ON THE GROUND – practising what comes next

The world is changing around us and certainly here in Europe where I am at the moment I can tell you everyone's talking about again now the right-wing politics moving in.

We're seeing it in the UK and in France and now with the landslide election in Germany where a party similar to One Nation has won a major election victory this week.

And of course, inside the climate movement and among all the environment groups here in Europe, people are talking now about how do they respond? Because this is certainly not looking good for the energy transition, the action on climate.

These right-wing parties are exactly like Pauline Hansen, very much against renewable energy and against any type of climate policies.

So, What are we going to do about it? That's a question which we'll be talking about today in the Sustainable Hour.

But first of all, we need to hear what else has been happening around the world.

And for that, we are privileged to have Colin Mockett, OAM, at the News Desk.

Colin, you have the global outlook for us, so let's hear what you have taken notice of this week.

Thank you, Mick.

And my roundup this week begins in the UN headquarters in New York, where a new UN Environment Programme report admitted that the world has lost any chance of holding global warming to 1.5 degrees, as was agreed in the Paris Treaty.

Now, the UN realist scientists are predicting temperatures will reach 2.6 degrees by the end of the century, if all governments continue with their current policies.

That temperature rise would have catastrophic consequences for the world, significantly increasing risks including the collapse of the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets and the destruction of the Amazon rainforests, the report said.

A further danger would be changes to the Atlantic meridian overturning circulation, the vast ocean current that helps regulate the world's climate by redistributing heat around the globe.

Now in the light of this, Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and our Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen who were in Palu attending the Pacific Islands Forum, faced down Vanuatu's climate change minister, Ralph Reganvanu, who called on Australia specifically to stop expanding its fossil fuel extraction and exporting.

Australia is not doing enough, he said.

Australia is a major producer of fossil fuels.

We all know fossil fuels are the primary driver of the climate crisis, as I said.

So the very least a country like Australia should be doing is stopping future expansion.

And it's not doing that.

When asked about this criticism, Anthony Albanese said Australia's Pacific neighbours had not raised objections during their forum talks.

Australia is highly regarded when it comes to climate change and the talking down of Australia does not happen from outside Australia, he said, in answer to the talking down of Australia by the climate minister.

The Pacific leaders have respect for the position that we're taking and they also understand with the transition because they're dealing with it as well.

That the transition can't happen overnight.

That it requires strategies and policies to be put in place.

And one of these things that renewables require is firming capacity and gas has a role to play in firming capacity.