leader in renewable technology manufacturing. It supplies 80 per cent of the world’s solar panels, 70 per cent of its electric vehicles, and is the leading world supplier of wind turbines. And if it isn’t already the biggest in batteries, it will be by next year. China’s massive output of clean machines has slashed the world’s cost of renewables relative to fossil fuel energy. And it’s now powering the switch to renewables in many countries, including ours.
By contrast, America, under the Trump regime, is busily dismantling all government clean energy structures. Now it’s to the benefit of the world that Trump and his allies are particularly inefficient and ham-fisted, and that the world’s scientists are his problems at every turn. The report concluded that if you take politics out of the equation, Australia and the world will be much better off listening to and working with China while steering clear, but you’re not going to get that message through to the media.
And finally, England’s Forest Green Rovers, the world’s greenest team, began last weekend on top of the table and they were playing Rochdale who were second and they were playing at home at Forest Green. The result was Forest Green 0, Rochdale 1, meaning that Rochdale are now the new ladder leavers while Forest Green have dropped to second. Now that was disappointing but there’s still much of the season to go.
Also, Forest Green women, they played at the weekend too at Sherbourne in the women’s FA Cup. The result was Sherbourne Ladies 1, Forest Green Rovers women 4. Which means the roving women progressed to the next round. And that little piece is our round up for the week.
Jingle:
Listen to our Sustainable Hour – for the future.
. . .
Tony:
Our guest today is Neil Plummer. Neil is a Geelong Sustainability Board member. He’s a climatologist, which gives him the true qualifications to speak about the topic today. And he’s former head of the Bureau of Meteorology’s Climate Services. Neil, thanks for coming on. Appreciate your time. And I guess you are going to tell us about the… well, recently there was a risk assessment brought out by the government, a risk assessment report, and you’re going to talk more about… well, Geelong Sustainability put out a press release in response to that, so you’re in today to talk about that, so thanks for coming on.
Neil Plummer:
Thanks very much, Tony, Mik and Colin. Yeah, I’ll just say a little bit about sustainability first up, and I’m sure more people would know a bit about GS. We’re all about working towards a thriving community, as most of your listeners know, and taking action on climate change and building that powerful movement for a just transition to net zero.
We’ll say in the outset and this national climate risk assessment sort of to light the world faces numerous challenges forward and all of those made more difficult and addressed indeed in many of those in possible brings this to challenges will be made impossible if we don’t get a handle on on climate change.
A bit about the “National Climate Risk Assessment” itself. It characterises the current and future climate risks facing Australia. course, as we’ve more frequent and severe extreme weather events around the world and of course in Australia. As a result of that, the risks for our economy, for our environment, and social systems are severe and those risks are only so planning for responding is crucial across, getting worse.
Those risks is all part of our society. And in doing so it’s essential to prioritise responses such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions but because a lot of these changes are around adaptation, also is a big planning. The report itself was… it’s a terrific piece of work developed over a two-year period by the Bureau of Metrology, CSIRO, Geoscience Australia, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and the Federal Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water.
What’s new about it… Well, first of all, what’s NOT new about it is that we’ve had climate risk assessments done for many years and they’ve done by the states, have been done across the sectors, at local levels, but for the first time, the information has been synthesised in this national way. And it really does make the risks a lot more real, I think.
It really gets to the core of impacts in terms of what it does mean for communities. So one of the statistics in there is that with rising sea levels, which is one of the biggest risks we’re facing. Nationally, that equates to more than 1.5 million people living in areas that will experience sea level rise and coastal flooding by 2050. And that number, potentially rising to over 3 million by 2090.
And of course, sea level rise is just one of many hazards which… I mean, that alone should justify the urgency of rapid decarbonising, because as we know, sea level rise, population displacement, coastal flooding, erosion, inundation, salt water intrusion to fresh water and so forth, sea level is one of those things that are going to continue for centuries, regardless of what we do with emissions in coming decades.
One of the really interesting themes throughout the report that I found here was around the fact that individuals and households that are already disadvantaged are the ones that are the most vulnerable to the impacts of a changing climate. And that of course includes Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders people, and they have unique impacts when it comes to climate change.
I also should say that overall it probably – almost certainly actually – underestimates the risks. So the current modeling doesn’t really take into account all of the ecological risks, the risks to heritage and cultural values.
What we know is that certain risks, whether it’s around sea level rise or heat waves and so forth, they interact with each other and they lead to potential cascading consequences. Those risks aren’t well handled in the report because there’s just so much uncertainty around them.
So that’s another reason why it underestimates overall risk. But also the only deals with the physical climate risks.
We know that our economy and social systems go through what we call transition risk. The fact that our economy and energy systems are changing rapidly as we transit towards a cleaner energy economy, and they have knock-on effects in terms of a range of other risks.
So, it’s a comprehensive report, it’s excellent, the risks in there are quite shocking but to a large extent they are underestimated.
I’ll just say a few things around what it means locally here for the Geelong and Surf Coast region. In the national report you don’t get these local statistics. The report comes with a data explorer which allows you to drill down to various regions, including our region.
So for example when it comes to heat waves the average number of days each year experienced severe or extreme heat wave, well, they are expected to increase by 50 to 100 per cent at 3°C degrees global warming. If we look at where we’re heading now, the current trajectory global economic warming is around 2.5 to 3°C degrees now, so these numbers are very real.
These are the numbers that we need to manage around when it comes to adaptation.
Because we’re in a region where it’s getting hotter and also drier, particularly in the cool season here – that leads to extreme fire risk.
The average number of days each year with extreme fire risk is expected to double as global temperature rises to between 2 and 3 degrees Celsius.
Time spent in drought, for example, is expected to increase by up to 15 per cent at 3 degrees of warming. More intense rainfall events, and there’s a whole host of other risks in there that are revealed through this data explorer tool.
We do at Geelong Sustainability – with our partners, particularly around those with Renew Australia for All Alliance very, of course, interested in the responses that we’re going to take here. But I’ve been talking for a while, so I might just pause there.
Colin:
That’s great, Neil, and look that’s really nice that we can now put a very local element into the warnings. If you could capsulate it very quickly for us, are the areas that are most at risk of rising sea levels on the Bellarine Insula and Geelong and the Surf Coast? In our area, our local area, which are the ones where would you not buy a house in because they’re likely to be flooded inside the next 20 years?
Neil:
Yeah, I wouldn’t give that investment advice directly there, Colin. You know, it is everywhere where there’s low-lying coastal areas where there’s housing built close to shorelines.
Colin:
That’s St Leonards, isn’t it? I mean, they charge an awful lot more for waterfront houses that are just about a metre above the beach. What do you think about the real values, which put higher value on sea views than it does on the risk factor?
Neil:
I’ll say a few things about that, Colin. Everybody has different, I guess, risk appetites, don’t they? And you will find there are some people that will just love living in those locations that are willing to take those risks. The other side of that is: Are most people fully aware of those risks? Or do some people believe that sea level rise will never happen?
Now, when we come to climate change, sea level rise is one of the most uncertain factors going forward. It is a risk and it’s compounded by the fact that the insurance companies have been aware of climate change risks for decades. And of course they’re building in those risks in their premiums. So if not now, but going forward, you’ll see more and more increases in insurances for those properties.
In fact, you’ll see some properties being unable to get insurance. We’re already seeing that in some areas of Australia, particularly those that have been affected by flooding, the Northern Rivers areas of New South Wales and so forth.
I find it interesting that there is still this debate and squabble around ‘is climate change real’… If you ask the insurance companies, they will tell you unequivocally that the climate is changing and they will tell you that is a big factor why insurance prices are rising.
Colin:
Now why are you shy then on telling us the areas which are really risky? Because I mean, what would your advice be? Contact an insurance company and say, ‘hey, how much will it cost to insure a house in, let’s say, for example, Clifton Springs, compared to how much it would cost in Drysdale?’ Is that the way to go?
Neil:
Oh I’m not shy at all, Colin. In fact, I provided a link to a website from the Australian Climate Council that actually explore risks at a very fine level, including the areas you’ve mentioned. Point Lonsdale is in there, various suburbs in Geelong, which they drill down at precise risks.
And I’ve looked at that website and I’ve looked at the way the percentage of likely losses will be incurred in those regions, and they’re very sobering statistics indeed.
And in your show notes, there’ll be a link, it’ll be the Climate Council there. And listeners can drill down there and find out for their suburb. I have looked at those statistics. I don’t have them at my fingertips but – even I got a shock when I looked at that website just to see what the changes are.
And some of the changes are in areas where I didn’t expect to see them in there. A lot of them are in there around sea level rise. There’s others in there that are locations that are close to rivers, river levels. It is in there, unfortunately it doesn’t seem to have reached many people, that website, but it’s public information, it’s by top researchers, pretty solid evidence in there, and that’s what I’d encourage listeners to have a look at, Colin.
Tony:
This is obviously something that Geelong Sustainability are taking very seriously, which is terrific. What do they hope will happen as a result of this, of you coming on this show and another local media? What can this region do to address these risks?
Neil:
There are many things we have to do, and I don’t think as a big city, as what we are, there has been enough discussion around what we are going to do, what actions we’re going to take, what adaptations are needed – because when you think of the amount of infrastructure that’s being built and what will be built going forward and you know just housing alone, that infrastructure is going to be around for decades, around in 2050, 2070 and 2090 when all these risks are escalating.
So if we don’t take these risks into account, and part of the adaptation planning, then that’s going to incur more costs going forward. Greater costs.
Some of the examples we’ve looked at in Geelong Sustainability with our partners are the likes of retrofitting upgrading homes so that people are safer with regard to extreme in weather events.
How are we going to provide affordable insurance going forward? – issues I spoke about earlier.
Geelong Sustainability, we have this Climate Safe program, Climate Safe Rooms program, which is providing access to safe climate-resilient space in people’s homes. So they have some way to keep warm in winter and cooler in summer, but that originally needs more funding. Ideally federal funding to expand the number of rooms that we can actually address with climate safe safe rooms.
More severe weather events mean that we’re going to see a lot more of these disasters. How do we have community led resilience, preparedness, responses and recovery work?
Liz Bonner, who is president of the Australian Neighborhood Centres and Houses Association – on the back of actually seeing this National Assessment Report, has basically said: ‘This report is a scary read. It requires a national wake up call.’
And you know, the fact that these neighborhood centers are key to building local resilience, we need government to step up with funding and support for these extending to workplaces, workplace health and climate, and safety to make sure that everyone gets home from work safe. The protection for workers around these extreme events, particularly heat, more work needs to be put into there. Our health system is going to be put under more pressure, so funding to ensure hospitals and health services in our region are ready to cope with what we’ll see more from climate-driven emergencies.
So they’re just some of the things that are key locally, that, you know, all towns and cities and around Australia should be thinking of these things.
Colin:
In your beginning, you pointed out that the report suggests that the likelihood of more heat waves is between 50 and 100 per cent, which means we’re going to double the amount of really hot times. Now, it’s very difficult to think about that now because we’re just coming off the tail end of a very elongated and strange winter. But… I did a report a couple of weeks ago on Saudi Arabia and the fact power virtually all goes into air conditioning and air conditioning is just about the only thing that we have to combat heatwaves. Surely there are other things we can do with reflective roof. I mean, virtually all the houses that are being built these days, they may have solar panels on them and they think, ‘Well, that’s it, I’m doing my bit’, but white coloured roofs that reflects the heat, don’t seem to even be in the equation?
Neil:
Interesting. There’s a place in Australia, Western Sydney, that’s subject to increasing heat waves over the past decade or so. And I’ve actually been up there where temperatures have been in the high 40s. So was there for a week where I think we had three days in the high 40s. They’re taking this very seriously in Western Sydney because the difficulties with actually coping with that now, it’s really problematic. They understand that it’s going to get worse. So they’re looking at redesigning urban areas there. More trees, more… They’re looking at the artificial grass and just what a problem that is for in neighborhoods, in sporting stadiums, which at times during extreme heat is just too hot to play on.
You mentioned roofs, the whole design around housing and so forth. So there are some places where there are some serious thinking going on to how houses and cities should be redesigned – and I often come back to the Scandinavian countries and just how much work they put into designing for that future.
And this should be… Unfortunately, sometimes climate change gets thought of as an add-on, you know: ‘we’re going to do all this stuff’ and then: ‘oh, we must think of climate change’, but the adaptation needs to be a core issue of all long-term planning. The more we see that, the easier and less costly it’s going to be into the future.
Mik:
The psychological aspects of everything we’ve talked about here…. What’s Geelong Sustainability doing in terms of mental health and how we deal with this problem mentally?
Neil:
Yeah, it’s one of those things that we take very seriously. And so we are pointing… Well first up in terms of our own staff, our volunteers, our members, our partners and so forth, the safety is our highest priority. We always say that. The issue that climate change is putting more stresses on people, including a lot of younger people, it’s really extra, you know, it’s extra evidence why we do need to address these issues. It is critical and urgent. Doing that.
We’re a small organisation, so in terms of what we can do directly in a practical sense is limited but there’s one thing we know that’s really important going forward is partnership with the health sector, with doctors, with hospitals and so forth.
For a few reasons is because they’re very directly impacted by climate change. But also they’re a very trusted source of people. People listen to information that comes out from doctors, from medical centres, from researchers and so forth. And the more we can align our messaging with them and in partnership with them – and there’s other groups as well. There’s leaders in our community, social centres, and so forth. But you know, the health sector is one that does get people’s ears, and there’s a lot more we can do in partnership there to get the messaging, including on mental health.
Tony:
How much do you think the federal government have come to grips with the climate crisis when along with this report they bring out approval for fossil fuel projects?
Neil:
I think the federal government… We’ve moved a long way in a relatively short space of time. There’s a lot of positives domestically. Where we’re not doing enough is: we’re proving too many of these fossil fuel projects, and in terms of the exporting of fossil fuels, that needs to be curtailed. If we’re really serious about addressing climate change, it’s global emissions that matter. And if we’re contributing to increase in global emissions, then that’s not solving the problem.
Mik:
Neil Plummer from Geelong Sustainability, thank you very much for giving us an update on where we are at locally when it comes to our risk assessments and so on. What would be your advice to people who have listened to The Sustainable Hour today in terms of action, in terms of something tangible to do from here on? What’s the best thing to get started with?
Neil:
I’ll quote my wife, Jo. So she has this great saying that I hear her saying a lot and she actually acts this way. But the quote is: ‘We need to move beyond good intentions to purposeful action.’ And she’s lived her life that way and that’s how she brings that into all the jobs she does, and it is important to have these good intentions, but it’s the actual purposeful actions that matter. And I think more of us need to move towards those actions, and that’s where I’ll leave it, Mik.
. . .
SONG:
Prepare For Impact
Verse 1:
Carbon feeds the sea
Evaporation feeds the clouds
The ocean spins slower
but hotter, and acidified
One month of rain in a single surge
Drowning our city, streets submerged
Red alert in the engine room
Mass evacuation, emergency
Chorus:
Prepare for impact
[We need to move beyond good intentions]
Prepare for impact
[to purposeful action]
Verse 2:
What we’re seeing, says scientists
has never been seen before
This is the age of the
trans-apocalyptic meta-collapse
It doesn’t look like the movies you saw
Rising prices, inequality, war
Industry holding our future at ransom
Leaders saying ‘nothing’s wrong’
Chorus:
Prepare for impact
[It is important to have these good intentions
but it is the actual purposeful actions that matter]
Prepare for impact
[to purposeful action]
Bridge:
But collapse is not the end
it’s the turning of the page
The moment we start choosing
a direction and a vision
The future’s not given, it’s ours to create
The danger’s in clinging to comfort and fate
Our task is not rescue, we nurture the new
We imagine, rebuild, and regenerate
[We do need to address this issue
It is critical and urgent]
Chorus:
Prepare for impact
[We need to move beyond good intentions]
Prepare for impact
[to purposeful action]
Verse 3:
Every choice we make
cuts a little carbon
heals a little wound
restores a little faith
Oh yes, we live on the edge
But we give birth to the new
More gratitude, more time
More laughter, more awe
Prepare for impact
. . .
Audio statement by Neil Plummer in the song’s intro:
Climate change is putting more stresses on people, including a lot of young people. This report, it’s a scary read. It requires a national wake-up call.
. . .
Johan Rockström, speaking at Forbes Sustainability Leaders Summit:
Let’s start by just reminding ourselves that the only reason why we aren’t in even deeper trouble after 150 years of burning fossil fuels is that the ocean has been this biophysical friend that has absorbed 90 per cent of the heat caused by fossil fuel burning, and 25 per cent of the carbon dioxide.
This is acidifying the oceans, heating up the oceans, and we’re also now seeing the fourth global bleaching event which is caused by this warming.
So we are very close, just as Peter pointed out, of a total collapse of coral reef systems in tropical regions on planet Earth, livelihoods for over 200 million people.
We are seeing signs that for… the, you know, since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a few years back concluded that the risk of collapsing, one of the big heat overturning circulation systems, the so-called AMOC, the Atlantic Meridian Overturning Circulation, that regulates the overturning of streams of heat across the entire ocean in North Atlantic has a low likelihood of occurring within this century. The latest science shows that that is unfortunately an underestimate of the risk. It’s more likely that there is, unfortunately, a situation now where we need to conclude that we cannot rule out a shutdown of the AMOC this century.
If that would occur, that we shut down the whole overturning system of heat in the North Atlantic, it would lead to accelerated warming on planet Earth, it would lead to changing the monsoon systems, which can accelerate the forest dieback on the Amazon, and it would abruptly change living conditions in the Northern Hemisphere, not least where I come from, in the Nordic region. A global catastrophe, and the likelihood of this occurring is still with high degree of uncertainty, but there number of scientific papers now showing that the likelihood could be up to 10 per cent of an occurrence which must be considered a global catastrophe.
So that is that the ocean is not only absorbing and dampening the heat caused by our fossil fuel burning, it is showing the first signs of cracks in this ability to remain stable. Sea surface temperatures are rising faster than expected. We may have tipping points on our watch, both in coral reef systems and in the AMOC.
And then finally, just to talk about the ice sheets, the West Antarctic ice sheet is, in the latest evidence, very close to a tipping point, and the Greenland ice sheet, despite uncertainty ranges, may also be very close.
These two could actually tip already when we breach 1.5 degrees Celsius. We don’t know if they could cope with the overshoot period. These two ice sheets hold 10 metres sea level rise together. Of course, it would not be a tsunami overnight the day we cross the tipping point, but it would be unstoppable. It would be a journey towards… you know, handing over a planet to all future generations that unstoppably move towards less and less livable conditions. Why take that risk?
That’s basically what science is asking today. So we’re working very hard on updating the planetary boundary science on the ocean to include ocean oxygen, ocean heat, the biological carbon pump, which is the one that really sucks up the carbon and brings it down to the sea floor of the ocean, and the whole tipping point dynamics of the ocean conveyor and the tropical coral systems. The ocean will determine our future. That is the reality that we have ample evidence to show.
Jingle (43:42)
We love the Earth, it is our planet.
We love the Earth, it is our home.
Listen to our Sustainable Hour – for the future.
Nicholas J. Talley, Doctors for the Environment:
The planet is warming. There’s no doubt about the measurements, there’s no doubt about the science, and yet we still have people in this country ignoring this completely. We, I’m talking about Australia, we are a major driver of climate change. We account for 4.5 per cent of global fossil CO2 emissions. We are major, major exporters of coal, oil and gas. We are really driving one of the key drivers of climate change. And if we are one of the key drivers, we really can do something about this and we really must do something about this.
We also subsidise the fossil fuel industry to billions and billions of dollars. It’s a complex arrangement between states and federal governments. But the point is we are providing that money to literally lead to problems in our own children’s and grandchildren’s health to come. And we argue that is ethical and okay. And I would argue it is totally unethical. It is absolutely appalling that we do this, and still do this. And this is something that could be turned off, not tomorrow, but could be turned off by simple legislation, simple change. And yet we haven’t done it.
Bill McKibben:
In the last three years, we suddenly live on a planet where the cheapest way to produce power is to point a sheet of glass at the sun. That is a potentially epochal moment for human civilisation. We’ve spent 700,000 years setting things on fire. It’s mostly worked, but now it’s causing huge trouble, and we don’t need to do it anymore. We can make a very rapid transition to a different kind of world.
One, among other things, where it will be extremely difficult to fight wars over sunshine and wind. We’ve fought the last hundred years, wars over fossil fuel more than anything else. We have a chance to move into a new world. The only place on the world where it’s being actively resisted right now is the White House and the United States. They’re either going to be left behind or we’re going to do our job and make the case to the American people that they want to be a part of the future too.
There’s no shortcut there’s no magic way to you know make people change but this story that people have to tell is incredibly powerful and beautiful. In a very dark moment in our world and in our country we have this one big good thing happening: this sudden surge in clean energy that’s big enough to take a bite out of both the climate and the authoritarianism crisis – if we let it. But we do have to get behind it and push. That’s why we organise. The most important thing an individual can do is be a little less of an individual and join together with others in movements large enough to make things happen. That’s why we set up things like Third Act to help people find their common voice.
Jingle
Colin: (47:25)
Hey look, can I just say, Neil, it’s been enlightening this morning, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it. Please come back on. Because it’s good to talk to somebody who’s there with the cutting edge of local, sustainable living, and aware of all the difficulties because… job – I don’t know if it’s your previous job, or your job that your are still doing?
Neil:
Both, Colin, previously done, but still involved. I think you all are doing terrific work and yeah, I love your show. Well done. Thank you.
Mik:
Let’s go out there and not only be the difference, but also be risk aware.
Colin:
Be like Jo!
Tony:
Be powerful. Take meaningful action!
. . .
SONG:
‘Starting From Today’
Verse 1:
Looking at your face right now
As you scroll through the headlines
I see the worry in your eyes
About the world we leave behind
And I know you’re wondering
If anyone will make it right
But baby, let me tell you something
That keeps me up at night
There’s still time to change the way
Things are going day by day
And when you feel like giving up
Remember what I say
Chorus:
I can be that difference
I can be that change
I can be that difference
Starting from today
Verse 2:
Dad, I’ve seen the videos
Of how things used to be
Clear skies and clean waters
It’s hard to believe
But I’m not just sitting here
Waiting for a miracle
Got my friends beside me now
We’re making it possible
Every small step counts, they say
Little changes pave the way
When it seems too much to bear
Listen close, I swear
Chorus:
I can be that difference
I can be that change
I can be that difference
Starting from today
Bridge:
We rise together
Hand in hand we’ll find a way
We rise together
Every choice we make today
Shapes tomorrow’s way
Chorus:
I can be that difference
I can be that change
I can be that difference
Starting from today
Outro:
We rise together
Starting from today
…
Jane Goodall:
Just think that today, and tomorrow, and the next day, each day you are going to be making some kind of impact. Think and choose wisely what sort of impact you make.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Events we have talked about in The Sustainable Hour
Events in Victoria
The following is a collation of Victorian climate change events, activities, seminars, exhibitions, meetings and protests. Most are free, many ask for RSVP (which lets the organising group know how many to expect), some ask for donations to cover expenses, and a few require registration and fees. This calendar is provided as a free service by volunteers of the Victorian Climate Action Network. Information is as accurate as possible, but changes may occur.
Petitions
→ List of running petitions where we encourage you to add your name
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Live-streaming on Wednesdays
The Sustainable Hour is streamed live on the Internet and broadcasted on FM airwaves in the Geelong region every Wednesday from 11am to 12pm (Melbourne time).
→ To listen to the program on your computer or phone, go to www.947thepulse.com where you then click on ‘Listen’ on the right.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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