Highway to hell with Joëlle Gergis | Summer Book Club

·36 min·3 clips

Climate scientist Joëlle Gergis reveals why she had to become a policy expert despite it not being her job.

This Summer Book Club episode features an interview with climate scientist Dr. Joëlle Gergis, recorded on June 28, 2024. Host Polly Hemming introduces Gergis as the Australia Institute's writer-in-residence for 2024. The discussion centers on Gergis's quarterly essay 'Highway to Hell: Climate Change and Australia's Future'. Gergis begins by explaining why climate scientists like herself are now compelled to engage in policy debates, a role they traditionally avoided. She attributes this to systemic policy failures and the high stakes of the climate crisis. Hemming notes the essay made her angry rather than despairing, highlighting available policy solutions. Gergis provides a scientific reality check, stating 2023 was the warmest year in at least 125,000 years. She explains current policies are on track to reduce emissions by only 2% of the needed 43% by 2030. Even with all net zero pledges honored, warming would still reach 2-3 degrees, overshooting Paris Agreement targets. Gergis outlines three key actions Australia must take: stop burning fossil fuels, remove fossil fuel subsidies, and put a price on carbon. She reveals Australia provided over $14.5 billion in fossil fuel subsidies last year. Hemming summarizes these as stopping new gas and coal projects, ending subsidies, pricing carbon, and halting native forest logging. The conversation shifts to the importance of the 1.5-degree goal. Gergis discusses climate tipping points, including potential irreversible collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet, which could raise sea levels by 4 meters. She describes how every fraction of a degree matters, with 2 degrees leading to 50-degree temperatures in Sydney and Melbourne. Gergis emphasizes the 2020s as a critical decade, with the next Australian federal election being historically significant. Hemming clarifies that Gergis is delivering scientific facts, not opinions, and solutions should be directed at politicians. Audience questions focus on what individuals can do. Hemming suggests reading science, getting angry, and applying political pressure, especially ahead of the election. Gergis agrees, noting the price of silence is intolerable and citizens must support leaders who prioritize a livable planet. The episode concludes with promotional content for Australia Institute publications and other podcasts.

As heard by us

A clear climate-policy review of Australia's energy choices and the political will needed to change them.

Australia's climate choices come through here as a question of policy nerve rather than abstract concern. The Summer Book Club conversation turns climate failure into a case for changing the country's energy direction, with the guest arguing that new gas and coal approvals…

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Why you'd press play

Press play when you want Australia's climate-policy failure brought down to concrete choices about new gas and coal, carbon pricing, clean energy, fossil-fuel subsidies, and forests.

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