Ideas and Society - Climate Change: Where are we now?

In January 2025 two events took place in the United States with greatest significance for the future of the Earth's inhabitants.

First was the warning to humankind issued by the ferocious winter fires that devastated parts of Los Angeles, one of the world's great contemporary cities.

Second was the return of Donald Trump—a one hundred per cent climate change denier--as President of the United States. Trump has more than once offered greatest encouragement to America's fossil fuel corporations to "drill, baby, drill".

How significant, both directly and indirectly, is the election of Donald Trump for the prospect of future of global-wide climate change action?

What can we learn from the Los Angeles fires? Are Australian cities facing similar risks?

Given that climate scientists have shown that climate change increases the likelihood of both major fires and also floods, what can Australian governments—federal, state and territory—do to minimise the threat of fires and floods in the future?

How far have the nations we moved towards the goal of arriving at zero carbon emissions by 2050? Is that goal achievable?

In the past two years, according to James Hansen, one of the world's most authoritative climate scientists, global temperature has already moved beyond the 1.5 degree goal set by the international world at Paris in 2015. Is a temperature rise well beyond 1.5 degrees unavoidable?

According to the Convenor of the Ideas and Society Program, Professor Robert Manne: "We have assembled a stellar panel to consider the significance of the Los Angeles fires and the return of Donald Trump for what is arguably the most daunting problem humankind has ever faced: human-caused climate change."

Join host Professor Lauren Rickards from La Trobe University, with Professor Tim Flannery, Greg Mullins AO from the Climate Council, and Professor Robyn Eckersley from the University of Melbourne for this discussion which is not to be missed.

Introduction: Professor Theo Farrell

Vice-Chancellor, La Trobe University

Host: Professor Lauren Rickards

Professor of Climate Change Adaptation, La Trobe University

Speaker: Professor Tim Flannery

Environmentalist, paleontologist

Speaker: Greg Mullins AO AFSM

Former Commissioner of Fire & Rescue New South Wales, Climate Council Councillor

Speaker: Professor Robyn Eckersley

Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor in the Discipline of Political Science, School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne