June 25, 2025 • 15 mins
Cyclone Alfred should not have tracked as far south as it did. But in March it tore through Brisbane, the Gold Coast and the Northern Rivers, affecting about four million people.
One of them was climate scientist and IPCC lead author, Joëlle Gergis. She says the storm’s freak southward drift, driven by record-warm ocean temperatures, shows the climate crisis is outrunning politics.
Today, Joëlle Gergis on how far governments have fallen behind their climate promises – and the bold action Australia must take before the next disaster strikes.
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Guest: Climate scientist and lead author for the IPCC, Joëlle Gergis.
Photo: David Gray / AFP
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
From Schwartz Media. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven AM.
Cyclone Alfred should never have tracked as far south as
it did, yet in March it tore through Brisbane, the
Gold Coast and the Northern Rivers, affecting four million people.
One of them was climate scientist and IPCC lead author
(00:23):
Joel Gurgis. She says the storm's freak southward drift, driven
by record warm oceans, shows the climate crisis is outrunning
politics today. Joel Gergis on how far governments have fallen
behind their climate promises and the bold action Australia must
take before the next disaster strikes. It's Thursday, June twenty six,
(00:54):
so Joel, welcome back to seven am.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Hi Ruby, it's nice to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Likewise as we speak, Joel, though, you are, I believe
having repairs done on your house after Cyclone Alfred hit
back in March, So could you take me back to
that time. It must have been a scary moment. Yeah,
it sure was.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
I mean I live in northern New South Wales, which
is well outside of the usual tropical cyclone built and
it's really really rare to have a Category two system
drifts so far outside of the tropics, and I actually
had to look up Queensland government websites for information on
how to prepare for approaching cyclone as we don't usually
get these systems so far south. And as a scientist,
(01:37):
it's really really disturbing to understand that the world as
we know it's really starting to change in ways that
really now feel really dangerous, and it's like life as
we know it is slipping away, and yet most people
don't realize it until it literally crashes through your own
front door.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
And so your house, would I be right in saying
then it would not have necessarily been built to withstand
this kind of storm.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yeah, So areas north of around Bunderberg in Queensland are
built to withstand cyclones. So while areas that are located
further south still need to be able to handle strong winds,
they aren't built to the same standards of those in
places like northern Queensland where cyclones are a known risk.
So we ended up having to board up all of
our east facing windows with thick plywood as the glass
(02:23):
was starting to flex in the really strong winds as
a cyclone approached. It was terrifying.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
A very good morning you all across Australia.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Welcome to the special edition of Weekend Today, live from
southeast Queensland, where cyclone Alfred has started to make.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Land Luckily, the category two system weakened before it made landfall,
as we go to where it has now dropped it
to a category one and it's right now over Morton.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Bay, fifty five kilometers northeast of Brisbane and heading towards
Briby Island.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
But because it was really slow moving, the coat was
really relentlessly battered by destructive winds and waves and really
heavy rainfall for nearly a week. And the beaches are
a mess around here, and so many large habitat trees
which is really important for wildlife, actually came down in
the storm and it's going to take years for the
landscape to recover. And as you might imagine, these sustained
(03:13):
strong winds brought down power lines, huge trees fell onto
people's properties, including my neighbor across the road, and water
just blew into every single tiny gap in the windows,
seals or in the roof, I mean our roof fleeked,
and the damage in the ceiling of the room that
I'm talking to you in right now it's still under repair,
and as you might imagine, it's been a total nightmare.
(03:35):
But I'm not alone. I mean, there are around four
million people that were affected by Cyclone Alfred, and so
many people are still battling it out with their insurance
companies to get started on their repairs. Yeah, so it's
been a really tough time.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
So tell me more about the reasons that we are
seeing cyclones drifting further south like this, and as you mentioned,
staying in the area longer.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
What we saw with Cyclone Alfred is really consistent with
what we expect as the planet continues to warm, so
as ocean temperatures get hot, our tropical cyclones will begin
to drift further south of these historically defined cyclone zones.
And that's exactly what we saw. And while most people
understand that, you know, when we burn greenhouse gases, that
extra heat gets trapped in the atmosphere, not everyone really
(04:21):
appreciates that the majority of the heat is actually absorbed
by the ocean. And in twenty twenty four, which was
the world's warmest year on record and global temperatures reached
one point six degrees above free industrial levels, we saw
extraordinary heat observed through the global oceans. So in the
Coral Sea where Alfred actually began its life, that area
actually recorded its warmest summer on record, and ocean temperatures
(04:44):
are around about a degree warmer than average. And so
while the damage was extensive, I really do think it
could have been a lot worse than It's probably a
matter of time until it is, so I see it
really as a preview of what's to come as the
planet continues to.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Warm, and what other dama are we seeing as oceans
get warmer.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Since twenty twenty three, we've actually seen a mass coral
bleaching event that's damaged eighty four percent of the world's
coral reefs.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Once vibrant coral reefs have lost their colors in what
scientists say is part of the worst global bleaching event
on record.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
So that's a really hard number to get your head around,
and it's catastrophic.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Impacting more than eighty countries and territories.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Here in Australia, the Ningalu Coast, it's a World Heritage
area in northwestern Australia which is known for its pristine beauty.
It's quite a remote area and that area this summer
succumbed to the worst coral bleaching in its history, and
researchers who are working in the area had sort of
seen Ningolo as a bit of a hope spot because
of its unexpected resilience to marine heat waves. And actually
(05:47):
when they went down and did their underwater surveys, the
reports of people emerging from the water bailing their eyes out,
And I really do understand this feeling. It's truly heartbreaking
to be living through this era of irreversible destruction, particularly
when we know there are things we can do to
minimize the damage. And really, until the Albanezy government introduces
(06:08):
nature laws that effectively criminalize the fossil fuel industry's continued
desecration of country, we will lose more and more of
our precious places, even in the most remote last as
the last refuges like Ningaloo.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
After the break? What John Howard and the Labor Party
have in common when it comes to fighting climate change? Joelle,
Let's talk more about the Labor government. They're well into
their second term now, so how would you assess its
approach to addressing the climate crisis.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Look, I feel like Labor is in a really conflicted position.
They want to be seen to be doing something about
climate change, but they don't really want to address the
cause of the problem, which is the burning of fossil fuels.
And the truth is is that Labour's now approved twenty
seven fossil fuel projects since it was first to lect
did in twenty twenty two. And as we all saw recently,
the first act of the newly appointed Environmental Minister Murray
(07:06):
Watt was to conditionally approve the extension of operations of
Australia's largest oil and gas production area off the Kimberley
Coast from twenty thirty out to twenty seventy. The upgrading
of Woodside Energy's Northwest Shelf gas processing plant, which isn't
too far from Ningaloo, paves the way for the development
of other fossil fuel projects off the remote Kimberley Coast.
(07:27):
So although governments like to claim the moral high ground
on its sort of climate credentials, talking up its commitment
to renewable energy and green manufacturing, the Woodside decision is
proof of Labour's allegiance to fossil fuel companies until the
bitter end, and unfortunately it's entirely inconsistent with what the
science says we need to do to stabilize the Earth's
(07:49):
climate to really try and minimize the harm to human
societies and ecosystems. So, no matter how people want to
rationalize it, the physics doesn't actually care about politics. These
changes are going to play out whether or not we
understand the science of climate change. And the fact is
that every ton of carbon, no matter where it's burnt,
(08:10):
will remain in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, and
that locks in higher levels of global warming that will
commit the world to irreversible changes and really stretch the
limits of human adaptation.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Let's talk a bit more about the science, because according
to the government, Australia is on track to reach its
Paris targets. And the official data shows that Australia's emissions
have been dropping since two thousand and five and in
twenty twenty four were twenty seven percent below two thousand
and five levels. So are we on track in that regard?
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Yeah, this is a really interesting question. I mean, the
Australian government has a long history of relying heavily on
the land sector to demonstrate progress towards reducing emissions, but
at the same time they're continuing to export vast amounts
of coal and gas to the rest of the world,
and so it's a John Howard era approach to reducing emissions.
It's true the latest greenhouse gas emissions figures for December
(09:03):
twenty twenty four, that quarter, it shows that Australia's emissions
are still increasing despite this reported overall decline of twenty
seven percent since two thousand and five. But if you
drill down a bit further, these figures rely heavily on
low integrity carbon credits that underpin the government's Safeguard Mechanism
offset scheme. So by planting some trees or avoiding deforestation,
(09:26):
the government claims that we're more than halfway to reaching
that forty three percent reduction that's needed by twenty thirty.
But when you remove the inflated contribution of the land
sector and just count actual emission reductions across all polluting sectors,
Australia's emissions have only fallen by two point eight percent
since two thousand and five. So obviously this falls well
(09:47):
short of meeting the government's legislative target of forty three
percent reduction that we need by twenty thirty. But essentially
the Safeguard mechanism allows our largest industrial polluters to buy
these carbon credits to balance out their emissions instead of
actually requiring them to reduce the huge volume of carbon
they're dumping into the atmosphere for free. And actually, when
(10:07):
we look back to the global stock take which was
conducted at COP twenty eight, it showed that current policies
are on track to reduce emissions by just two percent,
not that forty three percent that is needed by twenty thirty.
And the reason why we're collectively failing is because governments
like Australia have policy loopholes that allow this to continue.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
And you mentioned that you would like to see the
Albanezy government introduce laws that criminalize the fossil fuel industry
in cases where it causes damage to the country. So
tell me more about what that would look like.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Look, I think it's a very simple concept of polluter pays.
The basics are that eighty percent of emissions come from
the burning of coal, oil and gas, and the remaining
twenty percent comes from changes in land use, so things
like deforestation. So until we get to the root cause
of the problem, we're going to continue to see the
problem get much worse and the fossil fuel industry and
(11:02):
countries like Australia particularly are gambling heavily on carbon capture
and storage to work. But when you actually look at
the detail around that, organizations like the United Nations Environment
Program have reported that around eighty percent of CCS projects
over the past thirty years have failed, and currently operational
CCS plants can only offset around about zero point one
(11:24):
to two percent of global carbon emissions. That's one tenth
of one percent of global emissions. So operations would need
to be scaled up roughly eight hundred times to offset
current global emissions. So I really see this as just
another delay tactic to keep the fossil fuel industry alive
for longer. And as I mentioned those fundamentals is that
(11:45):
it's the burning of fossil fuels that is continuing to
warm our planet. So until we address that root cause
of the problem, things are going to get worse. If
you do look at what is happening globally, the world's
consumption of fossil fuels climbed to a record high last year.
We have Trump calling to boost oil drilling even more
(12:07):
now with what's happening in a run, So does it
feel to you like the global moment for change where
there was any form of consensus on acting on climate change,
that that moment has passed us by. Look, it's certainly
a grim time. I'm not going to lie to you.
It is a moment where it's complex. But when we
(12:28):
stop and we zoom out, I mean, human history is
littered with walls and unrest and this is probably going
to go on until the end of time. But the
world scientific community has been warning for years that high
levels of global warming are going to make life intolerable
for people and ecosystems. The world has already warmed by
one point two degrees since pre industrial times, and current
(12:51):
policies have us on track for essentially three times that
warming by the end of this century. And I actually
think it's really hard for people to truly comprehend upon us.
One of the key conclusions from the IPCC six Assessment
report is that every fraction of a degree matters, And
just because we're currently off track to achieve the goals
(13:11):
of the Paris Agreements to limit warming to under two degrees,
it doesn't mean that we abandon these goals. In fact,
we really need to redouble our effort and our resolve
and given that everything that's at stake, giving up really
isn't an option, even though the situation often feels really futile,
because the truth is is that we know what we
need to do and we just have to have the
(13:32):
political courage to do it. I read a really nice
piece by Western Australian writer Tim Winton and he said
that the science is clear on this and the morality
should be too, And I really do think it's as
simple as that.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Joel. Thank you so much for your time today. Thanks Ruby.
Also in the news today, more than one hundred Australians
have been airlifted out of Israel aboard an Australian military
jet after the country's airspace was opened amid a cease
(14:10):
fire between Iran and Israel. Treasurer Jim Chalmers says there
are still thousands of Australian citizens who have registered to
evacuate Iran and Israel, and that the Department of Foreign
Affairs and Military are working to ensure that they can
be safely removed from the danger zone. And journalist Antonettatoff
has been awarded at least seventy thousand dollars after the
(14:31):
Federal Court found that she was unlawfully terminated by the
ABC amid complaints about her views on Gaza. The court
found the broadcaster contravened the Fair Work Act by terminating
her employment as a casual broadcaster for ABC Radio Sydney
for reasons including that she held a political opinion opposing
Israel's military campaign. A further hearing has been ordered to
(14:52):
determine if the ABC should pay any additional financial penalty
under the Fair Work Act. I'm Ruby Jones. This is
seven AM. Thanks for listing h
From Schwartz Media. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven AM.
Cyclone Alfred should never have tracked as far south as
it did, yet in March it tore through Brisbane, the
Gold Coast and the Northern Rivers, affecting four million people.
One of them was climate scientist and IPCC lead author
(00:23):
Joel Gurgis. She says the storm's freak southward drift, driven
by record warm oceans, shows the climate crisis is outrunning
politics today. Joel Gergis on how far governments have fallen
behind their climate promises and the bold action Australia must
take before the next disaster strikes. It's Thursday, June twenty six,
(00:54):
so Joel, welcome back to seven am.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Hi Ruby, it's nice to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Likewise as we speak, Joel, though, you are, I believe
having repairs done on your house after Cyclone Alfred hit
back in March, So could you take me back to
that time. It must have been a scary moment. Yeah,
it sure was.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
I mean I live in northern New South Wales, which
is well outside of the usual tropical cyclone built and
it's really really rare to have a Category two system
drifts so far outside of the tropics, and I actually
had to look up Queensland government websites for information on
how to prepare for approaching cyclone as we don't usually
get these systems so far south. And as a scientist,
(01:37):
it's really really disturbing to understand that the world as
we know it's really starting to change in ways that
really now feel really dangerous, and it's like life as
we know it is slipping away, and yet most people
don't realize it until it literally crashes through your own
front door.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
And so your house, would I be right in saying
then it would not have necessarily been built to withstand
this kind of storm.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yeah, So areas north of around Bunderberg in Queensland are
built to withstand cyclones. So while areas that are located
further south still need to be able to handle strong winds,
they aren't built to the same standards of those in
places like northern Queensland where cyclones are a known risk.
So we ended up having to board up all of
our east facing windows with thick plywood as the glass
(02:23):
was starting to flex in the really strong winds as
a cyclone approached. It was terrifying.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
A very good morning you all across Australia.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Welcome to the special edition of Weekend Today, live from
southeast Queensland, where cyclone Alfred has started to make.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Land Luckily, the category two system weakened before it made landfall,
as we go to where it has now dropped it
to a category one and it's right now over Morton.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Bay, fifty five kilometers northeast of Brisbane and heading towards
Briby Island.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
But because it was really slow moving, the coat was
really relentlessly battered by destructive winds and waves and really
heavy rainfall for nearly a week. And the beaches are
a mess around here, and so many large habitat trees
which is really important for wildlife, actually came down in
the storm and it's going to take years for the
landscape to recover. And as you might imagine, these sustained
(03:13):
strong winds brought down power lines, huge trees fell onto
people's properties, including my neighbor across the road, and water
just blew into every single tiny gap in the windows,
seals or in the roof, I mean our roof fleeked,
and the damage in the ceiling of the room that
I'm talking to you in right now it's still under repair,
and as you might imagine, it's been a total nightmare.
(03:35):
But I'm not alone. I mean, there are around four
million people that were affected by Cyclone Alfred, and so
many people are still battling it out with their insurance
companies to get started on their repairs. Yeah, so it's
been a really tough time.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
So tell me more about the reasons that we are
seeing cyclones drifting further south like this, and as you mentioned,
staying in the area longer.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
What we saw with Cyclone Alfred is really consistent with
what we expect as the planet continues to warm, so
as ocean temperatures get hot, our tropical cyclones will begin
to drift further south of these historically defined cyclone zones.
And that's exactly what we saw. And while most people
understand that, you know, when we burn greenhouse gases, that
extra heat gets trapped in the atmosphere, not everyone really
(04:21):
appreciates that the majority of the heat is actually absorbed
by the ocean. And in twenty twenty four, which was
the world's warmest year on record and global temperatures reached
one point six degrees above free industrial levels, we saw
extraordinary heat observed through the global oceans. So in the
Coral Sea where Alfred actually began its life, that area
actually recorded its warmest summer on record, and ocean temperatures
(04:44):
are around about a degree warmer than average. And so
while the damage was extensive, I really do think it
could have been a lot worse than It's probably a
matter of time until it is, so I see it
really as a preview of what's to come as the
planet continues to.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Warm, and what other dama are we seeing as oceans
get warmer.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Since twenty twenty three, we've actually seen a mass coral
bleaching event that's damaged eighty four percent of the world's
coral reefs.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Once vibrant coral reefs have lost their colors in what
scientists say is part of the worst global bleaching event
on record.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
So that's a really hard number to get your head around,
and it's catastrophic.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Impacting more than eighty countries and territories.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Here in Australia, the Ningalu Coast, it's a World Heritage
area in northwestern Australia which is known for its pristine beauty.
It's quite a remote area and that area this summer
succumbed to the worst coral bleaching in its history, and
researchers who are working in the area had sort of
seen Ningolo as a bit of a hope spot because
of its unexpected resilience to marine heat waves. And actually
(05:47):
when they went down and did their underwater surveys, the
reports of people emerging from the water bailing their eyes out,
And I really do understand this feeling. It's truly heartbreaking
to be living through this era of irreversible destruction, particularly
when we know there are things we can do to
minimize the damage. And really, until the Albanezy government introduces
(06:08):
nature laws that effectively criminalize the fossil fuel industry's continued
desecration of country, we will lose more and more of
our precious places, even in the most remote last as
the last refuges like Ningaloo.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
After the break? What John Howard and the Labor Party
have in common when it comes to fighting climate change? Joelle,
Let's talk more about the Labor government. They're well into
their second term now, so how would you assess its
approach to addressing the climate crisis.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Look, I feel like Labor is in a really conflicted position.
They want to be seen to be doing something about
climate change, but they don't really want to address the
cause of the problem, which is the burning of fossil fuels.
And the truth is is that Labour's now approved twenty
seven fossil fuel projects since it was first to lect
did in twenty twenty two. And as we all saw recently,
the first act of the newly appointed Environmental Minister Murray
(07:06):
Watt was to conditionally approve the extension of operations of
Australia's largest oil and gas production area off the Kimberley
Coast from twenty thirty out to twenty seventy. The upgrading
of Woodside Energy's Northwest Shelf gas processing plant, which isn't
too far from Ningaloo, paves the way for the development
of other fossil fuel projects off the remote Kimberley Coast.
(07:27):
So although governments like to claim the moral high ground
on its sort of climate credentials, talking up its commitment
to renewable energy and green manufacturing, the Woodside decision is
proof of Labour's allegiance to fossil fuel companies until the
bitter end, and unfortunately it's entirely inconsistent with what the
science says we need to do to stabilize the Earth's
(07:49):
climate to really try and minimize the harm to human
societies and ecosystems. So, no matter how people want to
rationalize it, the physics doesn't actually care about politics. These
changes are going to play out whether or not we
understand the science of climate change. And the fact is
that every ton of carbon, no matter where it's burnt,
(08:10):
will remain in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, and
that locks in higher levels of global warming that will
commit the world to irreversible changes and really stretch the
limits of human adaptation.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Let's talk a bit more about the science, because according
to the government, Australia is on track to reach its
Paris targets. And the official data shows that Australia's emissions
have been dropping since two thousand and five and in
twenty twenty four were twenty seven percent below two thousand
and five levels. So are we on track in that regard?
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Yeah, this is a really interesting question. I mean, the
Australian government has a long history of relying heavily on
the land sector to demonstrate progress towards reducing emissions, but
at the same time they're continuing to export vast amounts
of coal and gas to the rest of the world,
and so it's a John Howard era approach to reducing emissions.
It's true the latest greenhouse gas emissions figures for December
(09:03):
twenty twenty four, that quarter, it shows that Australia's emissions
are still increasing despite this reported overall decline of twenty
seven percent since two thousand and five. But if you
drill down a bit further, these figures rely heavily on
low integrity carbon credits that underpin the government's Safeguard Mechanism
offset scheme. So by planting some trees or avoiding deforestation,
(09:26):
the government claims that we're more than halfway to reaching
that forty three percent reduction that's needed by twenty thirty.
But when you remove the inflated contribution of the land
sector and just count actual emission reductions across all polluting sectors,
Australia's emissions have only fallen by two point eight percent
since two thousand and five. So obviously this falls well
(09:47):
short of meeting the government's legislative target of forty three
percent reduction that we need by twenty thirty. But essentially
the Safeguard mechanism allows our largest industrial polluters to buy
these carbon credits to balance out their emissions instead of
actually requiring them to reduce the huge volume of carbon
they're dumping into the atmosphere for free. And actually, when
(10:07):
we look back to the global stock take which was
conducted at COP twenty eight, it showed that current policies
are on track to reduce emissions by just two percent,
not that forty three percent that is needed by twenty thirty.
And the reason why we're collectively failing is because governments
like Australia have policy loopholes that allow this to continue.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
And you mentioned that you would like to see the
Albanezy government introduce laws that criminalize the fossil fuel industry
in cases where it causes damage to the country. So
tell me more about what that would look like.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Look, I think it's a very simple concept of polluter pays.
The basics are that eighty percent of emissions come from
the burning of coal, oil and gas, and the remaining
twenty percent comes from changes in land use, so things
like deforestation. So until we get to the root cause
of the problem, we're going to continue to see the
problem get much worse and the fossil fuel industry and
(11:02):
countries like Australia particularly are gambling heavily on carbon capture
and storage to work. But when you actually look at
the detail around that, organizations like the United Nations Environment
Program have reported that around eighty percent of CCS projects
over the past thirty years have failed, and currently operational
CCS plants can only offset around about zero point one
(11:24):
to two percent of global carbon emissions. That's one tenth
of one percent of global emissions. So operations would need
to be scaled up roughly eight hundred times to offset
current global emissions. So I really see this as just
another delay tactic to keep the fossil fuel industry alive
for longer. And as I mentioned those fundamentals is that
(11:45):
it's the burning of fossil fuels that is continuing to
warm our planet. So until we address that root cause
of the problem, things are going to get worse. If
you do look at what is happening globally, the world's
consumption of fossil fuels climbed to a record high last year.
We have Trump calling to boost oil drilling even more
(12:07):
now with what's happening in a run, So does it
feel to you like the global moment for change where
there was any form of consensus on acting on climate change,
that that moment has passed us by. Look, it's certainly
a grim time. I'm not going to lie to you.
It is a moment where it's complex. But when we
(12:28):
stop and we zoom out, I mean, human history is
littered with walls and unrest and this is probably going
to go on until the end of time. But the
world scientific community has been warning for years that high
levels of global warming are going to make life intolerable
for people and ecosystems. The world has already warmed by
one point two degrees since pre industrial times, and current
(12:51):
policies have us on track for essentially three times that
warming by the end of this century. And I actually
think it's really hard for people to truly comprehend upon us.
One of the key conclusions from the IPCC six Assessment
report is that every fraction of a degree matters, And
just because we're currently off track to achieve the goals
(13:11):
of the Paris Agreements to limit warming to under two degrees,
it doesn't mean that we abandon these goals. In fact,
we really need to redouble our effort and our resolve
and given that everything that's at stake, giving up really
isn't an option, even though the situation often feels really futile,
because the truth is is that we know what we
need to do and we just have to have the
(13:32):
political courage to do it. I read a really nice
piece by Western Australian writer Tim Winton and he said
that the science is clear on this and the morality
should be too, And I really do think it's as
simple as that.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Joel. Thank you so much for your time today. Thanks Ruby.
Also in the news today, more than one hundred Australians
have been airlifted out of Israel aboard an Australian military
jet after the country's airspace was opened amid a cease
(14:10):
fire between Iran and Israel. Treasurer Jim Chalmers says there
are still thousands of Australian citizens who have registered to
evacuate Iran and Israel, and that the Department of Foreign
Affairs and Military are working to ensure that they can
be safely removed from the danger zone. And journalist Antonettatoff
has been awarded at least seventy thousand dollars after the
(14:31):
Federal Court found that she was unlawfully terminated by the
ABC amid complaints about her views on Gaza. The court
found the broadcaster contravened the Fair Work Act by terminating
her employment as a casual broadcaster for ABC Radio Sydney
for reasons including that she held a political opinion opposing
Israel's military campaign. A further hearing has been ordered to
(14:52):
determine if the ABC should pay any additional financial penalty
under the Fair Work Act. I'm Ruby Jones. This is
seven AM. Thanks for listing h
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