Time for a ‘Situation Room’ briefing on climate change?

It’s great to talk net zero transitions but only if we know what we’re running from. Business leaders need to up their knowledge on this unfolding crisis to stop spruiking pathways that de-risk the present but dead-end our future.

Perhaps it was the bushfires, or the UN’s persistent “our planet is becoming uninhabitable!” admonitions? Maybe it was the change of government bringing real policies on emission reductions? Whatever it was, Australian business circles now seem obsessed with climate change, and discussing net zero transition pathways.

Yet in the daily feed of business news and opinions, climate change is rarely framed as a crisis. Our prevailing ignorance of the gravity of the problem still affords precious column space to voices backing a steady-she-goes response to the climate change ‘challenge’.

There’s even a sense of relief in some business circles that credentialed minds are finally holding the reins on the climate debate, suggesting more sensible transition pathways than those ideas proffered by the tree-hugging crazies and the political extreme left.

Likewise, business conferences are now crowded with so-called ‘balanced’ voices clamouring to own and control the climate discourse. Discreet acknowledgements of the contributions of environmental zealots past, present, and emerging sweeten the ‘thanks guys, go away, we’ll take it from here’ messaging.

But are these high-profile business voices as sensible as they are dulcet on this topic, and do they actually bring a mature perspective on climate change and net zero transition pathways?

What’s a mature perspective on a net zero economic transition?

A fundamental truth about climate change is that it’s bad news. Even though there will be winners in the global transition towards a zero carbon economy, the simple fact that we’ve left things so late means the transition will have to be uncomfortably fast to avoid runaway climatic extremes. On top of transition risks, our past indifference has already locked in significant physical impacts that will act as a tightening handbrake over domestic and global GDP in years and decades to come.

Mature perspectives on a net zero transition balance expertise on short-term economic vulnerabilities against deep awareness of our climate crisis predicament as laid bare in the IPCC’s AR6 Synthesis Report, and the latest UN Emissions Gap report. Climate change is not just another challenge but a “threat multiplier” fast undermining the foundation of our societies and already-fragile economies. And there’s no easy escape from the situation; a Paris Agreement-aligned transition away from fossil fuels will be devilishly complex and there are monsters hiding behind every exit door.

Global energy giant Shell recently had a go at depicting this existential conundrum in its updated climate change scenario analysis. Shell’s analysis includes a “Sky 2050” scenario which sees ‘rapid’ decarbonisation towards a 2050 net zero outcome.

The scenario was roundly criticised by green groups for presenting a dystopic vision of a net zero emissions future. Shell was accused of seeding a message that net zero 2050 is too scary to attempt so we should just give up on the Paris Agreement objectives instead.

Regardless of whether the accusations stick, it’s actually refreshing to read a dystopic net zero 2050 climate scenario that acknowledges just what an atrocious predicament we now find ourselves in.

Shell’s scenario asks the question: “Can a world desperate for immediate security also meet the long-term challenges of climate change?”, and depicts a pathway to net zero 2050 littered with punitive outcomes and economic austerity.

It’s not hard to see how a Paris-aligned net zero transition could turn dystopic in an Australian context. Just as swathes of Australians are going backwards on their mortgages in a teetering economy, we’re being told by the best international agencies that there’s an economic imperative to saddle our economy with aggressive and high-risk short-term interventions to avoid climate change oblivion in the decades to come. What an unenviable predicament.

The Situation Room

When John F. Kennedy set up the White House “Situation Room” in 1961, he recognised that real-time information was key to strategic success, following the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion.

With climate change now morphing into an existential crisis, the timing is now right for business elites to file through the Situation Room to inform themselves on this unfolding emergency.

The unclassified briefing comes in the form of a punchy 10-minute read of the UN’s Emissions Gap Report “Key Messages” summary. The document gives a freezer-dried overview of our dire predicament, and how to avoid catastrophe through system-wide transformations across electricity supply, industrial, transport, and buildings sectors, and the food and financial systems.

Fundamentally, this briefing will help our best business minds understand that this transition isn’t just about direction, it’s also about speed. This awareness will help us recognise that opinions promoting steady-she-goes net zero pathways are economically irresponsible. Either compromised by vested interest, or lacking insights into the expected colossal socio-economic impacts of climate change, they do the economy and society a disservice by obsessing over the short-term risk environment.

It’s a strange world when a seemingly reckless Paris Agreement-aligned transition turns out to be the only responsible pathway forward. But it is of course, because the Situation Room briefing, folks, is that we’ve set the house on fire and left the kids inside.

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