Near the end of the Earth’s hottest year since records began, Australia is facing storms, potentially huge Summer bushfires, half-hearted climate policy by the Albanese Government and continuing climate denialism from much of the Opposition and others.

This at a time when we have reached significant global climate tipping points.

The Global Tipping Points Report was launched at COP28 on 6 December 2023. It is an authoritative assessment of the risks and opportunities of both negative and positive tipping points in the Earth system and society.

The Global Tipping Points project is headed by Professor Tim Lenton from the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute and is supported by more than 200 researchers from over 90 organisations in 26 countries. It is supported by the Bezos Earth Fund, a philanthropic set up by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Professor Lenton says: “These tipping points pose threats of a magnitude that has never been faced before by humanity.”

The report says: “Harmful tipping points in the natural world pose some of the gravest threats faced by humanity. Their triggering will severely damage our planet’s life-support systems and threaten the stability of our societies. For example, the collapse of the Atlantic Ocean’s great overturning circulation combined with global warming could cause half of the global area for growing wheat and maize to be lost.

“Five major tipping points are already at risk of being crossed due to warming right now and three more are threatened in the 2030s as the world exceeds 1.5°C global warming. The full damage caused by negative tipping points will be far greater than their initial impact.

“The effects will cascade through globalised social and economic systems and could exceed the ability of some countries to adapt. Negative tipping points show that the threat posed by the climate and ecological crisis is far more severe than is commonly understood and is of a magnitude never before faced by humanity.”

It should also be said, however, that some scientists are concerned that the risks and their likelihood are difficult to assess.

Nevertheless, the report lists a variety of threats including large scale ones for the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets, glaciers and permafrost. Changes to permafrost also have implications for methane releases.

Forest dieback, savanna and dryland degradation, lake eutrophication, coral reef die-offs, mangrove and seagrass die-off’s and fishery collapses are all cited.

Then there are the much worried about AMOC (Gulf Stream) reversal along with the comparable North Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, the Southern Ocean equivalent and the West African monsoon.

The report says: “Tipping systems in the climate are closely coupled together. Hence a tipping point in one system can have significant implications for other systems. Most interactions between climate tipping systems are destabilising, tending to destabilise the Earth system beyond the effects of climate change on individual systems.

“The full damage caused by negative tipping points will be far greater than their initial impact. The effects will cascade through globalised social and economic systems, and, could exceed the ability of some countries to adapt.

“Negative tipping points show that the threat posed by the climate and ecological crisis is far more severe than is commonly understood and is of a magnitude never before faced by humanity. Currently, there is no adequate global governance at the scale of the threats posed by negative tipping points.”

The authors conclude: “The world is on a disastrous trajectory. Crossing one harmful tipping point could trigger others, causing a domino effect of accelerating and unmanageable change to our life-support systems. Preventing this – and doing so equitably – should become the core goal and logic of a new global governance framework. Prevention is only possible if societies and economic systems are transformed to rapidly reduce emissions and restore nature.”

The authors also concede that there are positive tipping point opportunities where desirable changes can become self-propelling – from electric cars to exponential increases in renewable energy. In this context the authors are using ‘exponential’ in its correct meaning not the common misconception about what the word means.

As for Australia this Summer could be yet another disastrous wake-up call.

Major General Peter Dunn, a member of Emergency Leaders for Climate Action and former Commissioner for the ACT’s Emergency Services Authority, has warned that Australia is looking at “a very dangerous period.”

The New Daily (8/12) reported him saying: “We spend $11.1 billion a year subsidising the fossil fuel industry, just one billion of that would go a long way towards ensuring emergency services get aerial firefighting equipment and what they need.”

If the threatened bushfires do occur at anything like the scale our last national emergency we can at least comfortably assume Anthony Albanese, given his recent political problems, will be in Australia and not Hawaii.