My guess is bumbling. I think there could be some conscience prickers like Sydney water rationing or bad coral bleaching. FWIW I think that Peak Oil in the 2020s could be more dire than climate dramas. I also think we can throw billions at renewable energy and still need fossil fuels. Think millions of electric cars needing an overnight charge in a foggy week.

IMO we need to replace the current coal capacity with equivalent nuclear, maybe 15 GW. If Albo becomes opposition leader it won't happen on his watch but Morrison will fudge the figures long before he approves nuclear. If this is right the 2020s will be a time of great anxiety...weather woes, unaffordable fuel or electric alternatives and dogma committed politicians. Coming soon.

Only Bob Hawke, with rare courage of conviction, was smart enough to know our future hs to be a nuclear one and we now know we have to do it in the next decade or else follow the Dodo!

Bob Hawke was he said, in favour of a nuclear waste dump right here in Australia for sound fiscal reasons and one of a handful of politicians guided by Common sense and pragmatism. And one of even a smaller handful who actually gave a rats for his fellow Australians and the greater world!

Heres the thing, we could if we but had leaders like Bob from either side of the aisle, develop MSR thorium and use this safest, walk away safe, CARBON-FREE, clean, cheap nuclear technology to burn the world's nuclear waste! And with technology so safe, I'd welcome one in my backyard.

Gamma radiation, scream braindead Green activists. Not understanding that nobody, but nobody, has ever, ever proposed running an unshielded reactor!

FUKUSHIMA AND CHERNOBYL scream their ecofascist club members, unable to comprehend that MSR stands for, molten salt reactor and something designed to very safely operate with a molten median which cannot melt down, given it is already molten!

And designed with passive safety features that automatically shut the whole process very safely down in the event of a power failure.

And use also as waste burners are able to power the world for over a thousand years and beyond while producing power for less than a cent PKWH!

Simply put, this technology and our adoption of it would allow us to more than halve our emissions and quite massively turbocharge our economy and become the world's powerhouse high tech manufacturing centre as the first consequence!

But as good as it could be, not available because those in charge have as always put self-interest and vested interest ahead of the national interest? Which would also come with increased coal mining and metals smelting Industrial expansion on a hitherto unimagined scale.

With the lowest carbon footprint in the developed world!
I kid you not!
Alan B.

Scenario Four.

For an increasingly disenfranchised portion of Australian society, climate change innovation is proving unbearably costly and imposing.

The answer lies in a housing bubble collapse, which according to many experts on that subject, is just around the corner.
This is where the genuine interest of middle class Australians is fixated.

Climate change and real estate values are tethered . One crashes, the other burns.

Dan

You totally missed the right solution Peter. You also seem to have missed the global warming election just past. Over half the population rejected the global warming scare to elect the more sane party to government.

First we should get rid of all bumbling sustainable development lecturers at Murdoch University & others, who have so little science & math that they are easily conned into believing bulldust.

Then we should silence all the silly little girl teachers, conned by those sustainable development lecturers, who are now brainwashing our kids in primary schools around the country in the false belief in CO2 caused global warming.

Then we should get ready for the cold times that are coming due to the low sun activity, exhibited by the low sunspot counts.

Yes Alan, of course we should go nuclear, although there is no sound scientific reason to reduce our usage of coal. I have not looked closely enough yet at various nuclear options to have any firm idea of which way, but the small plants used in US subs & carriers have a pretty good record to date.

I can't agree with you about Bob Hawk's courage. Yes he was a strong advocate for nuclear, until a Labor conference cane down on it in a big way. Wanting to become leader & ultimately PM he then totally shut up. His desire to become PM trumped his desire to do the best for the country. Still I guess there are very few without some such weaknesses, certainly none in our recently elected parliament.

With runaway warming and no meaningful response, the world spirals into chaos.

If Europe & the Middle east are anything to go by, I think people will annihilate each other before the Climate does !

How many times do I have to point out that climate change is a symptom of the problem, not the problem. The problem is that the world population has risen to an unsustainable level. We cannot cope with the current population of 7.8 billion, and if it rises to 12 billion, as current estimates forecast, we will be in desperate trouble.

To reduce our emissions we need to:

1. Halt immigration. Every extra resident increases our emissions.
2. Even more, halt migration from the third world. Every person who moves from the third world to the first will increase their emissions , so stopping this movement is very important.

3. Do nothing to increase the standard of living in the third world. Any increase only raises emissions.

4. Put pressure on third world countries to increase education of young girls. This is the best way to reduce birth rates. This can be done by denying them aid, trade, and other assitance until they implement suitable programs.

5. The best way would be to introduce a world-wide one child policy. If the Chinese could do it, so could everyone else.

If we do not take such action we are urinating into the breeze as far as reducing climate change is concerned.