Agree!

Marten. Re 1. Unfortunately our politicians and coal industry leaders have yet to agree that a transition out of coal is actually going to happen, notwithstanding the evidence all around them! This is masked to some extent by continuing demand in Asia for our coal and LNG. It is the rest of the community which is pointing out the importance of providing for a planned transition, retraining of the workforce etc. Fortunately there is great potential for the development of low-carbon industries in coal producing areas. Further, coal industry employees are highly skilled and should be readily re-trained in these industries, provided leaders accept the need for the change and get behind it. This leads into your second question. The failure of leadership to accept the reality of a transition to the low carbon world is very much due to blinkered right wing ideology politically which finds it hard to accept that the economic model which has provided much of Australia's wealth over the last 50 years is no longer sustainable. This is also linked in to neoliberal power structures globally who are determined to maintain the fossil fuel "status quo", but that is a longer story than I can cover here. Change will not come from politicians. It will come from more progressive corporates, investors and the community bypassing conventional politics as drought, water shortages and other extreme events escalate.

Yes, I do have hope because of the fact colleges like Harvard University and Stanford are seeing larger mobilizations of young people to pressure them to divest and public opinion is rapidly changing and it is becoming disgraceful to support the fossil fuel industry.

Samuel. The fossil fuel industry in the 70s and 80s in my view was far more progressive in responding to major issues such as climate change. A major change was the introduction of bonus-based pay in the 90s, which has totally changed the ethics of business. As a result, it has become far more short-term focused, with ludicrously large, unjustifiable, rewards bestowed on senior executives. Anything of a longer term nature has received little attention or priority - that is until it becomes a short-term problem which affects those bonuses. That is happening now with climate change!

Johannes, Neil is not available for the live chat right after the show, but I'll make sure to send your question his way, and he can give a reply later!

Well some already are..like the UK I suppose it is about the collective EU target. But for sure some members as national governments are already going further and faster

I would agree that the protests and marches alone are not enough for the kinds of major changes that are needed, but it’s a extremely important development. We need to intergrate climate change action and solutions into the social fabric of our lives and society— in our conversations, our elections, our built environment, our culture. This is hard to do but can start with people stepping up to take leadership roles in their communities, schools, workplaces, by starting new organizations, creating new ideas, running for public office, etc.

Governments (and the conservative elements of governments) do respond better when climate change is framed as a national security threat. That is the work of The Center for Climate and Security for which I host The Climate and Security Podcast. Sherri Goodman, featured in "Breakthrough" is one of many I've interviewed asking the same question. I've learned that the military and government is fixated on addressing priorities as they are ranked by top officials. Until climate change makes it to a top priority as a national security threat, it will pale to the resources and attention spent on other priorities like north Korea or Iran. There have been clever ways around this, but this has been the biggest challenge to date. More can be found here: https://climateandsecurity.org/podcast/

George, interesting thought but we need masses of people who come together to do this. It's difficult to do on your own. If we do it together we can challenge the system!

Fossil fuel subsidies are def in the realm of governments. They can be subsidies for exploration or for consumers when they buy fuels at the pump--the governments either cancel them, or pump up the subsidies for renewable energy to the same level to level the playing field..EU let me have a look!!

I think this is a very interesting question as well! Since the ordinary climate movement essentially have failed to achieve success for more than 30 years, I think it's time to take desperate measures. However, it's extremely important to use non-violent, civil disobedience. It has worked in the past, polarizing societies to start with, but eventually leading to solutions. Let's hope we're just seeing the beginning of XR and what they can accomplish - peacefully.

It is clear to me at least that the average citizen has no idea what is really happening--anti slavery, suffragettes , human rights, apartheid they have all used civil disobedience and in respect to women's rights in the UK even used violence (not recommending violence!) but XR is a middle class movement and thus is interesting and it is using art as ell as culture to advance is message

Hi! Thanks for the question. I think we need to both broaden our strategy as well as deepen engagement amongst the most concerned. I think XR is one strategy for deepening commitment and engagement. While there is the possibility for backlash, I think it’s more important to take risks and try out different engagement approaches, as opposed to keeping with the same types of traditional campaigning that has happened for the past 20 years. There are many great examples of new orgs and types of organizing including FFF, Sunrise Movement (US), climate emergency, and XR. I also think much more work is needed for cultural, educational and social engagement, which will help further shift public opinion and reach new people.

Because we as a species are naturalborn optimists, like to see the future hold great things for us and the human brain in poorly equipped to del and cope with chaos, long-termism. As Queen sung" I want it all, and I want ut now". The media dont wtite or talk about it causes its run by people. And cose to none has considered food shortage to be a problem for (the whealthies) them. It's not how we like to picture ourselves. As failures. Quite the opposite. We like to see humanity as in eternal progress! It clashes with our worldview. We think we are above food shortages and starvation. And we are. Today that is. Give it a few decades and the situation will be something quite different if you ask me. In mid-century if we don't make a transformational change by tomorrow/asap - my bet is we'll experience mass-starvation and social unrest in practically all parts of the world.

Great question David!

Gregor. The Breakthrough group I work with have been doing work on this recently. It concerns us that there is much focus on scenarios for a 2, 3 or 4 degC temperature increase by 2100, in analysis by organisations such the International Energy Agency and the Financial Stability Board’s Task Force of Climate-Related Risk Disclosure (TCFD). However this tends to be too theoretical, the implicit assumption being that if we fail to stay below 2degC, we can adapt to 3 or 4degC. Nothing could be further from the truth. 3degC means social chaos and 4degC means global collapse, according to experts on climate impact. Our work has tried to identify the hard-nosed practical impact of climate change in the near term, specifically looking at a 3degC temperature increase by 2050, which in our view is now a realistic possibility. The types of impact might be: • Ecosystem collapse • Coral reefs • Amazon rainforest • Arctic • Deadly heat > 100 days p.a.& extreme flooding in many regions • Rising sea levels > 0.5 m • Many nations & regions become uninhabitable • 1 billion people displaced • Significant drop in crop yields and food production • Lower reaches of Mekong, Ganges & Nile rivers inundated • Significant sectors of major cities abandoned – Chennai, Mumbai, Jakarta, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Manila, Bangkok, Lagos. • “Hothouse Earth” triggered (We have focused particularly on our Asian region, but similar impacts will be likely elsewhere) You can find more detail in our recent reports: • Existential Climate-Related Security Risk: a scenario approach • The Third Degree: Evidence and implications for Australia of existential climate-related security risk. -at: https://www.breakthroughonline.org.au/papers This is a slightly longer time frame than the 5 years your question raised, but these are the types of outcomes we are moving toward at an accelerating rate. The science, for various reasons, has underestimated the speed of climate change impact, as outlined in our report “What Lies Beneath: the understatement of existential climate risk”, also available at the above link. We can see some of these changes occurring at the 1degC temperature increase already experience, so expect a lot more in the next 5 years. Hence the need for emergency action to reduce emissions, not just declarations!

Could Mexico and USA be an example? Perhaps even Turkey and Syria?

Absolutely. The Sahel region of Africa going dry is resulting in forced migrations of people into countries like Libya and then from there on to Europe. The Syrian War can also be traced back to water scarcity issues, and consider how it's become a proxy war involving so many more nation-states. You can hear more about this on my interview with climate change and strife expert: Marcus King (Episode 10) here: https://climateandsecurity.org/podcast/ Check them all out!

I actually just spoke on population growth last night on CGTN America: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b26S6ywmcU0 and the implications for China since it is still currently the country with the largest population in the world (1.4 billion). Because historical policies around population control have not been humane (e.g., forced sterilizations) there is incredible sensitivity around even having a fact-based discussion on over-population and its implications for resource sustainability (or lack there of). Quite frankly, humanely reducing world population would solve many issues related to the planet warming-specifically the continued increase in energy emissions despite best intentions and efforts, but given the pushback on discussing over-population, we really need to address the reality of energy consumption on an increasingly populated planet.

See David's pinned comment above - you can still ask them and get their answers!

Thanks for your question Mårten. At Scania we are currently looking broadly on electrification. Battery powered, Fuel Cell technology as well as electrical roads. All these Technologies have pros and cons but and they will probably all be a part of the future of Heavy Duty Transport. Sustainable produced biofuels can already today reduce fossil CO2 WTW with 60, 80 or even 90 procent, and we are investing in all comercially available alternatives.

The NXT is a concept and vision of a not too distant future. We do not have any plans to put it into serial production at this point. https://www.scania.com/group/en/taking-urban-transport-to-the-nxt-level-a-new-concept-from-scania-2/

Doug, thanks for your question, do you have anyone in mind who you want to answer it, or should I take care of that?

Doug, I've sent asked Ian for a comment, he'll need an extra day to rely, but I think this one suited him well given his background in the fossil fuel industry.

Doug - interesting question! Even though prices are rising, we need to increase the pace to make sure it's cheaper and easier to make investments in renewables. One big problem here is the giant subsidies going to the fossil fuel industry, just to keep our societies running. Perhaps, removing subsidies could start to level the playing field and offer fair competition?

Doug. All the soaring public policy rhetoric from fossil fuel companies on their commitment to the Paris Agreement, the need for a “social Licence to operate”, etc has delivered precisely nothing over the last three decades. Carbon emissions continue to increase at worst case levels when they should be decreasing rapidly to have any chance of staying below 2degC, let alone 1.5degC which may well be with us by 2030 irrespective of any action taken henceforth. Re activism, probably the most important immediately is pressure from key investor groups and insurers to force those companies to change strategic direction by moving out of fossil fuels. Divestment pressure has been valuable in starting the process of management by “withdrawing the cheque book” , but it is no longer good enough. Emergency action is now required, and that must include sterilisation of fossil fuel reserves in the ground. See: https://www.responsible-investor.com/home/article/from_divestment_to_sterilisation_reframing_climate_change_as_an_existential/ Likewise, compliance with the TCFD Recommendations was a good initial step, but far more proactive responses are now required, as the Bank of England is suggesting: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/oct/08/corporations-told-to-draw-up-climate-rules-or-have-them-imposed Regulators generally are now taking a far stronger stance on climate risk as they realise the implications for financial stability. This must be encouraged, particularly as many have mandates which are independent of politics – ie central banks. But you are right, regulatory constraints stopping the use of fossil fuels must now come in, and for that to happen, continuing public pressure from groups such as WDHT, is essential and must be ramped up, forcing politicians to act. Those regulations must also include provision of termination costs, as you suggest. We are far from that at present, hence the need for emergency action.

Yeah that was a great start to set the tone for the rest of the show!

In spite of its inclusion of an $80/tCO2 proxy carbon price, ExxonMobil continues to invest scores of billions of dollars to expand and extend LNG and crude oil operations, even as profits suffer 50% downturn from commodity price collapse. What activism do you envision will tip the petroleum industry into a shrinking reality and how will they pay their own “final expenses” to ensure a just transition whereby the financial fallout from their demise does not fall on our shoulders? Nobody is publicaly addressing the prospect of oil & gas continuing to operate and export unfettered because the proposed carbon prices schemes are too low—by a factor of 100 initially and 10 after a decade of increases—to have any impact. I believe there should be a cap on production and the industry should fund its own "final expenses" but my efforts (archived at TellRex.com) have not had any impact so far, except with my Senator who is a leading candidate for President.