 Hello, welcome everybody. My name is Nicole Hasham and I'm the Environment and Energy Editor here at The Conversation. I'm speaking to you today from Ngunnawal Country, the land we know today is Canberra and I would like to pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging. So, welcome everybody to The Conversation's special set-the-agenda climate change discussion. So, during the selection campaign, The Conversation is really committed to focusing on the policies that affect our readers and the future of the planet. As a first step, we set our own citizens policy agenda in collaboration with our readers. So, we invited people to complete a poll called set the agenda. And this has made sure that we're asking experts the right questions, the questions that matter to you and provide the election coverage that keeps you informed on the issues that are close to your heart. So, we had a great response to the poll. 10,000 of you took the time to tell us what matters to you. And climate change emerged very strongly as the number-long concern for 62% of respondents. And the second biggest concern was the environment more generally. So, that's what's prompted this live discussion today with two of Australia's leading experts on climate science and climate policy, respectively. So, please allow me to introduce them. First, we have Merilee Abram, a professor of climate science at the Australian National University. Welcome, Merilee. Hello. Thank you for having me on the show today. And second is Wesley Morgan, a researcher at Griffith University's Griffith Asia Institute. Welcome, Wes. Hi. Thanks for having me. Thank you. So, I thought we'd start today with me, Merilee, just to give people an overview of what the latest science says on exactly where we're at with climate change. And then later on, we'll move on to Wes, who can help us understand a bit more about what needs to happen in the policy space in the next term of government to deal with this threat. But, Merilee, we've had some big reports lately from the international, maybe intergovernmental panel on climate change and others laying out the state of its climate and how we're going on our efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions. How would you summarize the situation as it is now? Yeah. So, I think the first really key point that comes out of these reports is that human-caused climate warming is not something to be debated anymore. It is an established scientific fact. There is no room for discussion about, is this real? The scientific evidence is overwhelming and has been for a very long time, but is now actually stated in that way in these reports that are endorsed by 195 governments across the world. So it's not just the scientists saying this, the government also accept this. So I think that's the first really important point where we're at at the moment is that the global temperature has warmed by about 1.1 degree since the pre-industrial times. How much of that is being caused by humans? 100%. So if we look just at the greenhouse gases that human activities have added to the atmosphere, that's caused around about 1.5 degrees of warming. There's a little bit of an offset because of other things that we've added to the atmosphere, including some sorts and aerosols that have a small cooling effect. But the overall effect is 1.1 degree of warming and that's increasing year on year now with some small variability around that. Okay, thanks, Nerly. Now, the impact of that warming is different around the world, depending on where you are. In Australia, we're obviously already very hot and dry continent. So how are we seeing climate that global warming playing out here? Yeah, so it's really important to recognise that in every inhabited part of the world, we're now seeing the impacts of climate change and that's playing out through weather and climate extremes in particular. So we see that in droughts becoming worse in some parts, in the southern parts of Australia, we've seen a rainfall decline in the winter and the spring that's projected to continue as global warming continues to worsen. As the climate gets warmer, then we have more heat waves. Heat waves are actually the deadliest natural disaster that we face that often isn't recognised. How damaging they can be to the point of being deadly. We see that at the moment in India, there's a terrible heat wave that's having a dreadful effect over there. In the Pacific Northwest of America, we saw a heat wave where temperature records were broken by more than five degrees. I mean, that's just an insane number. So we talk about one and a bit degrees of average warming, but the effects of that on the extreme events that we see is much larger. For that event, we saw cooling centres having to be set up so that people could survive that heat event. We also have those heat extremes in Australia, particularly concerning areas in the tropical areas where you have increasing temperature as well as combining with humidity, and that's a particularly deadly consequence. If we look at our major cities, if we let warming get to two degrees, then a temperature extreme of 50 degrees, I mean, the moment that sounds so extreme to be almost impossible, but that will be a rare event at two degrees. If we let warming get to three degrees, that will be a regular occurrence. I mean, I can't actually picture what that would be like to actually have to experience a 50-degree day, but that's the trajectory we're on. So obviously, you talked about drought and we saw the black summer bush fires. There was a clear climate link there, but we recently saw floods in Southeast Australia. A lot of people pointed to that as being climate change-related events. How clearly can we say that that was related to climate change? What are some of the complexities around that? Yeah, so the scientific sort of bar to actually be confident in an attribution is very, very high. And for rainfall, rainfall is very variable. We have fairly short records. And so actually seeing a rainfall extreme like that and being able to say with 100% certainty that that was a consequence of climate change or that was made more likely or worse because of climate change is something that's difficult with the observational records that we have. But from theory, we know that as the climate warms, the atmosphere can hold more energy. So it is expected that these rainfall extremes that can cause floods will become worse in the future. Climate models predict that. And it's actually one of the quirks of climate change is that you can have some areas like the southern parts of Australia, which we expect to overall be becoming drier because of climate change. But at the same time, when it does rain, that rain can come in very sort of heavy packages. And so that is really a huge challenge for adaptation if you're trying to adapt both to having less rainfall, but also when it falls, it can be in these really sort of devastating, large rainfall events. So there's a lot of complexity there, but it is a consequence of climate change that we expect to worsen into the future. Okay, thank you. Now, just sort of in the context of policy making, it's not always helpful to focus on worst case scenarios. You know, it can encourage some people to sort of tune out or feel very overwhelmed or paralysed. But it is important, I think that we acknowledge what might happen if we don't change course, if we stick on this business as usual path. Could you tell us what trajectory Earth is actually on at the moment? How about it might get and also where we need to be? Yeah. So it's a really, it's a really good point. And I think this all comes down to the fact that the future isn't actually set, it will depend on the choices that we make. And so it's really important that we have this scientific evidence and we base decisions on the scientific evidence about sort of what's the future that we actually want. So in sort of some of the worst case scenarios that scientists sort of model by the end of the century, we could be looking at five degrees of warming. So we're already seeing the impacts of one degree. If you make that five degrees of warming, those impacts will be a lot worse. We have global agreements through the Paris Agreement and then reiterated and strengthened through the Glasgow Pact last year, saying that we, as a, as a global people, we would, we want to make efforts to limit warming to well below two degrees, and to pursue the efforts to actually try and limit it to 1.5 degrees. So that's our ambition is to, we can see that there's a problem. How bad do we let it get we really don't want to get to two degrees. At the moment with the commitments that we have from governments around the world about reducing emissions, we're on track for about three degrees of warming. So we're not on track at the moment for meeting those commitments to limiting warming to where we've said that we really want to limit it to. So say we do meet the three degree warming threshold. In Australia, what's it going to look like? I mean, you mentioned 50 degree days in cities, for example, but they're obviously impacts are more broad. What's the different picture of what Australia might look like under one and a half degree warming as opposed to three degrees? Yeah. So, so a couple of examples, either the Great Barrier Reef is a really key one. It's one of these ecosystems that is already under high risk, just from the one on a bit degrees of warming so far. And what we're seeing as the oceans are becoming warmer is that the ocean temperatures are stressing the coral ecosystem and we see that manifest as bleaching and the death of corals. So that's something that's been happening more and more often. We've seen bleaching in 2016, 2017, 2020 again this year. Those are the type of events that previously we hadn't observed that before the 1980s. And then then we were having a decade between observing that. Now we're seeing this becoming a regular occurrence on the Great Barrier Reef. If we let warming get to 1.5 degrees, then the level, the temperature that the reef environment is living in will hit that same level as what in 2016 caused terrible bleaching and widespread death. We'll see that happening in two out of three years. And we will expect 90% of coral reefs around the world to have been bleached. If we let warming get to 2 degrees, we're talking about that sort of level of warmth in nine out of 10 years. And so you just don't give the reef any time to recover. At that level of warming, we're talking about we've pretty much lost coral reefs altogether, 99% of reefs have been lost under that scenario. So bushfires, a bushfire risk the number of days where we'll be seeing extreme fire danger weather, that will be increasing. So at about sort of 1.5 degrees of warming, we're talking about sort of a 50% increase in the number of days. If we let warming get to 3 degrees, we're talking about 100 to 300% increase in the number of days where we're at that sort of extreme fire danger risk. And there's a whole range of climate changes that play into those impacts and raising the risk of fire danger. So those are just a couple of examples. Another really important example is that actually really sort of frames the benefit as to why we want to sort of be on this lower pathway. I've already talked about Southern parts of Australia losing rainfall. Now if we go on a high emission scenario into the future, that's a trend that will continue throughout this century with Southern parts of Australia getting drier and drier to the point where we're talking about some of 20% decline in their in their rainfall over the winter and spring. But on the other side, the positive side, if we take that action to limit climate change, we do see continued decline in rainfall for the next couple of decades. But then we see that rainfall steadying and potentially even a bit of a recovery in rainfall. And so those are two very different scenarios for what that means for our southern states and for agriculture and for water resources. Yeah, so really sort of important to look at these different options for what change actually means in terms of impacts and the benefits of taking urgent climate action. So that's a good segue into one of our reader questions from Mark Hyde. Is there a tension between action now or is it too late? How can we handle the impacts now while action takes time to implement? Yeah, it's a really good question. I think that the point is that we don't sort of face a cliff where we just throw our hands up in the air and say it's all too late to do anything. We're on sort of this continuum where the worse we let climate change get, the greater the impacts are going to be and the harder it is to going to be to adapt to those and the more costly it's going to be to adapt to those. But there's always a worse case that we can still be avoiding as well. So while it's disheartening to see that even though we've had this evidence for the scientific problem in front of us for a long time, and that hasn't actually sort of had the meaningful action sort of springing from that yet to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, there's always sort of the optimistic side of what the future could look like compared to a worst case scenario that's worth taking action for. That's right. And would you say at the moment that the current level of policy ambition in Australia is commensurate with the threats that you've just outlined? And what do you see from a scientific perspective as driving the debate? And is it the science and the facts or is it something else? So at the at the moment that the policies that we see the policy that Australia currently has, what we see sort of being discussed from the major parties is is not aligned with the scientific evidence for what we need to do to meet those global commitments that we've made to limiting warming to well below two degrees. And there's a really sort of very simple sort of framing to how we can think about this. So what we know is that the scientific evidence tells us that every fraction of a degree of additional warming increases the risks and the impacts that we'll face. And every tonne of carbon dioxide that's emitted to the atmosphere increases warming. And so we have the target for where we want to sort of put that upper level of how bad do we let global warming get. And scientifically what that does is it gives us a carbon budget. The same as if we had sort of a budget for how much money we've got to spend in the month and we need to make sure that we stay inside that so we can live within our means. We can frame the climate discussion in exactly the same way. And so if we're if we're looking to to what we're hearing sort of the policy discussions beings, how we're seeing those set around this to be based on science, they really need to be based around that carbon budget and looking at how do we use our remaining carbon budget. And it's a fairly small remaining carbon budget that we have left. How do we use that in a wise way to enable us to make this transition to net zero. And I think if we hear things like Australia has a plan, we hear things like where Australia has committed to net zero by 2050. Neither of those things actually materially addresses the carbon budget and net zero by 2050 for Australia is too late. We will have already well and truly used all of our carbon budget before them. So we really need to see the scientific evidence starting to come into the framing how those policies are being set up. Thanks, narrowly. I've got a few more questions for you, but I might just go to Wes and come back to you a little bit later. So whereas narrowly has done a really good job of outlining the shortfalls in domestic climate policy, but we've also had a few issues in the news lately about our foreign climate policy in relation to the sick. We've had a big development there with China's security pact with the Solomon Islands, which Labor says is partly the result of Australia's failure to show leadership in the region on climate change. Do you agree with that? Oh, look, I do Australia's lack of leadership on climate has undoubtedly undermined Australian foreign policy in the region in the Pacific Islands. I lived in the Pacific for more than a decade and I taught international relations at the University of the South Pacific. And I followed this very closely. And the key issue is that there's a mismatch in conceptions of security between the Pacific and Australia. And, you know, for decades now Pacific Island countries have called on the international community to recognise climate change as a security threat and as an existential threat for some Pacific Island countries. Of course, you know, low lying at all states like Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands and Kira bus. They face particular threats. But the Pacific as a whole has for a long time been trying to tell Australia that they see climate change as their key security threat. Australia for its part has developed a renewed interest in the Pacific in the context of geo strategic competition between China and the US and China's growing presence in the region. And so Australia's become concerned about its own security in that context and is really worried about, you know, things like what we've seen happen in the Solomon Islands where China has established a security partnership. And did that happen because Australia hasn't been doing enough on climate change? You wouldn't say it's a direct cause. You wouldn't say that the Solomon Islands signed this agreement with China because Australia is not doing enough on climate change. But it is clear that, you know, that that it has eroded our standing as a security partner of choice in the region because we're not acting on what they see as their key security threat. And you know, the exact circumstances are unique to the Solomon Islands context and this current Solomon's government that they say they want to have a closer relationship with China in the hope that it would improve development prospects and more infrastructure financing in the Solomon's. And they argue that this security agreement is needed to help to protect Chinese built infrastructure. And don't get me wrong, it's a problematic security agreement. And a number of Pacific island countries have raised concerns about it as well. I've got a comment here from Susie McDougal that you might want to respond to. She says that we've already got some climate refugees here from the Pacific because they've lost too much of their home. Is that right? And can we expect more of that in future? Absolutely we can in future. I mean, this is a real challenge for, you know, when I say it's an existential threat for those low lying atoll states, you know, their leaders need to prepare, need to stay in the face of future in which they may not have a state, you know, they lose obviously coastal erosion, but they lose drinking water, they ultimately face inundation. And so what do you do? Do you prepare to move your population to live abroad? How do you make that happen? Do you lose all rights to statehood? And these are conversations that are happening in Pacific Island countries to varying degrees. And for some, you know, some atolls in places like Kiribati, people, climate change is already a key driver for people to move abroad. And there's a lot of internal displacement, including in places like the Solomon Islands, where some atoll states, you know, community, sorry, some atoll islands, because in the Solomon's there are low lying islands as well. People have been forced to relocate within the country to higher islands. So it is a feature of life already in the Pacific. And what is Australia doing in the Pacific specifically in terms of climate leadership compared to what it needs to be doing? Well, you see, Australia has for decades supported climate adaptation projects in the Pacific, community based resilience building in the Pacific. Australia is the largest development partner for Pacific Island countries, and specifically for the Solomon Islands as well. You know, just last year, Australia funded a new project for a hydro electricity project to help the Solomon Islands to meet their Paris Agreement target, you know, to so the capital, Honiara, will be running on renewable energy from this hydro project. But the Pacific Pacific Island leaders, they look at this and they see Australia is the world's largest coal exporter or vies with Indonesia to be the world's largest coal exporter. Australia is not doing enough to reduce emissions at home. You know, Australia has the weakest target to cut emissions in the developed world. And Pacific countries are saying, look, you know, your assistance to the Pacific while it's welcome and while it's needed doesn't offset the fact that you're not doing enough to tackle what we think of as our key security threat. So Australia is a valued partner, but that's not what the Pacific wants to see. They want to see Australia taking real action to cut emissions and joining them to call on others to cut emissions. You know, the Pacific, they know that China, for example, is the world's largest emitter and they want to see China move away from coal-fired power and they want Australia to join them calling on China to do that, to reduce their emissions. That sort of flows into a question here from Rosalind. She says, science is understood by many, but the practical solutions are not. Could we have some focus on that so we can evaluate each political party's approach? So I might now just ask you about the respective pledges of the major parties going to this election. A lot of respondents to our set the agenda poll wanted to know about emissions reduction. We've got the coalition pledging cuts of up to 28% by 2030 based on 2005 levels, net zero emissions by 2050, although we've heard Matt Canavan and some of the other nationals saying this week that that target doesn't mean anything anymore. We've got Labour pledging 43% emissions reduction in that same timeframe, but we've also had Anthony Albanese saying Labour is prepared to support new fossil fuel projects if they stack up economically. So what's your assessment of these various policy approaches of the major parties? Well, to look at them separately, right, to think about the coalition, I mean, they are saying that they intend to cut emissions by 26% to 28% this decade. And that is the weakest target in the developed world. So that is behind our peers. But we can also look at the coalition's record. They've been in government for much of the last decade, and they've really failed to do anything to tackle emissions. What emissions reduction we have had in Australia has been driven by the actions of state governments by business and by households. So most of the emissions reductions over the last eight years has been in spite of the federal government, not because of the federal government. And, you know, the federal government, this government, when they first came to power under Tony Abbott, the first thing they did was abolish the Climate Commission, and then they abolished the carbon pricing scheme. And their approach to climate policy is a matter of record. They also have failed to protect Australians from all of these impacts that we're now seeing from climate change, you know, narrowly set out so eloquently the devastating consequences that we're facing now and will only, you know, increase, we'll face more often. And this kind of climate denialism from the federal government means that they haven't listened to the climate experts. They haven't listened to the emergency leaders when they've warned about things like major bushfire events, when they've warned about things like, you know, just the floods that we've had this summer. It's a La Nina summer, and the federal cabinet was warned that we had faced the prospect of flooding. And I think that this government hasn't done enough both to reduce emissions or to prepare communities to deal with the impacts of climate change. So that's thinking about what the coalition is offering. The Labor Party has a target of cutting emissions by 43% by the end of this decade. And that still below most of our peers are the developed countries. It's still below what the Internet Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggests a country like ours needs to be setting as a target if we are to achieve the Paris Agreement goals. It's behind what the Business Council of Australia wants. They want to see Australia set a target of cutting emissions by 50% this decade. But the Labor Party has talked about investing $20 billion in the Australian energy grid to transition faster to renewable energy as the main source of our electricity. And that, you know, the coal-fired power for electricity is our single largest source of emissions at the moment in Australia. So that's that's a crucial part of the solutions, you know, for us here. And the Labor Party has also said that they will provide incentives for households to reduce their emissions for things like incentives for buying electric vehicles, subsidies for batteries, for community batteries. So there are some differences in policy between the major parties on offer. But neither quite cut the mustard, it seems. Well, yes. And both major parties have, as you alluded to earlier, a stated commitment to Australia's fossil fuel exports. So the Labor Party, for example, has said that, you know, if new coal mines stack up environmentally, economically, then they will be approved. So there's this real reluctance, I think, by either major party to get ahead of what they see as a market-driven transition, you know, they're not prepared to really show policy leadership in driving Australia towards more ambitious commitments. And obviously, the, you know, the culture wars that have shaped climate policy over the last 10, 15 years. Both major parties, I think, are very wary of that. But I do think that we're entering a new era. You know, the changes in the global, over the last two years, more than 100 countries representing 80% of the global economy have committed to achieving net zero emissions. And that changes the landscape. That changes Australia's economic interests immensely, you know. I'll get to that in a minute. We've got an interesting question here from Lois Wishart, which either of you are welcome to answer. Aside from voting for action to reduce carbon emissions, what can citizens do to help convince governments and fellow citizens that this issue is existential and needs urgent mitigation, are extinction rebellions disruptive activities helpful? Or just putting people offside and how do we counter entrenched vested interests, whether from the media or the business? A lot in there. There is a lot there. Narrowly, do you do you want to have a first stab at a response to that question? Yeah, I can have a first stab. So I would say that absolutely voting is really important. I think that we're really covered nicely. The position of what we see from the major parties, I would say that there's some really interesting options available from the independence. And that might be what we need in terms of setting up a government that will actually have some teeth in terms of tackling the climate change problem and emission reductions in a way that is aligned with what the scientific evidence says that we need. So voting is critically important. But as well as that, I think it is really important that people make their voices heard and by being vocal we know that governments will actually respond to what they're hearing from people. There's also what they see from industry and business as well. But we do need to actually be vocal and there's various different ways of doing that. And so I think it's finding the way that you can actually sort of express what's important to you. We've already seen through the survey that the conversation has done, the climate issue is the top issue for people in this sort of area. And so it's making sure that that comes through. And if it's something that the people want and if it's something where we're really sort of seeing the impacts that this is having on communities and on individuals and the economic costs of that, the personal costs of that, so that we can actually sort of have that discussion of not only what does it cost to make these transitions and reduce emissions, but what do we actually save in terms of the avoided costs of the damage that comes from climate change as well. Thanks, Naralee. Wes, did you want to jump in? You know, an aspect of the question there was about the role of vested interest and that is important. You know, I think for much of the last 30 years since climate change has been, you know, there's been a real international consensus on climate change and global efforts to tackle climate change. Australia has for too long seen its national interest linked with fossil fuel exports and this has been something that's been an approach of both major parties and that calculus no longer holds, I think. You know, increasingly I think we'll see a different set of vested interests that begin to drive Australian approach to climate change as we see the opportunities that are available for Australia as a clean energy exporter in a world that is transitioning towards net zero emissions and as we see our trading partners committing to net zero, they're going to want less of Australian coal and gas and so that vested interest, if you like, that has shaped our climate debate for so long will have less and less of a hold on our conception of what Australia's interests really are on climate change. Yeah, that leads me to a question I did have about the implications for Australia economically and diplomatically if we don't change course. You've talked about the projected fall in demand for our fossil fuel exports. What are the other disadvantages that we're going to run up against if we don't get in the game? Well, one thing to think about that I don't think is talked about enough is the consequences for Australian foreign policy, for Australian strategy. We talked about the implications in the Pacific, but our key allies and friends on the global stage want to see action from Australia. They want to see at COP26 in Glasgow last year, the United States set a new 2030 target, the UK set a new 2030 target, the European Union set a new 2030 target, Japan did, Korea did, New Zealand did, Canada did, Australia did. If we continue to refuse to take action and join that consensus, we'll be isolated on the international stage. We already are, I think. We're seen in a basket alongside Russia and Saudi Arabia as a small group of countries that are a real block on global action on climate change. It's no coincidence that we're going to see an international exporter after Russia and Saudi Arabia. The U.S. is our, for example, is our key security ally and the U.S. are very explicit that they just recently published a new Indo-Pacific strategy and they want to see countries in the region like Australia doing more. It says explicitly they want to see a new target. If we don't, there will be costs for us diplomatically as well as the costs that I think a lot of people have talked about in terms of economic costs. I could draw that out a little if you want but there are the European Union, for example is considering carbon border tariffs on exports from countries that are not doing enough to reduce emissions and that will have significant impacts for Australian exports and for Australian jobs and other countries are looking at joining the European Union in doing so. Just this year, the G7 which is a group of leading advanced democracies, they're contemplating a new carbon club, a group of countries that will set minimum joint standards on climate action and they will impose costs on others who are not meeting those joint standards. That's the way we're going to see the international environment move as the imperative is clear that we need to be cutting emissions globally this decade so the costs diplomatically and in terms of Australia's economics, the costs to us will only grow. Thanks, Wiz. Natalie, I might ask you to respond to this question from Matt Ellison. Should we be seeing obvious planning for development of new communities, say from floods and fires? He's made reference to LISMO, obviously they are considering the need for relocations, sea level rise for low line coastal communities. I suppose in terms of your expertise the question is how much climate change is already locked in and how to what extent do we need to accept that we need to adapt no matter how quickly we reduce emissions from this point. Yeah, so it's a great question and it's certainly a question that's already actually facing people. We see places like LISMO where the flood peaks two metres above the previous record. Again, that's really dramatic sort of breaking of records which put people in danger who hadn't been in danger in the past from these natural disasters that are being fuelled by climate change. So the answer is yes, we absolutely need to be planning for these. We know that we're already seeing the impacts of climate change. Under any future scenario we will hit 1.5 degrees and go past 1.5 degrees in a very optimistic scenario we can then start to, we can recover from that and come back to 1.5 degrees but we are going to hit 1.5 degrees. So that's the absolute minimum that we should be planning for in terms of the future impacts that we need to make sure that our communities are protected from and I think that there's a really important role here for governments to be assisting in that and if they don't then we're going to see it happen anyway in terms of the insurance companies are going to be acting on this and they already are acting on this. They understand what the risks are and how those risks are worsening and so we see economically that it's going to play out through those sorts of avenues and then I think there's also a really important aspect here in terms of what's sort of locked in for the future and for some of these climate change impacts once we can stabilize climate change then those impacts will also stabilize and we start to get to a new situation that we can develop our society around to be safe around this new climate that we settle in but there are some elements of climate change where there are long-term changes locked in and sea level rise is sort of a particularly key example of that where even if we limit warming to 1.5 degrees we can see the oceans continue to rise for centuries to millennia to come so the key difference there is depending on which pathway we are a high emission or a low emission pathway for the future that will determine how quickly sea level rises and ultimately how many metres of sea level rise we're going to face the difference there is how much time we have to adapt to that and a low emission pathway buys us more time and sets us at a lower number of metres, two to three metres over many centuries that we would have to be adapting to in that situation in a high emission scenario it could be two metres in the next one to two centuries so there's definitely work that we have to do to make sure that our communities are safe from those changes that we can predict we also need to be aware that there are changes that could be in the pipeline that we're not completely aware of yet so where there's these tipping points where there can be rapid changes but we do need to have an eye on that and we need to recognise that we are already facing the impacts of climate change and we need to make sure that we're setting people up for a future where they're safe from those impacts. Absolutely, thanks Nerly. We're just about out of time, we've got a lovely talk about the next government and I might just put it to both of you for a quick response just to finish out. What top three changes to current policy can have the most significant and rapid effect on reducing emissions so you could tell the next government elected on May 21 what their top three priorities need to be what would you list? The first thing is that Australia needs to set a much stronger target, this is expected from the international community and we committed to it under the Paris agreement that we would strengthen our 2030 target so we need to do that before COP 27 later this year. I also think the next government needs to talk about climate action as a strategic and economic opportunity for Australia. We can't afford another decade of dragging the chain on global action, we need to get real that climate change is happening and the rest of the world is moving towards a net zero emissions global economy and Australia has, is very well placed to seize the economic opportunities that are present in a net zero emissions global economy so the next government whoever it is needs to be promoting Australia as a clean energy supplier to the region, you know countries in our region we are the sunniest, windiest inhabited continent on earth we have a global advantage in the production of renewable energy and clean energy commodities things like hydrogen green metals and we really need to be the next government whoever it is needs to be promoting Australia as a renewable superpower and so the third thing is that you know the next government will need to do more to help Australian communities prepare for the impacts of climate change so you know we I think we need to have a national risk assessment that really helps to identify what are the key risks and government needs to take seriously the federal government needs to take seriously its responsibility for helping communities to prepare for what we know is coming in terms of these increasing impacts for Australian communities. Thanks Wes, what about you Narely? Yeah so yeah great answers Wes, so I would say yeah firstly we need to see Australia setting targets that are based on science in terms of the carbon budget that's remaining and Australia's fair share of carbon budget that is remaining what we should be demanding of our political parties in setting those policies if we want to limit warming to two degrees we need to be talking about 50% reduction in emissions by 2030 and net zero by 2045 if we want to limit warming to 1.5 where it would be even safer to try and try and stop this train then we're talking about a 74% reduction by 2030 and net zero by 2035 so they're the targets that are actually based in scientific evidence so that's what we need to see those are very rapid transitions so we need to be employing as quickly as possible the technologies that already exist to make that transition the majority of our emissions are from the burning of fossil fuels and most of that is through energy generation so we need to be basically electrifying everything and supporting that electrification using renewable energy and then that will bias the time and save us the remaining bit of the budget to be able to make the more difficult transitions that are coming up and to make those transitions we actually don't have the technology at hand yet to be able to deploy it at the scale that we need so we also need to see an investment in the science that's going to actually develop the basis for being able to come up with those solutions that we don't yet have to finish the job of stabilizing our climate thank you it sounds like very good advice to me so that's all we've got time for today unfortunately I'm sorry to all our viewers whose questions we didn't get to but we will be trying to respond to reader questions throughout the campaign so keep your eye on the election coverage as we report the findings from the set the agenda poll and bring you all the information about the issues that matter to you most and thank you so much Wes and Narely for today and for everything you do to try and inject some really valuable information into the public debate and if you want to see more of Wes and Narely or hear more from them you can check out their recent articles in the conversation I understand the link will be added to the chat right now on that so thanks everyone for joining us and goodbye thank you thanks so much