Climate

Louise Morris

Coming back from Santa Marta, where nations were planning a fossil fuel phase-out, to the Australia of new gas permits and Japan’s gas-fired diplomatic arm-twisting, is like stepping backward through the looking glass.

Louise Morris

Here is a truth that those in power have never quite figured out how to deal with: change doesn't start at the top. It starts at the fringes. It starts with people who have the least and stand to lose the most. And eventually, it ends up in the halls of power.

Louise Morris

Delegates from more than 50 countries arrived in Santa Marta already primed by disruption: higher prices, tighter supply chains and renewed volatility. Many arrived with scaled-back delegations, as the same fossil fuel-driven conflicts dominating the agenda constrained travel, strained government bandwidth, and diverted political attention at home. The result has been a notable hardening of tone and urgency. Fossil fuels are being recast not just as the cause of climate change, but as a systemic risk to economic and political stability.

Will Tracey

This week, the Prime Minister announced $1.1bn in funding for the Kwinana Westport container terminal proposal. But while this project has long been argued by Western Australian governments as necessary, it relies on assumptions that have not materialised and would result in billions of dollars committed to an unecessary project rather than to the urgent and visible crises in housing, healthcare, and education infrastructure.

Louise Morris

At the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in Santa Marta, co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands, conversations are circling back to first principles — what the science says, and what it would mean to act accordingly.

Louise Morris

The Australia Institute is attending the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, in Santa Marta this week, with a clear brief: cut through the complexity of emissions accounting and politics, and ask a simpler question - how does Australia, and the world, transition away from fossil fuels?