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The Sustainable Hour no. 577 | Transcript | Podcast notes
Our guest in the first Sustainable Hour in 2026 is Luke Taylor, the National Sustainability Festival‘s director, who is instigating a Climate Emergency Reset.
The Sustainable Hour opens 2026 with a powerful and confronting hour, grounded in lived experience, science and hard political questions. From bushfires and floods across Victoria and beyond, to global climate thresholds being crossed, this episode asks what it will take to move from acknowledgement to action.
The episode begins with a stark reminder that climate change is no longer abstract. Extreme heat, fires, floods and crop losses are already reshaping lives, livelihoods and communities. Farmers are losing stock, homes are being destroyed, insurance is disappearing, and food prices are rising – not as future risks, but as present realities.
At the same time, governments continue to approve new coal and gas projects, subsidise fossil fuels, and claim that decisive climate action is too difficult or too expensive. The contradiction is becoming impossible to explain to communities paying the price.
Internationally, landmark legal cases are establishing that failure to act on climate change is not only immoral, but unlawful. Governments have a duty of care to protect people from foreseeable harm – including climate damage caused by fossil fuel emissions.
. . .
Colin Mockett OAM brings a global roundup that confirms how close the world now is to – and beyond – the 1.5°C threshold. Multiple international climate reports released in January show accelerating warming, especially in the oceans and at the poles, with devastating implications for glaciers, coral reefs, food systems and human health.
Against this backdrop, there are also glimpses of what is possible. The United Kingdom has ended new oil and gas exploration, and South Australia is rapidly approaching 100 per cent renewable electricity, exporting clean power and being recognised globally for its leadership.
. . .
The episode’s main conversation is with Luke Taylor, who explains why the National Sustainability Festival is taking a strategic pause in 2026 – not as retreat, but as a hiatus. With funding withdrawn and the climate movement facing a moment of deep challenge, this hiatus is being used to reflect, listen and re-imagine what the festival – and effective sustainability mobilisation – should look like over the next decade.
→ Luke invites you to share your ideas and reflections with us through the festival’s feedback form, which is now available.
Luke also revisits the legacy of the National Climate Emergency Summit and poses a hard question: does Australia need a national climate reset? And if so, what would it take to return to safe climate conditions, rather than merely slowing the rate of damage?
The National Climate Emergency Summit is initiating focused engagement to lay the groundwork for future national climate emergency action. → A Draft Framework for Action has been developed to guide discussion and development.
The discussion goes further, confronting uncomfortable truths about political courage, public acceptance of loss, and the danger of normalising ongoing climate harm. If the risks are existential, then responses must match that scale – including rapid emissions cuts, large-scale carbon drawdown, and serious, carefully governed research into climate cooling options.
The hour closes with reflections on the silence that often follows disasters – the lack of connection between smoke in the air, fires in the landscape, and the fossil fuel decisions that drive them – and a call to reconnect the dots.
This is an episode about honesty, responsibility and the urgent need for a reset – in politics, in public conversation, and in our collective willingness to act.
Music produced for this Hour
‘Reset’ is a stripped-back song built from lived climate reality, political truth-telling and voices of moral authority. It moves between fires and floods, policy failure and public grief, weaving quotes from global leaders and activists into an urgent call for change. The song rejects the language of “transition” and names the moment for what it is: a rupture that demands recalibration and courage. The demand is: reset priorities, put people and nature first, and begin again – while there is still time.
→ More music from The Sustainable Hour on www.climatesafety.info/music
. . .
We wholeheartedly support Luke in his initiatives and urge all of our listeners to have input as well. What needs to change for us to get the numbers needed to create the political will for real action on climate. We are definitely undergoing the transition to clean, job-rich renewable energy systems, but for some reason our current federal government defies the science and continues to approve carbon bombs.
In some countries, governments are having to answer court charges resulting from their lack of real action on climate. When will we see this begin happening in Australia?
Meanwhile millions of people and other living being are being killed and trillions of dollars of infrastructure are being destroyed in carbon dioxide fuelled extreme weather events.
Let’s start not just ‘doing our best’, but doing what is necessary. The solutions are well known:
Draw down carbon. Restore wetlands and forests, establish new forests, and stop cutting old growth forests (as Denmark has recently started doing). Stop approving fossil fuel projects (as the UK has recently done). Stop being influenced by fossil fuel lobbyists, and stop subsidising their damaging work.
Be ready for the climate reset!
“We are really struggling, I think, in the mainstream to get climate to the point where obviously it needs to be the major focus in both national and international arena. We are being sidelined and distracted obviously by major international events and that is highly problematic for climate. But it is something that we are going to have to obviously learn to do is deal with multiple issues at the same time. And that is a severe challenge when you have major economies and governments around the world – obviously, you know, the U.S. – who have pulled out of international cooperation.”
~ Luke Taylor, Director of the National Sustainability Festival
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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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→ Sydney Morning Heral / MSN – 1 February 2026:
It’s time to make fossil fuel polluters pay for their damage
“Coal and gas corporations in Australia pay little tax compared to other countries:”
→ The Conversation – 29 January 2026:
Fossil fuels are doomed – and Trump can’t save them
“Clean energy growth has proved difficult to kill. Despite Trump’s efforts, domestic solar generation is still expected to grow 46% in the next two years while electricity output from fossil fuel plants falls.”
→ The Age – 29 January 2026:
‘Landmark moment’: Renewables’ record surge sends power prices tumbling
“Electricity prices in eastern Australia fell sharply in the final three months of last year as record-breaking contributions from renewable energy and large-scale batteries reduced the need to call on fossil fuels to plug supply gaps.”
Greenpeace – 28 January 2026:
The Netherlands violates human rights by failing to protect Bonaire residents from climate crisis: court
“The Court found the Dutch State in violation of multiple provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights (Art 8 and 14 and Article 1 of Protocol No. 12), citing discriminatory treatment of citizens of Bonaire and a failure by the Dutch State to both reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect people against the current impacts of climate change. The Dutch court is the first court in the world to rule that the State is discriminating against its own people by failing to develop and adopt a climate adaptation plan.”
Important climate news this week
Global: Green tech investments hit a record $2.3 trillion in 2025
This shows the global economy is structurally shifting – clean energy and climate solutions are now where serious money flows, not the margins.
Europe: 10 countries to build a 100GW wind power grid in the North Sea
This is system-level infrastructure on a continental scale – the kind of backbone project that locks in decarbonisation for decades.
Germany: Top court orders stronger climate measures to meet 65% emissions cut by 2030
A major economy’s highest court is enforcing climate targets, proving climate law now has real teeth, not just promises.
EU: EVs outsold petrol cars for the first time ever in December 2025
This marks a cultural and market tipping point – consumer behaviour has crossed a line that is very hard to reverse.
Netherlands: Court orders binding climate targets to be written into law
Another judiciary confirms that governments can be legally compelled to act on climate, strengthening democratic accountability across Europe.
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Transcript of The Sustainable Hour no. 577
Antonio Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General:
Cooperation over chaos. We are all in this together.
Jingle:
The Sustainable Hour. For a green, clean, sustainable Geelong: The Sustainable Hour.
Tony Gleeson:
Good morning listeners. Welcome to The Sustainable Hour. We’d like to acknowledge as we start off 2026 that we’re broadcasting from the land of the Wadawurrung people. We pay tribute to their 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. We are fervent believers that the ancient wisdom that First Nations people have acquired through nurturing both their land and their communities for millennia is going to be needed very badly as we continue to navigate the climate crisis. If there’s any doubt about there being a climate crisis, think about what happened recently in the Otways.
ABC Radio Melbourne caller – Instagram clip:
I’ve got friends who have lost their homes. I saw tents and caravans getting washed away, you know, across the continent. This is what summer’s become and it’s not an accident.
ABC News presenter on 28 January 2026:
The heat wave that sent temperatures into the high 40s yesterday is impacting parts of New South Wales, the ACT and Queensland today. The severe heat saw temperature records set in two dozen locations across South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales.
ABC News presenter on 28 January 2026:
The capital city Adelaide experienced its hottest night ever.
ABC News presenter on 29 January 2026:
Extensive clean-up efforts are underway in parts of North Queensland after severe flooding in the region.
ABC News presenter on 29 January 2026:
The losses are already… In Victoria, there are over 1,300 structures that have been lost and that includes more than 400 homes at current count.
ABC News report on 29 January 2026:
As the smoke clears, the cost of the black scar left by the Larralee/Camperdown blaze is being counted.
“One task at a time. You can’t look at it as a whole project because otherwise it’s just so overwhelming.”
At Lismore, Sanjan Dawson and his family are hard at work after their second farm fire in as many weeks.
“It’s multi-millions of dollars worth of loss. Fencing is expensive, livestock is expensive. It’s our income.”
More than 18,000 hectares of farmland in the state’s southwest have been burned since Saturday, part of a huge bill after a summer of fires across the state.
“We are talking hundreds of millions of dollars, could be nudging the billion dollar mark, from the Victorian fire state by this year.”
Mik Aidt:
Climate change is no longer an abstract policy issue or some discussion about whether or not the science is real. It’s a lived reality unfolding in front of our eyes and landing directly on households, farmers, workers, CFA volunteers, our communities.
Just here in recent weeks, Victorians have witnessed climate impacts that really should alarm any responsible government. Large areas of grazing land and vineyards and cropping country has been damaged or become unusable. Farmers have reported the loss of more than 20,000 cattle and sheep. The financial losses are already counted in hundreds of millions of dollars, as we heard. And for many families, the full cost of this summer is still in the unknown.
At the same time, intense rainfall along the Great Ocean Road, triggering sudden flash flooding at Wye River and nearby coastal communities where rivers turned into like a tsunami within minutes and cars were swept into the ocean. A holiday park had to be evacuated and people had no warning there, no time to react. All these events are not isolated.
Last year, remember? – major floods in New South Wales, Queensland, destroyed homes, damaged infrastructure, disrupted food supply chains, and tens of thousands of people forced to seek emergency assistance. We hear again and again these floods and these bushfires classified at something that should be like a 100-year event, or even a 500-year event.
And we feel the consequences, food prices rising, because crops are failing because supply chains are disrupted. Insurance premiums soaring – or disappearing altogether because there’s many households that are left, they can’t be insured. Farmers keep saying they’ll try to recover and so on, but they know that the next fire, the next flood is going to arrive within months and it’ll be worse. Communities are carrying trauma, financial stress, exhaustion.
ABC News reporter on 11 January 2026:
A state of disaster has been declared, towns have been decimated and firefighters are trying to contain dozens of blazes burning across the state, including new fires near the Great Ocean Road. The most dangerous bushfires…
Mik:
And at the same time, the world is now beginning to recognise what we in the communities have long understood. In the Netherlands and in the International Court of Justice, there’s been landmark climate cases establishing that failure to act on climate change is not just morally wrong, dear politicians, it’s unlawful. Governments have a duty of care to protect their citizens from foreseeable harm. And that duty includes protection from the long-term damages and danger of rising temperatures, which are caused by fossil fuel emissions and land clearing, primarily.
And these court rulings matter. They matter for us here in Australia, too. They make it obviously clear that approving new fossil fuel projects while knowing the damage that they cause is a breach of responsibility.
And in this light, many of us feel betrayed by Labor’s lack of climate action. I mean, just look at the coming budget that they’re talking about. More than 10 billion dollars is once again allocated for the fossil fuel subsidies. Flowing from us, the taxpayers, from the Australian government to the coal, oil and gas industry. That’s public funds that help sustain an industry that is driving climate change, the climate change which Australians are living through and paying for.
At the same time, the federal government has found itself able to commit $386 billion to the AUKUS submarine program over the coming decades. That’s finding political and fiscal space for weapons procurement while arguing that our decisive climate action, it’s too hard, it’s too risky, or it’s too expensive.
That’s a contradiction, honestly, that’s impossible to explain any longer to communities that are losing their homes, their farms, losing financial security. It’s simply no longer acceptable.
During the Second World War, Winston Churchill said, ‘It’s no use saying we are doing our best. You’ve got to succeed in doing what’s necessary.’ And that applies now. History will not judge good intentions. It will judge the outcomes. We’ve got to succeed in doing what’s necessary to protect the ecosystems, secure food and water systems, and restore a stable climate.
Why should it be the Australian farmers and households who pay the cost of climate damage? Those who pollute, the climate polluters should be paying the bill. And we have the Superpower Institute, led by Ross Garnaut, that has proposed a climate levy based on a very simple and fair principle that those who profit from pollution should contribute most to the cost of the climate damage. Households should be compensated and protected. That’s a very concrete, workable pathway, and it aligns economic reality with social fairness.
What’s missing, and why this is not yet happening, is political courage. And as we know, there’s always an election coming. I think here locally in Geelong, in Corio, in Corangamite, people are getting tired of being represented by Labor. We’re asking for honesty, for responsibility, and for leadership that matches the scale of this crisis. We’re asking for Labor to please stop saying that you’re doing all the right things when you’re not. You have to choose protection of us, the people, and the country over protection of polluters.
That will be how we open the Sustainable Hour in 2026. And I’m predicting that we’ll be talking quite a lot more, in particular about the political choices we have and don’t have locally here in Geelong. But every week we’ll also have the usual outlook outside of the Australian borders to see what’s happening around the world. And our captain of that post is Colin Mockett OAM. Who is… I’m assuming, Colin – are you ready with some news from around the world?
COLIN MOCKETT’S GLOBAL OUTLOOK:
Yes, I certainly am. This is Captain Colin here. I’ve never been called that before. I’m asking for a similar sort of indulgence as you did, because I’d like to begin with a recap. Because last month, four key international climate reports were all released. That was during January. And I’d like to recap them very quickly, because all of them indicated that relentless human-caused global warming continued throughout 2025, most especially in the oceans and at the poles.
The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service reported in January that for the third time in a row, Earth’s average temperatures ran close to 1.5°C degrees Celsius hotter than before fossil fuel pollution started damaging the atmosphere. Their figures show that 2025 ranked as the third warmest on record, just a hair bit cooler than 2023, and within striking distance of 2024, the hottest year ever. Together, the past three years averaged more than 1.5°C degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures.
That’s the first time any three-year stretch has crossed that threshold. Exceeding a three-year average of 1.5°C degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels is a milestone that none of us wished to reach, said Mario Fascioli from the European Commission’s Directorate General.
The new report reinforces the importance of Europe’s leadership in climate monitoring to inform both mitigation and adaptation,” he added, because the US is rapidly pulling back amid Trump administration attacks on climate science. Further to this, global temperatures from 2023 to 2025 suggest that the past warming rate is no longer a reliable predictor of the future. That said Kristen Sissener, executive director of Berkeley Earth, a non-profit climate research organisation that also released a global report in January.
And completing the quartet, the UN research released in January has shown that warming by more than 1.5°C degrees Celsius above the baseline will spell the end of nearly all global glaciers and coral reefs, a marked dangerous red zone for damage and destruction of ecosystems, food supplies, human health and infrastructure. You can’t get more dire than that.
And just to keep that momentum going, Professor Ian Lowe, he’s a climate scientist at Griffith University, said it appeared no longer possible to meet the 1.5°C degree goal.
Well, two degrees is also looking increasingly unlikely. It’s getting harder and harder to be optimistic, he said. The depressing thing is that the world emissions are still increasing, which means that observer from another galaxy would say that we know what’s causing climate change, but we’re not doing anything about it as a global civilisation.
Locally, while we’re facing the bushfires in Victoria and floods elsewhere and the more frequent extreme events that have been predicted by the science since the 1980s, we are still approving extensions of coal mines and still approving new gas fields as if we didn’t know what was causing the problems. Now, after that depressing start, here are a couple of positive stories.
First from the UK and then from Australia. First the UK, where Britain announced late last year that it had become the world’s largest economy to end new oil and gas exploration, commenting on the UK government’s North Sea Future Plan, which confirmed that no more licences for new oil or gas would be issued.
Greenpeace’s UK, Areeba Hamid, said, ‘Britain has just made history.’ Closing the door to new exploration marks the beginning of the end of oil and gas in this country. By standing firm on its manifesto promise, the government has shown genuine global climate leadership making the UK the world’s largest economy to call time on new fossil fuel exploration. This is a major milestone. Oil and gas production has driven both the climate and energy prices, leaving us all playing through the nose while fossil fuel giants have pocketed billions. But the winds are changing. The future of Britain’s energy is and needs to be clean, stable, home-grown renewables, not expensive volatile climate-wrecking fossil fuels.
And that good news could equally have come from South Australia, which if you remember 20 years ago was considered an energy basket case with multiple ongoing blackouts causing intensive care beds and nursing homes to shut down and Adelaide traffic to snarl up when all of the traffic lights went out. The big problem was, and still is, that SA doesn’t have any rivers or dams to drive turbines and create hydroelectricity, and it doesn’t have the geothermal resources that, for example, Nordic countries have.
But in 2002, the newly elected Labour government there decided to go down the renewables path with backup batteries to even out supply. I’m pretty sure we will all remember Elon Musk saying if he could get Tesla batteries back up inside 100 days, if he couldn’t get it up inside 100 days, it would be free. And he did it. Well, today the South Australian state has some eight times that amount of battery storage to even out its supply, and South Australia actually exports its surplus power to Victoria and New South Wales. At present, the state’s power source is closing in on 100 per cent renewables. They’re aiming to reach that point in 2027. The biggest proportion is wind power, some 46 per cent of SA’s energy generation. Solar accounted for 27.6 per cent with the vast majority of that being rooftop solar.
Sometime in the next couple of months, South Australia will pass the one out of two homes with rooftop solar point. The SA government celebrated being on purely renewable power for a whole week on December the 1st of 2025. Last year, there were 289 days when renewables met all of the state’s power needs. And as the SA Energy Minister, Tom Koutsantonis, pointed out that renewable energy in his state had lifted from 1 per cent when they took office to the present state of looking at 100 per cent, and exporting power on busy days. And the achievement has been noted worldwide because the International Energy Agency now rates South Australia alongside Denmark as the world’s leading states for renewable energy.
And finally, news of the world’s only sustainable sporting club, that’s Forest Green Rovers, the British football team. Well, the Rovers hit a rough patch since we stopped keeping an eye on them before Christmas. They played six games over the holiday period. They drew three of them, won one and lost two. As a consequence they slipped down the ladder from seconds to sixth.
But it’s still saveable and they do still have a winning team in their stadium because the Forest Green Rovers women’s team, who’ve won three of their last five games with the other two postponed because of waterlogged pitches, are still on top of their ladder, even having played three fewer games than the rest of their rivals. And that is our roundup, world roundup, for the week.
Tony:
Our first guest today is Luke Taylor. It’s a bit of a tradition on The Sustainable Hour that Luke’s our first guest for the year and usually talks about Sustainable Living Festival. Luke, thanks for coming on again and tell us about what’s going to happen in lieu of the Sustainable Living Festival this year.
Luke Taylor:
Yeah, thanks, Tony. Well, the context, guess, is that we’ve decided to, for mix of reasons, go into a hiatus, festival hiatus this year, basically a strategic pause to take the opportunity to step back and reflect and look at what is the long-term future of the festival? What is it currently doing in terms of meeting its core objectives and mission? How could it be more effective? How do we draw in more audiences?
So these are ongoing questions that have always been at the forefront of planning the festival. But we think that it’s a good opportunity for us this year.
We’ve had news from the city of Melbourne that there decided not to fund the festival this year, which is obviously a reason for us to sort of put the breaks on a bit and look for alternative partners who are committed to sustainability in the long term. And it’s, like I said, a strategic pause in that sense to reflect and take a moment. It certainly hasn’t meant that we have taken much of a break, I have to say, because there’s quite a lot of work when you’re doing that strategic work and forming new relationships and partnerships and so forth.
In parallel to that, I should say that part of the hiatus process is that we’re reaching out to people, past audiences, new audiences, to get their direct feedback on where the festival should go in the next 10 years.
So I’d like to give a bit of a plug for that if I can. There’s a survey on our website, sustainabilityfestival.au, and we’re really encouraging as many people as possible to submit a survey response to a bunch of questions, which again go to the heart of what the purpose of the festival is and how can it really meet its core objectives going into the future.
So, those of you who are listening to this and know enough about the festival and feel you’ve got something to contribute, we would really love to hear from you.
In parallel to that, we’re also five years or so on now from the first National Climate Emergency Summit that we held in 2020, which was the last time that actually the festival took a bit of a, in a sense, a bit of a hiatus. We decided to suspend the normal programming in 2020 of the festival to convene and host the National Climate Emergency Summit.
And that was, came at a moment where we were off the back of obviously the horrendous 2020 fires in Australia and there was obviously a lot of focus on climate in 2020 in the public arena and there was a lot of momentum that was building as an outcome from that event. However, the world kind of took a bit of a different direction after early 2020 January, if you remember.
Within about a week’s time after the summit, we found ourselves in the middle of a global pandemic and the world obviously was shut down for, well, sporadically for quite a number of years. So this recent reset, as we’re calling it, or putting the idea out there that we need a national reset for climate action in Australia that probably won’t come to much of a surprise to many of your listeners in terms of where we are at currently at the moment with the physical impacts is dire as has been pointed out many times on this program and with the great introduction, Mik, that you provided, where we’re, we’re at a, you know, a highly dangerous point, in time and the other really strong factor at the moment is the fact that we have the rise of authoritarian governments which are not showing a supportive direction on climate.
And this is one of the things I think is a huge, obviously a huge issue for the climate movement and climate action is how do we regain momentum, is really at the moment, I think the climate movement is facing somewhat of a crisis. We are struggling to get climate really on the agenda at all. I think as you mentioned again in the introduction, Mik, you know, we’ve just had, you know, a period here in Australia again with, know, extreme weather conditions, extreme climate conditions, which of course it’s been predicted well and truly for many years and forecast that this would happen. But we’re seeing no public discourse. There’s no public conversation around the links to climate change in relation to this.
So we’re really struggling, I think, in the mainstream to get climate to the point where obviously it needs to be the major focus in both national and international arena. We’re being sidelined and distracted obviously by major international events and that is highly problematic for climate. But it’s something that we’re going to have to obviously learn to do is deal with multiple issues at the same time. And that is a, that’s a severe challenge when you have major economies and governments around the world, obviously, you know, the U.S. who have pulled out of international cooperation.
So this really sort of builds this whole, whole question around, you know, the middle powers and alliances and new alliances and I think we’re just obviously in the very early stages of what does that look like? What does it look like for countries like Australia who declare that they are committed to climate change? If our national government is committed to climate change then what does that look like in relation to things like you know our foreign policy position you know just recently the Australian security leaders climate group put out a call for a climate first foreign policy position. And these kinds of calls, I think, are getting stronger and stronger now that we need to reshape the types of relationships that we have and form and find those nations and those regions that are really committed to genuine and meaningful climate action.
Colin:
Sad to hear, Luke. Have you got a date for the 2027 festival?
Luke:
Yeah, the festivals are always in February. Unless something comes out of the hiatus period where there’s, you know, we’re putting everything on the table at the moment. There’s date change, format change, everything is completely on the table.
Having said that though, traditionally obviously the festival has been in February and there’s good reasons for us to still put the event on at that time of the year in my opinion. But we will leave that open at this stage. It’s still early in the year and we’ve still got a long way to go in terms of the process of the festival. I mean, yeah, Colin, we’re not really looking at it as a sad position. We’re looking at it as a great opportunity for us to build and to refocus.
And the focus on the National Climate Emergency Summit, I’ll just give another plug. We’re also looking for feedback in relation to this question about does Australia need a climate reset? And if so, what does that look like? And how could the National Climate Emergency Summit, the run in 2020 that some of your listeners might recall, how could that play a role in helping with the climate action reset?
There’s been calls by some activists within the scene to stage a national climate emergency briefing. Obviously, we have this ongoing issue that while we keep banging on about more climate action required to, in our position, the target needs to be to return to safe climate conditions.
But there is a huge void of, within the mainstream and within mainstream politics obviously, of having a really full and detailed account of what the risks are completely underestimating the risks. And so therefore we’re not holding government’s accountable enough. And so they’re really getting away with things at the moment because they can claim that they’re doing something and we have to get out of, think, the rhythm of saying we need stronger climate action. Well, stronger climate action can be qualified, quantified by different measures, by different people. You can always claim you’re doing something stronger, stronger than something that you were doing before.
As I think again, you pointed out in that excellent intro, Mik, you said it’s about doing what needs to be done. Now for us, we’ve maintained for quite some time that returning to safe climate conditions is as difficult and as hard as that sounds to many people politically impossible or technically possible. That’s the only way out of this for us now. We’ve effectively already reached 1.5°C and that really puts the international climate community in this very interesting space where we’ve held for quite some time this mainstream climate activist view that, okay, we’ll jump on the 1.5°C position. At least we’ll hold to that, but we’ve already reached that.
So we’re already at 1.5°C and we’ve arguably there’s already enough emissions to actually push us to two degrees already in the system, already released, but yet to build the, create the warming. So if effectively we’re sort of already on the ground 1.5°C, we’ve already got in the system to two degrees, potentially over two degrees, what are we doing?
And the question is, we’re not doing what we need to do. And that is obviously radical zero emissions as fast as humanly possible, war time scale and speed. And, you know, Manhattan style projects in relation to carbon drawdown, because we know that even if we went to zero emissions, that still would not be enough for us to even stabilise, let alone get back to safe climate conditions. So we will have to do something about the fact that while that drawdown will take some time, even if we scale it up massively with natural systems and all the tech that we can throw at it, we will still need to do something about the in the short term to buy us enough time to cool the planet.
And that’s where I think part of the international climate movement is going further into now. And I think we have to, as much as it’s been a taboo space for a long, long time, we’ve always been open to it. We’ve always argued for the fact that, you know, more research, more investigation into this space is critical and the longer that we leave it, the worse it will be because we’ll find ourselves at some stage in a panic and you don’t want to be in a panic when you’re investigating those types of solutions. It needs to be a very considered and a very logical, a very paced investigation into what safe options for climate cooling are available to us for local and regional and potentially global cooling.
Mik:
And Luke, at the same time we have Trump who is basically not respecting that there is such a thing as international law. And we’re beginning to see private companies experimenting with different methods such as spraying some sulfur up in the clouds and seeing if that could create the same effect as volcanoes, which would dim the sunbeams, and so on. But these are private companies. It’s not even governments. So it’s a bit of a ‘wild west’, isn’t it?
Luke:
It is. I mean, as I said before, you know, the rise of authoritarian governments and so forth in the world is a huge issue for the climate movement. I mean, it is, you know, as you said, I’m not suggesting for a moment that our system is perfect. And for many people, they will, we’ll struggle to support the so-called existing system and so forth, given that it’s delivered us with a lot of environmental and climate damage. But this is another level. This stuff, I mean, what’s happening now?
And again, I mean, as Breakthrough put out an article directly after Trump’s inauguration that it started. This is it, day one. Don’t worry about giving him a chance. I mean, he’s been on the record for quite some time with what he intends to do. And that’s exactly how it’s playing out. And in terms of the dismantling of democracy, not only pulling out of climate commitments, but the dismantling of democracy and alliances which with all their flaws in relation to targets and action and so forth. But at least you could obviously say that there is some type of framework or some type of intention to do what we know which is required is you have to have international action. i mean, if we’re not solving the problem on a global level, then it just won’t work, you know, big challenges in that.
And I think, you know, the speech obviously by Mark Carney, you know, around the middle power and order and so forth is something that we’ve certainly been calling for quite some time. And we think that that’s where you have to go. You’ve got to build alliances with meaningful actors and we have to be pushing through internally the climate movement obviously have to be pushing those middle power nations to have the best and the necessary climate targets at the forefront as we move into those international negotiations. That’s our responsibility. That’s what we’ve got to do.
Tony:
Luke, do you think it comes down to the lack of numbers to create the political will to make those changes?
Luke:
Yes, do you mean in numbers of citizens, you’re talking about? Because that’s entirely, I mean, we, I can’t see, it’s like any other issue. We, as a climate movement, have to face the position that we aren’t sufficiently getting through to the public with the full nature of the risks.
And we’re not actually advocating for the full speed and scale of responses that are required. And those things obviously go hand in hand. I mean, the only reason that we’re where we have the position that we require this set of solutions or part of your pathways of potential solutions is because you look at the risk and you say, well, what’s the degree of the risk? How would you mitigate that risk and protect?
I mean, that’s the essential question, isn’t it? It’s the same question that Philip Sutton used to ask us time and time again. What is it that you want to protect? And then you work back, you backcast from there. And that how we work on other policy. That’s how essentially businesses work. What do they want to achieve? And you work back from there. And we don’t do that from climate change because it’s been corrupted in many senses and know merchants of doubts are in there mixing it up along the way to confuse people and so forth.
But if you just come if you always just come back to that central question what is it that you want to protect and the reality is that for most people certainly our bunch we want to protect people and nature that’s a simple way of saying it ecological protection and social global human protection.
Now, if you’ve got that interest at heart, even if you were just interested in humanity, then, okay, let’s look at the risks to that. And then you work out the risks and the climate risks and work out the existential threat of climate change. If you really work your way through the science and what risks are right before us right now, as again Mik’s pointed out very well in his introduction, you suddenly work out, well, that’s the level of risk that we’ve got, then this is the sweetest solutions that we need to try everything as possible because the risks are so high. And we don’t look at the high end risk.
That’s the other part of the problem. We look at the low end spectrum of risks and tend to want to avoid those because they’re not politically palatable and they’re too hard for us to deal with. Most people think that what we’re proposing is completely impossible to do. How would you go to zero emissions within a decade, within 10 years? How would you create a Manhattan-style project for, you know, mass drawdown to investigate all the possibilities of what safe drawdown means for a nation state like Australia. That’s what we should be doing right now. We should be, I mean, we have this enormous capacity for drawdown that is completely untapped and completely under-resourced. And yet it’s something that we could do right now, really practically, obviously while we’re speeding up the transitions to zero emissions.
So there’s plenty that we can do that’s completely achievable, completely within reach. But we obviously need to get very organised to do what you just said, Tony, is without convincing, you know, a super majority of Australians, you can’t run at the scale and speed that you need to, to address the problem. And that’s a big task. That’s a huge task.
The climate movement has obviously been doing a huge amount of work for decades. And I think we forget to remember how successful we’ve been in some ways. i mean, you know, even 10, 15 years ago, there was a lot more skepticism in Australia and denial around climate than there is now. At least you could say now, will people accept climate change? The problem is that that’s almost the biggest problem is they’ve been made to accept it. We’re accepting loss. We’re accepting not being protected all the time. And that is that that is a weapon.
We’ve been made thankful for crumbs in relation to climate action because we don’t believe that there’s anything that we can really do. I mean, I reckon more than half the population in Australia and probably internationally don’t believe that really there are solutions that could potentially get us back to safe climate conditions. I mean, the notion of reversing climate change back to safe climate conditions for most people, it seems fanciful. And we don’t know whether we can do it, but my God, I mean, in terms of what’s at stake, we have to try everything, every possible means that is safe and show that net social and environmental benefit needs to be managed in that frame.
But at the moment, the big problem, I think, in the general population, certainly in Australia, is we are accepting loss. People are accepting loss. And I don’t think they realise how big the loss is that they’re accepting. And that’s the task is how do we open that window?
And there’s some really interesting psychology in amongst all of that, because people may not want to go into certain spaces mentally unless they see other things or other doorways opened up. And so it is a complex question. It’s not all one message fits all types of approach. And I think that’s what makes it difficult for the climate movement is we actually need somehow to develop.
And not to say that hasn’t been tried in some cases, scale is our big problem and the actual messaging and complexity of messaging, I think, is our problem as well.
. . .
Mik:
Thank you so much, Luke, for opening 2026 for The Sustainable Hour, I think with a lot of good reflections and also questions to how we reset the climate movement and how we reset Australia, basically, and how we engage people.
Luke:
Can I just give a plug for the survey that we’re running on the National Climate Emergency Summit website, which is just on the climateemergenciesummit.org website. So if you go to climateemergenciesummit.org and just hit the button there that says Your say, Have your say and there’s some pretty simple and the survey doesn’t take too long to get through.
Mik:
So. I think, Luke, we can say at The Sustainable Hour, we’d love to have you back when you have some results, when you’ve heard how people have suggested different things.
And can I just round off this hour with the fact that I saw on ABC News that ACF, which is an organisation that does have more than 700,000 supporters in this country, that’s quite significant in a country of 26 million people. ACF has a new CEO, and I think he speaks pretty well in terms of what we need and where we’re at. Have a listen here to Adam Bandt.
Adam Bandt, CEO, ACF – Instagram clip:
This really is horrific and there’s a lot of people who are under enormous stress. We’ve seen in parts of Victoria, people go from fires to floods, back to fires again, and there’s enormous threat to people’s lives and livelihoods. This is the climate crisis in action and the heat waves and the fires and the floods that we’re seeing are being fuelled by coal and gas. We’re really concerned that also since the Parliament’s gone back, we’ve seen the approval of coal mines, we’ve seen the approval of the North West Shelf Gas Project. There’s a couple of really big climate bombs that are looking at being detonated during the term of this Parliament.
Beteloo in the Northern Territory, Browse over in Western Australia. As they go back, I know that there will be some very heartfelt speeches about the lives that we’ve seen being lost as a result of these disasters and the livelihoods that have now been put under threat. I guess what I don’t want to say is more of that Canberra cognitive dissonance where we have those heartfelt speeches about the fires, the floods and the heat waves, and then the next day they go and approve another coal and gas mine.
Mik:
Cognitive dissonance…
Tony:
It seems to me that like everything we value, no matter what we value, it’s under threat. We’ve got the common denominator there that’s under threat. If that doesn’t get it motivated, I don’t know what will.
Luke:
That’s right.
Colin:
My real concern is that we’ve had bushfires in the old ways. We’ve had all kinds of climate reactions on our doorstep. And yet nobody’s talking about it in the supermarkets. Nobody’s talking about it in the streets. Nobody’s talking about it in the media even. Nobody. We’re sort of dumbstruck and the only thing that people are talking about is who’s going to take over the Liberal Party or what Trump’s doing now. It’s almost as if we’ve been blindsided and blindfolded by aspects of the media to the point where we don’t even seem to care anymore.
Tony:
That comes down to not enough of us care. There’s a lot of care, a lot of quiet concern. That quiet concern doesn’t really exist in terms of the pollies and influence on them, on the decision makers.
Colin:
Nobody seems to be making the points come together. They will report that Melbourne was covered in smoke haze and they’ll say it’s from the Otway fires. But they’re not putting the two and two and two together and saying the Otway fires were because of climate change. And climate change is because of our pollution from our cars and from our gas heaters and the rest. So that’s the real problem that we’ve got to get over this year. We’ve got to start people making those connections.
Mik:
Be ready for a reset.
Luke:
Yeah! Let’s get a reset going.
. . .
SONG
‘Reset’
– audio mp3
Intro:
Reset. We begin again.
Reset. (We begin again.)
Verse 1:
The fires came
The rain, chaos
Homes lost
at the highest cost
We know the cause
why they delay
It’s broken a system
It’s time to say:
Chorus:
Reset! – and recalibrate
Reset! – the possibility
Reset! – and prioritise
People before profit
Reset
Reset
Mark Carney, Canada’s Prime Minister, at the World Economic Forum:
“We are in the midst of a rupture. Not a transition.”
Reset
Let’s get a reset going
Verse 2:
Still approving
Still subsidise
Still saying “later”
As temperatures rise
This is not an accident
Not ‘Nature’s fury’
The choise is deliberate
by those who profit
Chorus:
Reset! – and recalibrate
Reset! – the possibility
Reset! – and prioritise
People before profit
Reset
Reset
Adam Bandt, CEO, Australian Conservation Foundation:
“The heat waves and the fires and the floods that we’re seeing are being fuelled by coal and gas. I guess what I don’t want to see is more of that Canberra cognitive dissonance where we have those heartfelt speeches about the fires, the floods and the heat waves, and then the next day they go and approve another coal and gas mine.”
Luke Taylor:
“Yeah! Let’s get a reset going!”
Antonio Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General:
“Coperation over chaos
Law over lawlessness
We are all in this together”
Choir:
What do we protect?
People! Nature!
What do we defend?
Life on planet Earth!
Sir David Attenborough:
“The only way to operate is to believe we can do something about it, and I truly think we can.”
Final chorus:
Reset! – and recalibrate
Reset! – the possibility
Reset! – and prioritise
People before profit
Reset
Yeah! Let’s get this reset going
This is where
we begin again
Sarah Wilson – TEDx talk Instagram clip:
“I have spent countless nights on my small apartmant, in fetal position cyring, wayling in grief. But I feel more alive than ever.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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
→ Australia | Petition:
Make fossil fuel polluters pay for the damage they are causing | The Australia Institute
Petitioning the Parliament of Australia: “I support a climate disaster levy on the predominantly foreign-owned corporations exporting fossil fuels (coal, gas and oil) from Australia, to compensate Australians for the damage and increased cost of living they are causing.”
21,682 signatures on 26 May 2025. 30,494 signatures on 5 February 2026.
→ Australia | Send an email:
Email your MP: Cut climate pollution and reduce fire risk | Climate Council
Click the link to use our easy action form. Enter your details and postcode to find your federal MP and local federal representatives Review the pre-written email (you can add your own personalised message too). Click send! Your message goes straight to your local federal representatives and MP’s office.
→ Australia | Create letter:
Call for the immediate withdrawal of new 2025 Otway Basin gas exploration | Surfrider Foundation Australia
Use this AI-powered message generator to create your unique and personal message to the Prime Minister, the Resources Minister, the Environment Minister, as well as relevant state and federal MPs.
→ Victoria, Australia | Send an email:
Opposing the Labor government’s new gas expansion | Wilderness Society
On 11 December 2025, the Albanese government opened up a vast area of Victoria and Tasmania’s oceans to brand new frontier seismic blasting and gas drilling. After kicking out Equinor, BP and Chevron from the Great Australian Bight, we know the best way to stop the endless expansion of new oil and gas drilling projects is to stop them before they even start. Please email the Prime Minister today!
Closes on 5 February 2026
→ Victoria, Australia | Petition:
Make climate polluters pay for fires and floods | The Australian Greens
We can stop new fossil fuel projects and make big climate polluters pay for the damage they cause. Join the Greens in calling on the Victorian Labor Government to make coal and gas companies pay for the damage caused by fires and floods.
→ Australia | Sign open letter:
These are the signals of climate change | Farmers for Climate Action
Open letter to the Prime Minister, Federal Opposition Leader, State Premiers, State Opposition Leaders and all Members of Parliaments across Australia: We need strong, decisive action to drive down emissions this decade and protect farming families and our food supply. The scale of our collective response must match the scale of the climate challenge.
→ List of running petitions where we encourage you to add your name
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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 top right of the page.
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Podcast archive
Over 600 hours of sustainable podcasts
Listen to all of The Sustainable Hour radio shows as well as special Regenerative Hours and Climate Revolution episodes in full length.
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