Despite these impacts intensifying and compounding, existing approaches fail to provide a clear, comprehensive, and credible picture of the scale and severity of the threat.

At the same time, warming is accelerating towards 3 degrees and emissions projections show little decline to 2050, while national responses remain anchored to assumptions that increasingly underestimate risk. Incremental policy adjustments, long-dated targets, and fragmented assessments risk normalising a level of danger that is neither stable nor manageable. The result is a widening gap between climate reality and Australia’s readiness to protect people, communities, and the country.

Against this backdrop, there is growing interest in whether Australia requires a new national focal point for understanding and responding to the climate emergency, one capable of bringing together the best available evidence, grappling honestly with high-end risks, and supporting informed national decision-making through a clear, authoritative national briefing.

Key questions now coming into focus include: What value would a renewed climate emergency reset provide? How would it differ from existing efforts, assessments, or summits? What would be required for it to be genuinely useful to decision-makers, institutions, and the wider public?

To support this exploration, the National Climate Emergency Summit is initiating a focused strategic engagement to help lay the groundwork for future national climate emergency action. An initial exploratory framework has been developed as a starting point for discussion and refinement.

We invite your input on the key themes, priorities, and outcomes that should shape this work. Please share your thoughts.

1. Reality Check
   Confront observed climate conditions and the current emissions trajectory.

2. Risk Reassessment
   Re-evaluate tipping points, cascading impacts, and the potential for abrupt change.

3. Reframing Impact
   Re-examine Australian consequences, including high-end possibilities—not just probabilities.

4. National Outlook
   Set out what a climate-disrupted Australia could plausibly face.

5. Response Recalibration
   Identify viable solution pathways at emergency scale.

6. National Reset
   Mobilise leadership and set a clear strategic direction.