Edmund Rice Justice Bulletin

The world's top scientists have given their clearest warning yet of the severe and irreversible impacts of climate change.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has recently released its synthesis report, a summary of its last three reports. The report warns that greenhouse gas levels are at their highest they have been in 800,000 years, with recent increases mostly due to the burning of fossil fuels.

The synthesis report – the culmination of six years work, with the input of more 2,000 scientists - is described as the most important yet made and says the world needs to act quickly to reduce greenhouse gas emissions dramatically; it needs to decarbonise its energy systems; it needs to stop burning coal, and it needs to shift investment from fossil fuels to clean energy.

All four recommendations are diametrically opposes to the current policy positions of the Australian government, which has dumped the carbon price and ignored calls to scale up its reduction targets; which is trying to so slow down or even stop the deployment of renewable energy; which insists that coal is the primary energy source of the future; and which labels calls for divestment of fossil fuels as “stupid”.