Global heating is an existential threat

It is an exercise in tragic self-delusion of the type spoofed in the dark comedy Don't Look Up, where politicians refused to destroy an asteroid heading for Earth because of the mineral wealth it might contain.

Our species' willingness to prioritise short-term gains over long-term survival threatens to be the death of us all, or at least the end of civilisation as we know it.

How many canaries have to fall off their perches in the coal mine before governments acknowledge it is far later than we think?

What will it take to convince people that failing to take tough action on fossil fuel use and emissions reductions because of the short-term expense and inconvenience is actually the high-cost option?

Yes, the cost of phasing out fossil fuels at an accelerated rate will be measured in hundreds of billions of dollars.

But the cost of not doing so will almost certainly be measured in hundreds of millions, and possibly billions, of lives over the next 100 years.

What will our children, our children's children, and their children think of a generation that was fast-tracking new offshore gas projects at the same time the World Meteorological Organisation was reporting 2023 was the hottest year on record and that 2024 was shaping up to be even worse?

The WMO's State Of The Global Climate 2023 Report found that the global average near-surface temperature was 1.45 degrees above the pre-industrial baseline.

We've also just experienced the warmest 10-year-period on record.

Our descendants will dismiss us as self-centred lemmings following each other over a cliff and into the raging sea.

And who could blame them?

"The scientific knowledge about climate change has existed for more than five decades and we have missed an entire generation of opportunity," WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said on Tuesday.

Urging governments to base their climate change responses on "the welfare of future generations ... not the short-term economic interests," Dr Saulo said.

"I am now sounding the red alert about the state of the global climate".

It doesn't get much more serious than that.

In light of this, the Coalition's most recent thought bubble, to keep on burning gas and coal until an as-yet-undeveloped nuclear generation technology comes online decades from now, is risible.

But so too is the inaction of dozens of nations, which are happy to go to conferences such as COP28 in Dubai and this year's COP29 in Baku pledging ambitious emissions reductions target to enormous acclaim and then repeatedly failing to deliver on them.

At least Australia has rolled out renewables - especially roof-top solar - on a massive scale since the turn of the century.

Although much more needs to be done, when households are given the opportunity to directly invest in renewables while, at the same time, reducing their energy bills, they seize it with both hands.

That said, when you consider nearly one third of the world's oceans were hit by a marine heatwave, glaciers suffered their biggest ice loss since records began in 1950 and that Antarctic sea-ice formation was at an absolute record low in 2023, neither solar panels nor good intentions will do the job.

Serious consideration needs to be given to revoking the pass so-called developing nations such as India and China have received to continue building coal-powered generators on a large scale.

That is an indulgence the world just can't afford anymore.