Climate Emergency Resources

Action plans

  • The Drawdown Review: Climate solutions for a new decade (Project Drawdown - PDF March 2020)
    This updated research (from inaugural publication in 2017) lays out 76 existing solutions for removing and sequestering carbon emissions from the atmosphere. The report breaks down the actions that need to happen across 9 sectors to stabalise emissions and quantifies the impacts these actions will have in terms of CO2 equivalent reduced/sequestered 2020-2050. What makes this report a stand out, is that all the actions set out are proven and existing - all that is required is scaling and global uptake. Further quantification of implementation costs, operational savings and lifetime net profit and a technical summary for each actions can be found on the solutions section of the Drawdown website.

  • Global energy transformation: A roadmap to 2050 (IRENA - report link 2018)

    This study from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) highlights immediately deployable, cost-effective options for countries to fulfil climate commitments and limit the rise of global temperatures. The envisaged energy transformation would also reduce net costs and bring significant socio-economic benefits, such as increased economic growth, job creation and overall welfare gains.

  • Energy transition within 1.5°C – A disruptive approach to 100% decarbonisation of the global energy system by 2050 (Ecofys/Navigant - PDF 2018)

    In this paper, Navigant presents a transformation scenario that would see the global energy system fully decarbonized by 2050. The paper explores options for a fast energy system transformation scenario, against a background of increasing population and growing demand for energy services like space heating and cooling, transportation, and materials production.

  • What genuine, no bullshit ambition on climate change would look like – how to hit the most stringent targets, with no loopholes (Roberts, D - article October 2018)
    This Vox article explores what it would it would take to really tackle climate change. The proposed approach, which includes “no delays, no gimmicks, no loopholes, no shirking of responsibility”, provides a simple and straightforward view on what real action would look like.

  • Drawdown: The most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming (Hawken, P - link to book data 2017)

    First published in 2017, the book Drawdown and supporting website draws on peer reviewed science to describe the 100 most substantive solutions to global warming. For each solution, a description is provided of its history, the carbon impact it provides, the relative cost and savings, the path to adoption, and how it works.

  • Rewiring the economy - Ten tasks, ten years (Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership - Report & web portal, updated Nov 2018)

    This report lays out a 10 year plan to lay the foundations for a sustainable economy. It is built on ten interconnected tasks, delivered by leaders across business, government and finance. Rewiring shows how these tasks can be tackled co-operatively to build an economy that encourages sustainable business practices, delivering the social and environmental progress demanded by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

  • The climate mobilization victory plan (Silk, E: The Climate Mobilization - plan link August 2016)

    This plan, published by the The Climate Mobilization in the the U.S., presents an approach to eliminate net greenhouse gas emissions at wartime speed, contribute to a global effort to restore a safe climate, and reverse ecological overshoot through massive WWII-scale mobilization. While the focus on the paper is the US, the actions presented are applicable and scale-able globally.

  • The one degree war plan (Randers, J & Gilding, P - PDF 2010)

    Arguably the first data-backed action plan for responding to the climate crisis, this acclaimed and controversial journal paper describes and quantifies global actions required to limit the warming of our planet to 1 degree.

  • A path to sustainable energy by 2030 (Jacobson, M & Delucchi, M - PDF 2009)
    Using only technologies available and scale-able today, the plan presented in the Scientific American demonstrates how the world can feasibly produce 100% of its energy by 2030 from sources with near-zero lifetime (including construction, operation and decommissioning) emissions of greenhouse gases and air pollutants.

Global Agreements

  • Emissions Gap Report 2019 (UNEP - report November 2019)
    This UN Environment Programme report released ahead of COP25, says that nations need to make their emissions-reductions goals five times more ambitious in order to limit warming to 1.5 degrees C — the threshold scientists say is the danger line for global warming. UNEP Executive Director and author of the report gives humanity two options “set in motion the radical transformations we need now, or face the consequences of a planet radically altered by climate change”.

Adaptation

  • Adapt now - A global call for leadership on climate resilience (Global Commission on Adaptation - Report September 2019)
    As global action to slow climate change has been insufficient, this report argues that we must invest in a massive effort to adapt to conditions that are now inevitable: higher temperatures, rising seas, fiercer storms, more unpredictable rainfall, and more acidic oceans. Adaptation is not an alternative to a redoubled effort to stop climate change, but an essential complement to it. Failing to lead and act on adaptation will result in a huge economic and human toll, causing widespread increases in poverty and severely undermining long-term global economic prospects.

  • The heat is on over the climate crisis. Only radical measures will work. (Vince, G - article May 2019)
    This Guardian article provides an excellent overview of the potential impacts of 2-4 degrees warming and how the human species may survive in such circumstances.

Climate science

IPCC

  • All IPCC publications

  • Global Warming of 1.5 degrees (IPCC - PDF October 2018)

    An IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty.

  • AR5 Synthesis Report: Climate Change 2014 (IPCC - Link October 2014)

    The IPCC’s 5th Assessment Report providing an overview of the state of knowledge concerning the science of climate change - “Human influence on the climate system is clear, and recent anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are the highest in history. Recent climate changes have had widespread impacts on human and natural systems”.

  • AR6 Climate Change 2021 (IPCC - Due for release from April 2021)

IPCC conservatism

  • What lies beneath: The science understatement of climate risks (Spratt, D & Dunlop, I - PDF September 2017)

    Bringing together the voices of some of the worlds leading scientists, this report argues for an urgent risk reframing of climate research and the IPCC reports. The report argues that climate policy making has become embedded in a culture of scientific reticence and as a results, the level risk we face is underplayed.

IPCC interpreted

  • How to understand 1.5 degrees C climate science (Spratt, D - PDF July 2018)

    This report provides a summary and analysis of IPCC 2018 1.5 degree science. With 1.5 degrees of warming potentially only a decade away, and dangerous climate already reached, there is no carbon budget left.


Climate system feedbacks and tipping points - runaway climate change

  • Asynchronous carbon sink saturation in African and Amazonian tropical rainforests (Hubau et al - Journal Article $ March 2020)
    This Nature article reports that Amazonian rainforests and tropical forests in Africa are now absorbing less carbon dioxide than they used to. Typically, structurally intact tropical forests sequestered about half of the global terrestrial carbon uptake over the 1990s and early 2000s, removing about 15 per cent of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. Current climate models assume this level of absorption to continue indefinitely. Over the past ten years however, rainforests and Africa’s tropical forests absorbed 30 percent less carbon dioxide than they did in the 1990s, signalling they have reached a state of saturation. This news article (Slav, 7 March 2020), provides a summary of the implications this has for emission reduction goals that will keep warming below 1.5 degrees C.

  • Climate tipping points - too risky to bet against (Lenton et.al. - Article $ November 2019)
    This Nature article summarises evidence on the threat of exceeding tipping points, identify knowledge gaps and suggesting how these should be plugged. The article emphasises why tipping points define that we are in a climate emergency and strengthens the calls for urgent climate action.

  • Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene (Hothouse Earth) (Steffen et.al. - PDF July 2018)

    This peer reviewed paper explores the risk that self-reinforcing feedbacks could push the Earth System toward a planetary threshold that, if crossed, could prevent stabilization of the climate and cause continued warming on a “Hothouse Earth” pathway, even as human emissions are reduced.

  • Antarctic tipping points (Spratt, D - PDF February 2017)

    This report examines the extreme pressure from a warming climate being experienced by the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. The West Antarctic Peninsula is now the strongest-warming region on the planet, and its glaciers are discharging ice at an accelerating rate.

Progress and Innovation

  • How data science can help fight climate change (datascienceprograms.com - Learning Resource 2023)

    This 2023 learning resource provides an overview of the role data science plays in understanding the complexities of climate chaneg and how we might best prepare for, and fight it. From improving the accurace of predictive climate models, to the precision application of fertilizers on farms, data science is critical in guiding us towards a more sustainable future.

  • The new science fossil fuel companies fear (Colman, Z - Article October 2019)
    This Politico article explains the history and progress of ‘attribution science’, a method of modelling and analysis that indicates how the contribution of greenhouse gas emissions since the industrial revolution has impacted the severity of extreme weather events and subsequent insured losses. It is also claimed that recent developments in methodology and data analysis, allow the contribution of individual companies to be identified.

Communication

  • How to talk to kids about the climate crisis (Lyons, K - Full Story Podcast October 2019)
    The first half of this podcast presents a stark conversation with children of Tuvalu about the current climate impacts they are experiencing and their fears for their future. The second half explores how to discuss this confronting subject with children.

  • How to talk to kids about climate change without scaring them (Ruiz, R - Article May 2019)

    With increasing focus on the climate emergency in the media and the playground, this Mashable Australia discussion piece, draws on the advice of expert communicators to help navigate how to discuss climate change with children.

  • How to communicate a climate emergency (Spratt, D & Morton, J - PDF July 2018)

    This guide from the Breakthrough Institute outlines a strategy for communicating the existential nature of the climate crisis, requiring an emergency response based on urgency and courage, mobilising people and adopting fast solutions.

  • Why the Guardian is changing the language it uses about the environment (Carrington, D: The Guardian - article May 2019)

    In May 2019 The Guardian newspaper release a new style guide for the way it referenced climate change. For precision, the news will forego the term“climate change” for the preferred terms “climate emergency, crisis or breakdown” and “global heating” will be favoured over “global warming”. Following the release of the article, similar terms have been adopted by media and other communicators worldwide.

  • How to shift public attitude and win the global climate battle ( Stern, T - Article October 2018)

    In this Yale Environment 360 discussion paper, a former US chief climate negotiator discusses that the world is making progress in decarbonizing economies, but not nearly fast enough. He spells out what forces must come together to marshal the public and political will needed to tackle climate change.

  • Leading the public into emergency mode: Introducing the Climate Emergency Movement (Klein Salamon, M - Paper 2016)
    This paper from 2016 argues that in order to protect humanity and the living world, the climate movement must tell the truth about the climate emergency, and act as though that truth is real — employing emergency communications, militant tactics, and demanding an emergency mobilization from the government and all society, as the policy response.

  • How to explain Emergency Mode climate action (Spratt, D - PDF 201X)

    This guide from The Breakthrough Institute explores what emergency mode look like in response to the climate emergency.

Psychology of the Climate Emergency

Conflict and Geopolitics

  • Implications of climate change for the U.S. Army (United States Army War College - Pentagon Report August 2019)
    A report written by senior US government officials from several key agencies including the Army, Defense Intelligence Agency, and NASA, examines the implications of climate change for the United States Army - this includes national security challenges associated with or worsened by climate change, and organizational challenges arising from climate change-related issues in the domestic environment. The report warns of blackouts, disease, thirst, starvation, war and the potential collapse if the US military over the next two decades.

  • The third degree: Evidence and implications for Australia of existential climate-related security risk. (Spratt, D & Dunlop, I - PDF July 2019)
    This Breakthrough report provides chilling insights into what a 3 degree world may look like, with substantial supporting evidence to back claims made. A 3°C scenario, developed in 2007 by US national security analysts, is reproduced in this paper highlighting a proven prescient in foreseeing some of the major socio-political events that have emerged in the last decade.

  • Existential climate related security risk: A scenario approach (Spratt, D & Dunlop, I - PDF May 2019)

    Given the conservative nature of climate impact projections, the information used by policy makers to understanding and respond to climate-driven security risks is likely significantly underplaying risk. Because the risks are now existential, the paper by Breakthrough demonstrates and advocates for a new approach to climate and security risk assessment, using scenario analysis.

  • A new world: The geopolitics of energy transformation (Global Commission on the Geopolitics or energy transformation - report link and interactive site 2019)

    This report explores how an energy transformation driven by renewables will alter the global distribution of power, relations between states. the risk of conflict and the social, economic and environmental drivers of geopolitical stability.

  • Disaster Alley: Climate change and conflict (Dunlop, I & Spratt, D - PDF June 2017)

    This Breakthrough report looks at climate change and conflict issues through the lens of sensible risk-management to draw new conclusions about the challenge we now face.

  • War - what is it good for? (Gilding, P - PDF September 2016)

    This discussion paper reflects on the scale and speed of the economic mobilisation of WWII and explores what can we draw on from this part of the wartime experience to inform a sound response to the climate emergency.

  • The age of consequences: The foreign policy and national security implications of global climate change (Campbell, K.M et.al. - PDF 2007)
    This paper is the culmination of 12 months research and discussion by a diverse group of experts, under the direction and leadership of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), who met to consider the potential future foreign policy and national security implications of climate change. The group consisted of nationally recognized leaders in the fields of climate science, foreign policy, political science, oceanography, history, and national security. The results are chilling.

Economics

Divestment & incumbent industries

  • Balancing the Budget: Why deflating the carbon bubble requires oil & gas companies to shrink (Carbon Tracker - Report October 2019)
    This analysis examined global carbon budgets against the forecast production of oil and gas majors, to examine is they are on track to keep warming well below 2 degrees. The report finds the world’s listed oil and gas majors must cut combined production by more than a third by 2040 to keep emissions within international climate targets and protect shareholder value.

  • Sustainability is an innovation problem (Henderson, R - Article October 2019)
    This Harvard Business School article explores the 3 key reasons why incumbent firms struggle with disruption: denial, greed and overload coupled with incompetence.

  • Did Exxon deceive its investors on climate change? (Wasserman, L - Article October 2019)
    This opinion piece, explores the allegations and history behind the trial New York’s Attorney General has launched against Exxon Mobil accusing them of misleading its shareholders and the public by misrepresenting the risks that climate change poses to the value of its oil and gas assets.

  • Royal Dutch Shell searches for a purpose beyond oil (Ravel, A - Article September 2019)
    In this Financial Times interview and article, Royal Dutch Shell CEO discusses the challenge of defining what one of the world’s largest oil and gas companies should look like several decades into the future.

  • Global fossil fuel subsidies hit $5.2 trillion (International Monetary Fund - report link, May 2019)

    This IMF report discloses that in 2015/2017 the world spent a staggering $4.7 trillion and $5.2 trillion on fossil fuel subsidies, equivalent to 6.5 percent of global GDP just to subsidize the consumption of fossil fuels.

  • Overexposed: The IPCC’s report on 1.5 degrees and the risks of over investment in oil and gas (Global Witness - Article April 2019)
    This article explores how over investment in oil and gas creates risks for investors. Either investors face assets being stranded as demand for fossil fuels falls in a transition to a low carbon economy, or the over investment contributes to excess emissions from fossil fuels, the failure to transition and the financial costs of a dramatically changed climate.

  • Fossil Fuel Divestment exceeds $8 trillion (Hanley, S - article December 2018)

    This article from Clean Technica and 350.org updates figures for fossil fuel divestment.

  • Will oil and gas companies survive action on climate change? (Gilding, P - PDF December 2018)

    In the wake of the release of the IPCC 1.5 degree report, and it’s commentary on the massive industrial and technological transformation required to ‘fix’ climate change, this paper explores the widespread social, market and economic consequences focusing on the multi-million dollar fossil fuel industry.

  • Macroeconomic impact of stranded fossil fuel assets (Mercure, J. et.al. - Journal letter - June 2018)

    Published in Nature Climate Change, this paper analyses how the plunging prices for renewable energy and rapidly increasing investment in low-carbon technologies could leave fossil fuel companies with trillions in stranded assets and spark a global financial crisis.

Energy transition

  • Energy transition outlook 2019 - A global and regional forecast to 2020 ( DNV GL - Report 2019)
    This report by DNV GL presents the results of its independent model of the word energy system to 2050. The report highlights that while we have the technology to deliver 1.5 degrees, that energy will undergo a rapid transition and reach peak energy use will be reached by 2030, the transition will not be fast enough to keep warming well below 2 degrees without strongly enforced policies.

  • Wells, wires and wheels…EROCI and the tough road ahead for oil (BNP Paribas, Lewis, M - PDF August 2019)
    This report by BNP Paribas (the world’s 8th largest bank in terms of total assets) concludes that “the economics of oil for gasoline and diesel vehicles versus wind- and solar-powered EVs are now in relentless and irreversible decline, with far-reaching implications for both policymakers and the oil majors.”

Investment and disruptive industries

  • Rethinking Humanity (Arbib, J & Seba, T - RethinkX Report June 2020)
    This report from RethinkX describes the technological advances and societal shifts that will trigger what they describe as the fastest, deepest, most consequential transformation of human civilisation in history. The report explores how advances in transport, energy, food and communications will drive dramatic cost reductions that will allow for the basic needs for all of society to be met.

  • The rise of meatless meat explained (Piper, K - Article August 2019)
    With the sale and investment in ‘alternative meats’ on the rise, this Vox article provides an overview of what it is and how good it is for both us and the environment.

  • Ford announces launch of largest electric vehicle charging network in US (Valdes-Depena, P - Article October 2019)
    Despite not currently offering any electric vehicles, Ford announced it will offer the largest North American network of electric vehicles. The network will include over 12,000 charging stations that can charge most electric cars.

  • The trillion dollar energy windfall (Carbon Tracker Analyst Notes - link to note September 2019)
    This analyst note describes how falling renewable costs and intermittency solutions will drive a tipping point for the Inevitable Policy Response

  • Solar plus storage is undermining the economics of existing coal fired generation in the US (Wamsted, D: IEFFA - article May 2019)

    A harsh new reality is undermining the U.S. coal-fired electricity sector: Cleaner generation by way of utility-scale solar backed with storage is an increasingly cheaper option for utility companies than continuing to operate aging coal plants.

  • Electric aircraft aren't far off, but we need to prepare (ABC News - story April 2019)

    Electric aircraft could significantly disrupt short-haul air transport within the next decade. Australia is already struggling with disruptive technological changes in energy, telecommunications and even other transport segments. These challenges highlight the need to start taking account of disruptive technology when planning infrastructure.

  • Investing in the global green economy: Busting common myths (FTSE Russell - report link May 2018)

    FTSE Russell, a key provider of stock market indices and associated data, report that the green economy is now worth as much as the fossil fuel sector and offers more significant and safe investment opportunities, pointing towards even more significant growth in the future.

Risk & Policy

  • The Impair State: The Paris Agreement starts to impact oil and gas accounting (Carbon Tracker - Analyst Note June 2020)
    This Carbon Tracker analyst note explores the financial risk of oil majors basing their financial statements on the assumption of sustained demand for fossil fuels. The research demonstrates how this approach contradicts claimed alignment with the Paris goals, and explores how well individual oil majors are incorporating the energy transition into business assumptions and practices.

  • The green swan - Central banking and financial stability in the age of climate change (Bank for International Settlements (BIS) - Book Jan 2020)
    This book reviews ways of addressing the risks that climate change poses to central banks, regulators and supervisors. The book examines ‘green swan’ risks: potentially extremely financially disruptive events that could be behind the next systemic financial crisis and the role central banks can play in avoiding these risks.

  • Macroeconomic and Financial Policies for Climate Change Mitigation: A Review of the Literature (Krogstrup, S et.al. - working paper link September 2019)
    This IMF working paper provides an overview of the rapidly growing literature on the role of macroeconomic and financial policy tools in enabling large-scale transition to a low-carbon economy. The working paper concludes that fiscal tools are first in line and central, but can and may need to be complemented by financial and monetary policy instruments.

  • Managing the financial risks of climate change (Citigroup: Buiter, W & Nabarro, B - report link, September 2019)
    This Citigroup report outlines how “greenhouse gas emissions, global warming and climate change are not only existential issues for those concerned with the future of humanity, they are also immediate concerns for financial regulators”.

  • Macroeconomic and Financial Policies for Climate Change Mitigation: A Review of the Literature (IMF, Krogstrup, P & Oman, W - link to PDF of working paper September 2019)
    This working paper produced by the IMF provides an overview of the rapidly growing literature on the role of macroeconomic and financial policy tools in enabling transition to a low-carbon economy, including a menu of policy tools for mitigation. The paper warns: “There is growing agreement between economists and scientists that risk of catastrophic and irreversible disaster is rising, implying potentially infinite costs of unmitigated climate change, including, in the extreme, human extinction."

  • Mortgage finance in the face of rising climate risk (Flavelle, C reviewing Ouzad, A & Kahn, M - $ link to NYT analysis of NBER working paper September 2019)
    This NY Times article analyses the findings of the above NBER working paper, describing emerging trends that US Banks are shielding themselves from climate change at taxpayers’ expense by shifting riskier mortgages — such as those in coastal areas — off their books and over to the federal government, echoing the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

  • Inevitable Policy Response (PRI, Vivid Economics & Energy Transition Advisors - project link for investors 2019)
    Based on evidence and concerns that financial markets have not adequately priced-in the likely near-term policy response to climate change, this collaborative project, The Inevitable Policy Response (IPR), aims to prepare investors for the associated portfolio risks. The Forecast Policy Scenario that is being built as part of the project lays out the policies that are likely to be implemented up to 2050 and quantifies the impact of this response on the real economy and financial markets. From late September 2019 modelling data will be made available on of the impact on the macroeconomy; key sectors, regions, and asset classes; and the world’s most valuable companies.

  • World Economic Forum Global Risk Report 2019 (World Economic Forum - report link 2019)

    The world faced a growing number of complex and interconnected challenges in 2018. From climate change and slowing global growth to economic inequality, we will struggle if we do not work together in the face of these simultaneous challenges. The Global Risks Report 2019 provides an opportunity to place the global risk landscape into context at the beginning of the new year and identify priority areas for action in 2019.

  • Transition risk framework - Managing the impacts of the low carbon transition on infrastructure and investments (ClimateWise - Report Feb 2019)
    This joint report from Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) and ClimateWise provides background on transition risk as well as step-by-step methodology and accompanying tools to support investors and regulators assess how the transition to a low carbon economy will impact assets and financial performance.

  • Rewiring the economy - Ten tasks, ten years (Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership - Report & web portal, updated Nov 2018)
    This report lays out a 10 year plan to lay the foundations for a sustainable economy. It is built on ten interconnected tasks, delivered by leaders across business, government and finance. Rewiring shows how these tasks can be tackled co-operatively to build an economy that encourages sustainable business practices, delivering the social and environmental progress demanded by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

  • Climate Shock: The Economic Consequences of a Hotter Planet (Wagner, G & Weitzman, M - Book 2015)
    Climate Shock explores the likely repercussions of a hotter planet and helps readers understand that we need to think about climate change in the same way that we think about insurance--as a risk management problem, only here on a global scale.

Ecosystems

  • Asynchronous carbon sink saturation in African and Amazonian tropical rainforests (Hubau et al - Journal Article $ March 2020)
    This Nature article reports that Amazonian rainforests and tropical forests in Africa are now absorbing less carbon dioxide than they used to. Typically, structurally intact tropical forests sequestered about half of the global terrestrial carbon uptake over the 1990s and early 2000s, removing about 15 per cent of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. Current climate models assume this level of absorption to continue indefinitely. Over the past ten years however, rainforests and Africa’s tropical forests absorbed 30 percent less carbon dioxide than they did in the 1990s, signalling they have reached a state of saturation. This news article (Slav, 7 March 2020), provides a summary of the implications this has for emission reduction goals that will keep warming below 1.5 degrees C.

  • Ocean deoxygenation: everyone’s problem (Laffoley, D & Baxter, J - report link December 2019)
    This report form IUCN talks about the impacts on out oceans from deoxygenation - one of the most pernicious, yet under-reported side-effects of human-induced climate change. The primary causes of deoxygenation are eutrophication (increased nutrient run-off from land and sewage pollution) and nitrogen deposition from the burning of fossil fuels, coupled with the widespread impacts from ocean warming.

  • Global assessment report on Biodiversity and Ecosystems Services (IPBES - report link May 2019)

    This Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), Global Assessment Report, presents overwhelming evidence from a wide range of different fields of knowledge and an ominous picture - The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever. We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide. But, the Report also tells us that it is not too late.

  • Has the Earth’s sixth mass extinction already arrived? (Barnosky, A. et.al. - Journal paper 2011)
    Biologists now suggest that a sixth mass extinction may be under way, given the known species losses over the past few centuries and millennia. This Nature journal paper confirm that current extinction rates are higher than would be expected from the fossil record, highlighting the need for effective conservation measures.

Emissions Reduction and Mitigation

Afforestation and Blue Carbon

  • Blue Carbon: An effective climate mitigation and drawdown tool? (Armistead, A - article November 2018)

    This article explored what is blue carbon, how much potential does it actually have, and how it could be used.

  • The global tree restoration potential (Bastin, J et.al. - $ Journal article July 2019)

    The research outlined in this Science journal article finds that ecosystems could support an additional 500 billion trees, creating more than 200 gigatonnes of additional carbon storage. Such a change has the potential to cut the atmospheric carbon pool by about 25%. “This new quantitative evaluation shows forest restoration isn’t just one of our climate change solutions, it is overwhelmingly the top one”.

Agriculture

Energy

  • Global energy transformation: A roadmap to 2050 (IRENA - report link 2018)

    This study from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) highlights immediately deployable, cost-effective options for countries to fulfil climate commitments and limit the rise of global temperatures. The envisaged energy transformation would also reduce net costs and bring significant socio-economic benefits, such as increased economic growth, job creation and overall welfare gains.

  • Energy transition within 1.5°C – A disruptive approach to 100% decarbonisation of the global energy system by 2050 (Ecofys/Navigant - PDF 2018)

    In this paper, Navigant presents a transformation scenario that would see the global energy system fully decarbonized by 2050. The paper explores options for a fast energy system transformation scenario, against a background of increasing population and growing demand for energy services like space heating and cooling, transportation, and materials production.

  • Four key technologies that will make energy more democratic. (Ellis, P & Hubbard, J - Article 20 June 2017)
    This World Economic Forum publication describes how decentralization and global equity is being driven by new technologies such as Internet of Things, storage, Artificial intellegence and Blockchain.

General

Geo-engineering

  • Climate change: Scientists rest radical ways to fix Earth’s climate. (Ghosh, P - News article 10 May 2019)
    This BBC news article announces Cambridge University’s plan to establish a research centre to assess the benefits and downsides of a range of geoengineering options. The article touches on refreezing the poles, turning CO2 to fuel, ocean and greening.

Transport

Human Rights

  • The cost of doing nothing: The humanitarian price of climate change and how it can be avoided (Red Cross - PDF September 2019)
    This report by the International Federation of Red Cross and leading climate economists describes the growing humanitarian threat the effects of climate change pose. The report warns that more frequent and intense climate-related disasters including floods, storms and bushfires are forecast to leave 150 million people in need of humanitarian aid each year by the end of next decade and cost up to $29 billion annually.

  • Predatory Delay and the Rights of Future Generations (Steffen, A - article April 2016)

    This article explores the concept that people who will be alive in the future have rights and can make ethical claims on us. We have duty to maintain planetary boundaries, so as not to undermine the ability of the planet to provide the kind of climate stability, natural bounty and renewable resources that future generations will need to maintain their own societies.

  • Shock waves : Managing the impacts of climate change on poverty (World Bank - Hallegatte, S et.al - Report link 2016)
    This World Bank report explores ending poverty and stabalising climate change can more easily be achieved if considered together. It examines the potential impact of climate change and climate policies on poverty reduction - providing guidance on how climate change policies contribute to poverty reduction and poverty-reduction policies contribute to climate change mitigation and resilience building.

Impacts of warming

  • WMO provisional statement on the State of the Global Climate in 2019 (WMO - Summary & report link December 2019)
    This report from the World Meteorological Organization summarises global climate indicators to provide a snap-shot of our evolving climate. The report finds that 2019 concludes a decade of exceptional global heat, retreating ice and record sea levels driven by greenhouse gases from human activities. Average temperatures for the five-year (2015-2019) and ten-year (2010-2019) periods are almost certain to be the highest on record.

  • How to talk to kids about the climate crisis (Lyons, K - Full Story Podcast October 2019)
    The first half of this podcast presents a stark conversation with children of Tuvalu about the current climate impacts they are experiencing and their fears for their future. The second half explores how to discuss this confronting subject with children.

  • The third degree: Evidence and implications for Australia of existential climate-related security risk. (Spratt, D & Dunlop, I - PDF July 2019)
    This Breakthrough report provides chilling insights into what a 3 degree world may look like, with substantial supporting evidence to back claims made. A 3°C scenario, developed in 2007 by US national security analysts, is reproduced in this paper highlighting a proven prescient in foreseeing some of the major socio-political events that have emerged in the last decade.

  • Sea level rise could hit 2 metres by 2100 - much worse than feared. (Vaughan, A - Article May 2019)
    This New Scientist article summarises research from the University of Bristol that aggregated evidence from 22 leading researchers on how the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets might respond to future climate change. The findings revealed a one in twenty chance that seas could rise by more than 2 metres by 2100 if unchecked carbon emissions lead to average global warming of 5°C

  • Risks associated with global warming 1.5°C or 2°C (Warren, R. et.al. - PDF 2018)

    This briefing paper prepared through the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, informed the IPCC 1.5 degree report. This paper provides detailed and quantified data comparing the physical and economic impacts of 1.5 degrees compared to 2 degrees warming.

  • The impacts of climate change at 1.5C, 2C and beyond (Carbon brief - Interactive site)

    Carbon Brief has extracted data from around 70 peer-reviewed climate studies to show how global warming is projected to affect the world and its regions. The interactive tool demonstrates how these impacts vary at different temperature levels, across a range of key metrics.

  • The uninhabitable earth - annotated edition (Wallace-Wells, D - article July 2017)
    This article published in the New York Magazine is the most-read article in the magazines history. The article presents the potential impacts from warming including ‘worst case’ or ‘fat tail’ scenarios - those which are unlikely, but have massive consequence.

David Spratt (2019) provides a straightforward presentation about the most important issues that threaten our society, economy and way of life: What is a safe target? What will a warmer world look like? What is the public mood for action? Where should leadership come from? What will be the trigger?


Mobilisation

  • CEDAMIA: Climate Emergency Declaration and Mobilisation in Action (Australian focused website)

    Climate emergency declarations are becoming increasingly prevalent, this site provides information and templates urging all levels of Australian government to declare and act on the climate emergency. In particular the site has an interactive global map and spreadsheet of locations, populations and statistics regarding jurisdictions that have declared a climate emergency along with additional information where available such as target dates and action plans.

News and Information

Opinion