Critical decade 2017: Accelerating climate action

This report shows Australia is highly vulnerable to many consequences of a changing climate, from worsening heatwaves, droughts and bushfires, to devastating coral reef bleaching, while most of the nation’s population centres are also highly exposed to sea level rise.

By 2020, the end of the Critical Decade, the report proposes that Australia’s leaders implement the following five recommendations:

• Build a unified, bipartisan, consensus approach to climate change that takes the issue out of the current divisive, ‘political football’ landscape.
• Create a well-defined pathway towards a net-zero emissions Australia by the mid-2040s at the latest.
• Revitalise the Climate Change Authority, strengthen its climate science capacity, and build policy actions on science-based targets and pathways. 
• Support and accelerate the many effective actions on climate change that are already being undertaken by states, territories and local governments. 
• Transform Australia’s position on the global stage from a laggard to a leader on climate change.